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

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

Ruskin's Standard & Reference series (1872)

Exemplary works of art. In the catalogue of the Reference series, items marked 'M' are drawings "by my own Hand" (by Ruskin), P are photographs, E engravings and A by Ruskin's Assistant, Arthur Burgess.

Standard & Reference 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.

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The Exterior of the Ducal Palace, Venice John Ruskin

  • Ruskin text

    67 Exterior of Ducal Palace, Venice. Sketched in 1845 M
  • Curator’s description:

    Description

    The drawing shows the right-hand half of the sea facade of the Ducal Palace in Venice, together with the Ponte della Paglia, and part of the Bridge of Sighs and prisons visible beyond the Palace. A group of gondolas and a larger boat can be seen below the Ponte della Paglia. The level of detail is very varied: Ruskin has focussed on the third ground-floor arch from the right, the two right-hand windows on the main floor, and the pinnacle on the right-hand corner of the roof-line; the rest of the drawing is sketched in to a greater or lesser degree, in places extremely quickly.

    Ruskin himself was uncertain about the drawing's date. In February 1870, in the catalogue to his Verona exhibition, he dated it to 1852; but two years later, in the Standard and Reference Series catalogue, he gave it as 1845. All recent commentators prefer the later date, by when Ruskin had abandoned his 'Proutesque' style in favour of more rigorous measurement, as indicated by the ruled lines and inscription. It is first recorded in Oxford in the Standard and Reference Series catalogue of 1872, as no. 67 in the Reference Series, where it was part of a series of drawings of architecture in Abbeville, Verona and Venice.

    Ruskin made much of the accuracy of drawing, noting in the Verona catalogue (no. 34 = XIX.456) that it was 'Sketched ... by measurement, with extreme care; and showing the sharp window traceries, which are rarely seen in photographs'; similarly in the Standard and Reference Series catalogue. In his catalogue of drawings by Prout and Hunt (under no. 58 = XIV.424), he claimed that 'No one had ever drawn the traceries of the Ducal Palace till I did it myself. Canaletti, in his way, is just as false as Prout; Turner no better. Not one of them painted anything but their general impressions; and not a soul in England knew that there was a system in Venetian architecture at all, until I made the measured (to half and quarter inches) elevation of it [this drawing], and gave the analysis of its tracery mouldings and their development, from those of the Franciscans at the Frari....' In the Standard and Reference Series catalogue, he noted that it was drawn from a boat, this particular view being impossible to photograph.

    The Ducal Palace was, for Ruskin, the quintessential example of Venetian Gothic, and is referred to extensively in his writings. He considered it 'a mode of all perfection': 'It would be impossible, I believe, to invent a more magnificent arrangement of all that is in building most dignified and most fair.' (Stones of Venice, ch. iii, § 9 = VIII.111.)

  • Details

    Artist/maker
    John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
    Object type
    drawing
    Material and technique
    watercolour over graphite on off-white paper, some lines ruled, and with some scratching-out
    Dimensions
    362 x 502 mm
    Associated place
    Inscription
    Recto, bottom left, graphite: intervals of pillars on top of balustrade 5,,6. [...] | [...] | 4 . 7
    Provenance

    Presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford), 1875; transferred from the Ruskin Drawing School to the Ashmolean Museum, c.1949.

    No. of items
    1
    Accession no.
    WA.RS.REF.067
  • Subject terms allocated by curators:

    Subjects

  • References in which this object is cited include:

    References

    Taylor, Gerald, ‘John Ruskin: A Catalogue of Drawings by John Ruskin in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 7 fascicles, 1998, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, no. 043

    Penny, Nicholas, Ruskin's Drawings, Ashmolean - Christie's Handbooks (London: Phaidon, 1988), no. 26

    Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Reference Series Including Temporarily the First Section of the Standard Series (London: Smith, Elder, [1872]), cat. Reference no. 67

    Ruskin, John, ‘Drawings and Photographs, Illustrative of the Art of Verona, Shown at the Royal Institution, Feb. 4th 1870’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 19, no. 34 = XIX.456

    Ruskin, John, ‘The Works of John Ruskin’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), vol. IV, pl. 9, f.p. 306

    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. 67

    Ruskin, John, ‘Notes on the Louvre’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 12

    Ruskin, John, ‘Notes By Mr. Ruskin on Samuel Prout and William Hunt: Illustrated By a Loan Collection of Drawings Exhibited at the Fine Art Society's Galleries’, Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, 39 (London: George Allen, 1903-1912), 14, no. 105 = XIV.424 & 435-6; & XIV.424

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

Position in Ruskin’s Collection

Ruskin's Catalogues

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