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

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

Ruskin's Catalogue of Examples (1870)

Ruskin's first catalogue with notes containing his plans for the Standard, Reference and Educational series.

Examples cover

I. Standard Series (Painting) / 2nd Section

  • unidentified - Engraving of a Relief of Ramesses II receiving Suppliants from the Depiction of the Battle of Qadesh in the Great Hall of the Temple at Abu Simbel 101. Rameses III and suppliants.
  • unidentified - Engraving of a Relief of the Chariot of Ramesses II from the Depiction of the Battle of Qadesh in the Great Hall of the Temple at Abu Simbel 102. Chariot of Rameses III.
  • Engraving of a Relief of the Battle of Qadesh in the Great Hall of the Temple at Abu Simbel 103. Encampment of Rameses III. Rosellini, Tavole, tom. i. pl. 83.See the text, tom. iv. p. 119, &c.
  • unidentified, after Duchesne and Alessandro Ricci - Engraving of a Painting of Merneptah adoring Re-Harakhti, from Merneptah's Tomb at Biban el-Moluk 104. Menepthah II adoring Phre. Rosellini, Tavole, tom. i. pl. 118. Text, tom. iv. p. 305.
  • unidentified - Engraving of a Painting of Ramesses III adoring Isis and Ptah-Sokar, from Ramesses' Tomb at Biban el-Moluk 105. Rameses IV adoring Isis and Osiris. Rosellini, Tavole, tom. i. pl. 145. Text, tom. v. p.104.

These plates, of which 101 and 102 are portions of 103 enlarged, represent, accurately enough for general intelligibleness, the manner of fine Egyptian art in coloured intaglio. And the study of the development of this form of decoration will introduce us to every condition of good Gothic sculpture.

Observe, respecting these plates of Rosellini, that the colours are in great part conjecturally restored; slight traces of the original pigments, and those changed by time, being interpreted often too arbitrarily: and that the beauty or vulgarity of any given colour, much more that of its harmony with others, is determined by delicacies of hue which no restorer can be secure of obtaining, and few attempt to obtain.

The student, therefore, can only depend on these plates for the disposition of the colours, not for their qualities.

  • 141. Windows from Chalons-sur-Marne.
  • Lotze, Maurizio - Photograph of the Porch of the west Front of San Zeno Maggiore, Verona 151. Porch of Church of San Zenone, Verona.
  • Baldus, Edouard-Denis - Photograph of the western Porches of Chartres Cathedral 155. Porches of Chartres Cathedral, west front.
  • Lasieg, H. - Photograph of the Pier flanking the northern Porch on the west Front of Reims Cathedral 160. Flanking pier of porch, Rheims Cathedral, west front.

I have placed these four examples at once where they are to remain, in order to mark clearly the character of the architecture, whatever its date or country, which depends chiefly for its effect on the sculpture or colouring of surfaces, as opposed to that which depends on construction or proportion of forms. Both these schools have their own peculiar powers; and neither of them are to be praised, or blamed, for the principle they maintain, but only for their wise or unwise manner of maintaining it.

The buildings in which the walls are treated as pages of manuscript are good when what is written upon them is rational, and bad when it is foolish; and, similarly, buildings whose structure is their principal merit, are good when they are strong and delicately adjusted, and bad when they are weak and ungraceful.

Arts and Humanities Research Council

University of Oxford

The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

Ashmolean

© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum