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Unpublished manuscript catalogue for proposed re-organisation of the Rudimentary series.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

Catalogue / 7th Cabinet / 2nd Section

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Basle 162 164. Basle ?

    Introduces the Swiss series; and the days were happy when in reality the traveller was introduced to Switzerland by this scene. His first impressions are now only of the Railroad-station; and when I want to go to Switzerland myself, I am content to take out this picture, and read, with it at my side, the Tour de Jacob.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Lauffenbourgh on the Rhine 170 165.

    Lauffenbourg . These first rapids of the Rhine, below the fall of Schaffausen , are the grandest piece of running water, I suppose, to be seen in Europe. How Turner came to tame them down into this little riband of streaming light, and to reduce the R. really magnificent bridge (of which I have placed my own line-for-line study in the Reference Series) to this mere footway, with a field-railing along it, passes all the caprice yet traced by me in his character. Narrowed and tamed though it be, the student will learn more of Swiss character by studying this Plate, without moving from the room, than he probably would in reality by travelling on the Rail-road past the spot where he might have got a glimpse of it just when he is getting the lunch-basket out from under the seat.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Lake of Thun 165 166.

    The Lake of Thun: a quite favorite subject of Turner’s. This first sketch of it from Nature used to hang in my mother’s room, and is now placed here in the Standard Series, No.6. It seems as if the Painter had never again passed up or down the lake, fon for he repeated this single idea of it four times, and never gave any other view of it, while his modifications of the original sketch, by fervid imagination, scarcely leave now recognisable the profile of the Niesen on the left, and of the Stock-horn on the right. He always retained the confusion of packages on the shore, by which he had been startled on landing at Neu Haus.

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  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber Studiorum - Chain of Alps from Grenoble to Chamberi 163 167.

    The Alps of the Grande Chartreuse. Leaving the Bernese district we cross to that of Grenoble, and approach the Alps of Savoy under their terrific precipices of limestone above Chambéry. It is one of his greatest mountain-studies, wholly superb in its expression of the great plains at the foot of the Alps and of the vineyard and village life which they bound with pasturage and snow.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Bonneville 166 168.

    Bonneville, Savoy . We enter now among the Limestone crags and pause in one of Turner’s favourite scenes favourite chiefly from its sadness, and painted by him at least three times, twice in water-colour and once in oil. The only prominent feature in the so called Good Town, its once Seigniorial Castle, the only important object in this picture, has, of course, been now turned by the Good Town into a Gaol: the old bridge has been demolished and a stylish modern Engineer’s one built. The traveller is dependent on the Good Town now only for his lunch, and quarrels with the voitures for staying there ten minutes after the time. I have myself spent a whole Autumn there without seeing half the beauty of its hills and was, for a year, in treaty with the Town Council for the R. purchase of a bit of the crags on the left in this drawing. They suspected me of knowing a gold-mine in them, and at the year’s end, I left them in their suspicion.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - The Source of the Arveron 167 169.

    The Glacier des Bois, and old source of the Arv iey ron , Chamounix; engraved by Turner himself with extremest care, and so often referred to in Modern Painters that I say nothing more of it here, except that the entire mass of ice, which is seen in front of this picture, and from which the Arviron used to issue under the enormous ice-cave seen at the its base between the pine-trees in the lower middledistance, has now utterly vanished owing to the fatal change in the climate of Switzerland during the last ten years, the sunshine never seeming to have power enough to raise clouds so high as to deposit snow on the higher summits.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Mer de Glace, Valley of Chamouni, Savoy 168 170.

    The Mer de Glace of Chamounix; the scene now known to all of us but at that time unfrequented and scarcely ever penetrated into its recesses. Turner sketched it with extreme rapidity and far less than his usual accuracy, addressing himself only to show the reason of the name in the mass of ice arising like a crested breaker on the left. The aiguille drawing is illustrated at length in R.Modern Painters.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Pæstum (Plate from the "Little Liber Studiorum") remains 171. Pæstum

    A collection of the Liber Studorium would be incomplete without showing the way in which Turner practised on the copper to learn the business of Mezzotint engraving. Technically, this example ought to have begun the series, but the sublimity of its subject induces me to place it as the real Preface to his heroic design, and, I think, justifies me in doing so. The student will remember that in the Frontispiece the Classical Architecture is represented as fallen, but the Norman standing, meaning that the faith in which alone true architecture can be built had perished with the nations who held it in Greece and Italy, but was yet living in England and Normandy. His symbol of the destruction of a religious Faith is always storm and the lightning of Heaven. Thus, in his great drawing of Stone-Henge the fall of the Druidical Religion is indicated by the lightning totaltotal lightning striking one of the stones, while the shepherd flies with his scattered flock; but in the drawing of Salisbury seen from Old Sarum, (lent at present and placed in the Reference Series for comparison,) the storm is only partial, the shepherd stands erect still watching his flock, and the spire of the Christian cathedral rises in full light amid soft rain: while here, above the ruined temples of Pæstum, the fires R. of heaven blaze like a volcano, the clouds of its anger fly like angels of Ruin, and the skeleton of the shepherd lies in the ground: - it is seen in the completed plate only, the example here under consideration being the first sketch upon the metal.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Pæstum (Plate from the "Little Liber Studiorum") 172.

    Advanced state of the same subject, never finished; but both superb examples of easy and perfect shading in Mezzotint. Compare the lurid glare blaze of the light here with its translucent calm in 162, and be thankful, first, to Heaven for giving us metal that may be thus engraved, and then to Prince Rupert for finding out how to engrave it, and then to Turner for thus writing upon it so noble scripture. The great Plate engraved by Prince Rupert with his own hand (Reference Series No 110.) should be compared at once with this, to show the range of execution in this material. Few collections can possess so interesting plates; their market-value, great though it is, not at all representing their rarity. The Turner-engravings are worth, at least, fifteen guineas each in any London sale room, and I paid Messr.s. Colnaghi fifty guineas for No. 110.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Jason now Edu. S. 180 173.

    Jason attacking the Dragon . This and the two R. following examples of Turner’s heroic design are so copiously illustrated in Modern Painters that it is unnecessary here to give more than their titles.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Æsacus and Hesperie remains 174.

    Æsacus and Hesperie . It is, on the whole, the finest Plate in the Liber Studorium etched and engraved by Turner himself throughout with his highest skill.

  • Turner, Joseph Mallord William - Liber studiorum - Rispah remains 175.

    Rizpah the daughter of Aiah. As the former example is the noblest piece of work, so this touches the highest range of emotion felt by the Painter in its design. It finally expresses the temper of Turner’s own mind - infinite sadness for the passing away of all that he had loved, and his own work only the guarding of its relics. Any stranger passing through the Rooms should at once cross from this cabinet to that containing Educational 251-275. which are chosen examples for the advanced student of the best Plates of the Liber in their best state - twelve of them with their twelve etchings complete , and the thirteenth etching - 263- of the unpublished plate of the Pass of St. Gothard - the grandest piece of rock-drawing, I suppose, in the world. The “Rudimentary” Series proceeds now, more or less de R. scribed, to its close.

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