Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)
Unpublished manuscript catalogue for proposed re-organisation of the Rudimentary series.
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Edu. 62
289.
The group through which we have passed gives examples only of Foliage seen close at hand, such as the great Masters associate with Figures of the life-size. We now begin the study of Effects of Foliage diminished in distance, and which therefore cannot be completed in the Methods hitherto exhibited. I take, therefore, an actual group of leaves, vine, seen in this Photograph at a distance of about twenty-five feet, and therefore necessarily losing, if proR. perly represented, all clear lines of organization. Though the Photograph exaggerates the shadows, it gives us in other respects accurately the conditions of Mystery required at such distance; which, generally speaking, will be that of an ordinary Landscape-foreground. I take the group here shown in association with French Sculpture that the student may learn the qualities of good Painting and Sculpture at once. When he has learned to draw these leaves as the Photograph represents them, he will know how to admire the imaged leaves carved at the side of them.
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remains
290.
I sketch the group first, therefore, as nearly as I can, accurately with a single wash. A really great Painter can leave every form, as he would finally have it, with dark wet blots of water-colour thus thrown; &, whether the student can do it rightly or not, the effort thus to represent the grouping of leaf-masses, at any distances from the eye between twenty & fifty feet, will be the grandest possible discipline in foreground-painting. Compare, for the execution, the sketches by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the second cabinet of the (Educational)Reference Series .
R.
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remains
291.
I now take, for more completion, the two upper groups only from the last sketch, and carry them forward into Middle Tint, leaving nothing now but the high lights blank. Compare the Photograph for authority. Such a study as this is all that is necessary, in working from Nature, to carry away the composition of leaves; but it is an exercise of intense difficulty, and the best Masters may be proud when they can do what they want in such manner with ease.
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292.
Finally, I complete the study, using body-colour white to recover lost Form. I allow it to remain a little too high in tone, because these three exercises are examples in execution only; and whatever is in them must be got, by the student who copies them, with that quantity of work and no more: and, with no more than that quantity of work, only Turner or Correggio could have got the Chiaroscuro perfect. But, after making a few studies of this kind from Nature, the learner will at least comprehend what Correggio’s Foliage is: as, for instance, the group of Oak behind the Venus and Mercury in our National Gallery.
R.
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293.
After knowing thoroughly what ought to be done up to this point, the student may sketch complete subjects from Nature in broad light and shade; the two Examples given in this Frame showing the very light degree of finish to which it is, at first, advisable to carry large studies, marking simply the Lights and Darks, whether of real shadow, as on the left, or of local colour, as on the right. I found immense benefit myself from making rapid Memoranda of this latter kind, attending only to the contours and main masses. This one, for instance, was made while changing horses at Abbeville.
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294.
For the next stage of completion the etchings of the Liber Studorium show us the preparation which Turner himself made - accurate indication, namely, of every outline, and of the principal shadows, with the pen, before washing with Sepia. The student cannot too often copy the beautiful Etching here given. It affords instances of every kind of touch necessary for the expression of Foliage in Middle Distance, and a beautiful piece of more retiring Forest R. above the stream. The tendency of most, inexperienced, students is always to lose the relations of distance in showers of leafage or gleams of sunshine; but in all great Landscape-work the relative distances of Forest-forms are as determined as, in good architectural work, those of the houses in a street or the pillars of a temple.
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Edu. 22
295.
Study of my own at the ‘Promontory of Sestri’, giving example of the application of these various methods, with the utmost possible speed consistent with care. The whole drawing was done in a day and there is another Stone-pine concealed by the Mount more elaborate, but less satisfactory than those below, which, therefore, are alone shown. [I see two spots of mildew on the sky and suspect a slight alteration of colour here & there in Washes from the same cause. At all events their fault is being too uneven.]
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now 294
296.
Study from part of the group of Scotch Firs on the left of Turner’s great picture Crossing the Brook, to show its complexities of light and shade. The student cannot too long confine himself to such studies of Foliage in one R. tint. The moment he allows himself the pleasure of green colour he will begin to be satisfied that he has painted a Tree when he has merely laid on a splash of green, and he will be rewarded for his self-denial by pleasures in Winter-scenery nearly as great as other artists can receive from the richest Summer-verdure.
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297.
Placed here temporarily; being the only example I have here of Winter-study. I hope to do a better one for this place in the series. But there is enough here to show how pleasant Drawings may be, with no more help to their picturesque effect than a little ivy.
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298.
This Drawing, made long ago with extreme care from part of the back-ground of Raphael’s Madonna in the Tribune of Florence, is valuable as representing, far more accurately than any extant engraving, the real grace of Raphael’s stem-lines, though impossibly slender; and the variety of shape in touch by which he expresses Leaf-character. Every one of the clusters here was copied touch for touch, and, I think, with considerable accuracy.
R.
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Now 300
299.
The last but one of our Rudimentary Series; an entirely consummate sketch of by Turner of a Landscape Composition, at the period of the Liber Studorium, but not intended for it; the drawings of the Liber being all of the proper size for the Book. It is impossible to see more done with the pen and sepia, or to find a better example of wild grace in vegetation. I prized this Drawing as one of my very chief Turner-treasures, and hope that Oxford will also, one day, be proud of it. Nothing can rival it but the work of Florence herself.
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300.
With whose work, indeed, I close the Rudimentary Series, as with her words I began it. This Drawing, I know not by whose hand, is entirely characteristic of the noblest temper of Florentine Design, and a final Example for us of simple and manly execution carried to extreme refinement without vanity. It is on a sheet of the book, which I bought some years ago, containing nearly seventy such Drawings made on both sides of its leaves in illustration of Bible-history. This subject, as we are told in the Inscription, closes the First and begins the Second Epoch; representing the era R. of the Patriarchs by the figures of Lamech, Enoch, and Tubal-Cain; Lamech holding his bow as saying I have slain a man to my wounding. Tubal-Cain with his hammer, Enoch supported on the wings of two angels and raised from the Earth in a floating cloud from which two other angels emerge. I do not know anything in studies of this rapid kind more beautiful than the rapt expression of his face, nor anything more convincing than the whole Drawing is of the lovely and happy faith of these first Tuscan Schools.
