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

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

Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)

Unpublished manuscript catalogue for proposed re-organisation of the Rudimentary series.

Rudimentary manu Cover

Ruskin's Catalogues: 1 object

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Ruskin assembled a diverse collection of artworks for his drawing school in Oxford, including watercolours by J.M.W. Turner and drawings by Ruskin himself.  He taught students to draw as a way of educating them in how to look at art and the world around them.  

Ruskin divided his Teaching Collection into four main series: Standard, Reference, Educational and Rudimentary. Each item was placed in a numbered frame, arranged in a set of cabinets, so that they all had a specific position in the Collection (although Ruskin often moved items about as his ideas changed). 

When incorporated into the Ashmolean’s collection in the last century, the works were removed from the frames and the sequence was lost.  Here, Ruskin's original catalogues, notes and instructions - in his chosen order and in his own words - are united with images of the works and links to modern curatorial descriptions.

Ruskin's Catalogues

© Collection of the Guild of Saint George and Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust

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The eleventh-century Inscription on San Giacomo di Rialto, Venice Rawdon Lubbock Brown

  • Ruskin text

    10.

    Photograph of the xith century inscription on the first church built in Venice in A.D. 421, the inscription having been put upon it by the Doge Domenico Selvo when he decorated it within and without, about the year 1090. I discovered the inscription myself in Venice when I went back there at the order of Prince Leopold to bring out a new edition of The Stones of Venice. The lettering is much more rigid than that of the last inscription, but that last inscription is the most beautiful I ever saw, and this has still many fine qualities of a similar kind. I need not comment on the principality here of the incipient cross, but it may be a finally convincing lesson to the student of the determination of good artists to secure variety in the dimensions of symmetrical forms to see that the cross, which is the centre of the whole inscription standing for the X in CRUX and for the Chi in CHRISTE, is engraved with unequal limbs. Note, also, the obliquity of the right hand limb in the V of SALUS & of JUS. The terminal limb of the ‘R’s in VERA, 'CIRCA , and MERCANTIBUS present varieties of the pointed R. Furrow used in the O of the former inscription. Compare also the two dashes put for the U and S in MERCANTIBUS.

  • Details

    Artist/maker
    Rawdon Lubbock Brown (1803 - 1883) (photographer)
    after Anonymous, Venetian (sculptor)
    Object type
    photograph
    Material and technique
    surrogate: albumen print
    Dimensions
    surrogate: 182 X 245 mm (sight size)
    Associated place
    Inscription
    surrogate: in the photograph, the inscription, expanded, reads:
    Vertically down the cross: SIT CRVX VERA SALVS
    Horizontally across the cross: HVIC TVA X [=CHRISTE] PE[R] LOCO
    In the long horizontal band: HOC CIRCA TEMPLVM SIT IVS MERCANTIB[VS] AEQVVM PONDERA NEC VERGANT NEC SIT CONVENTIO P[RAVA]
    Provenance

    Presumably presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford); first recorded in the Ruskin Drawing School in 1878; listed in 1906 as no longer in the Drawing School.

    No. of items
    1
    Accession no.
    RUDMS.RUD.010
  • Subject terms allocated by curators:

    Subjects

    building

    church

    sculpture

    writing

  • References in which this object is cited include:

    References

    Ruskin, John, ‘Rudimentary Series 1878’, 1878, Oxford, Oxford University Archives, cat. Rudimentary no. 10

Location

    • not found

Ruskin's Catalogues

  • Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)

    10.

    Photograph of the xith century inscription on the first church built in Venice in A.D. 421, the inscription having been put upon it by the Doge Domenico Selvo when he decorated it within and without, about the year 1090. I discovered the inscription myself in Venice when I went back there at the order of Prince Leopold to bring out a new edition of The Stones of Venice. The lettering is much more rigid than that of the last inscription, but that last inscription is the most beautiful I ever saw, and this has still many fine qualities of a similar kind. I need not comment on the principality here of the incipient cross, but it may be a finally convincing lesson to the student of the determination of good artists to secure variety in the dimensions of symmetrical forms to see that the cross, which is the centre of the whole inscription standing for the X in CRUX and for the Chi in CHRISTE, is engraved with unequal limbs. Note, also, the obliquity of the right hand limb in the V of SALUS & of JUS. The terminal limb of the ‘R’s in VERA, 'CIRCA , and MERCANTIBUS present varieties of the pointed R. Furrow used in the O of the former inscription. Compare also the two dashes put for the U and S in MERCANTIBUS.

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