The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

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A Street in Brig, looking towards the Simplon Pass Thomas Matthews Rooke

  • Curator’s description:

    Description

    The drawing shows a view down a narrow street in Brig, towards a gateway where women have gathered beside a barrow and a pile of wood. The onion dome which rises above a pitched roof behind the foreground buildings may be one of the towers of the seventeenth-century Stockalperschloss and, if Cook and Wedderburn's identification of the scene is correct, the mountains in the background are close to the Simplon Pass, to the south-east of Brig. (The tower in this drawing's companion-piece, Reference Series no. 167.a, is definitely part of the Stockalperschloss.) The view is perhaps taken from what is now the junction of the Sennereigasse and Schlossstrasse.

    The drawing is dated to August 1884 by Cook and Wedderburn, and this would fit with Rooke's known movements: Ruskin sent him from Ravenna to Brig in July 1884, and he was in Sallanches by 3 October. The two drawings which were in this frame may be those listed in Ruskin's Master's Report for the Guild of Saint George for 1884 as 'Two Streets in Brieg [sic], Valais', valued by Ruskin at £20 for the pair, and temporarily placed at Oxford (Master's Report, § 10 = XXX.80). Equally, though, the listed drawings may be two of the three studies made by Rooke in Brig in during the same trip and still in the collection of the Guild of Saint George (R.489, R.500 & R.550; see Morley, Appendix, 191-4). As noted by Cook and Wedderburn, there were no entries for nos 155-175 in the Standard Series in Ruskin's cataogues; this drawing was first recorded in the series in 1906.

    Ruskin visited Brig many times. He noted, of another drawing by Rooke showing "The Lower Portion of an old House at Brieg", that 'This serves to illustrate the type of building which forms the home of the inhabitants in the old streets of the towns in Switzerland as distinguished from the picturesque châlets built for their residence among the mountains.... Here the domestic architecture, if it can be dignified by the term, is of the plainest construction of plastered walls, contrasting strikingly with the beauty of the balconied wooden structures that grace the mountain slopes.' (White, p. 442, in Library Edition, XXX.225.) Discussing two more Rookes, he noted that the dome of the Stockalperschloss was covered with sheets of tin, tarnished to yellow, and that this technique was 'characteristic of the local industry' (White, pp. 500 & 442, in Library Edition XXX.224).

  • Details

    Artist/maker
    Thomas Matthews Rooke (1842 - 1942)
    Object type
    drawing
    Material and technique
    watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on paper
    Dimensions
    497 x 193 mm
    Associated place
    Provenance

    Commissioned by John Ruskin in 1884 and presumably later presented to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford)

    No. of items
    1
    Accession no.
    WA.RS.REF.167.b
  • Subject terms allocated by curators:

    Subjects

  • References in which this object is cited include:

    References

    Ruskin, John, ‘The Ruskin Art Collection at Oxford: Catalogues, Notes and Instructions’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 21, cat. Reference no. 167

    Ruskin, John, ‘The Guild of St. George: Master's Report, 1884’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 30

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

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