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

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

Ruskin's Educational series, 1st ed. (1871)

Ruskin's first catalogue of 300 works for the instruction of undergraduates and his notes on the use of particular examples.

Educational 1 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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A Wild Strawberry Plant John Ruskin

  • Ruskin text

    11.

    Wild strawberry-blossom, with the profile of it enlarged beneath. This also is only here temporarily—the exquisite mode of branching and budding in this flower must be analyzed in a better drawing. Compare, for the present, the enlarged plan of the relation of this first blossom to the uppermost leaf, 262 in Case XI.

    I give the strawberry-blossom to Demeter because it is the prettiest type of the uncultured and motherly gifts of the Earth. Also, I take this blossom as the kindest and usefullest representative of the Rose-tribe; and in a sort, the most central, for if I took Rosa Canina instead, it would not suggest the great groups of the potentillas and tormentillas; nor the relation to the anemone through the Dryas: but this strawberry-blossom expresses the place of all these, and yet is itself clearly a little white rose.

  • Details

    Artist/maker
    John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
    Object type
    drawing
    Material and technique
    watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on blue wove paper
    Dimensions
    180 x 143 mm
    Inscription
    Recto, all in graphite:
    below the image, centre: The Rose of Demeter, | Springing in a cleft of her rocks.
    bottom right: J. Ruskin. | Brantwood. June 73.
    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.ED.011.a
  • 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. 276

    Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Smith, Elder, 1871), cat. Educational no. 7

    Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Spottiswoode, 1874), cat. Educational no. 11

    Ruskin, John, ‘Educational Series 1878’, 1878, Oxford, Oxford University Archives, cat. Educational no. 11

    Ruskin, John, Catalogue of Examples Arranged for Elementary Study in the University Galleries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1870), cat. Educational no. 6

    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. Educational no. 11

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

Position in Ruskin’s Collection

Ruskin's Catalogues

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