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Unpublished manuscript catalogue for proposed re-organisation of the Rudimentary series.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

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Engraving of the Plan and Elevation of the westernmost Bay on the south Wall of the Lay Hall of San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore, Milan Friedrich Lose

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

Position in Ruskin’s Collection

Ruskin's Catalogues

  • Ruskin's Rudimentary series, 3rd ed. (1872)

    R|103} Decoration of the Monastero Maggiore, Milan, Gruner’s plate. See my pencil note on it. E.
  • Ruskin's Rudimentary series 4th ed. (1872)

    R|103} Decoration of the Monastero Maggiore, Milan, Gruner’s plate. See my pencil note on it. E.
  • Ruskin's Rudimentary series, 5th ed. (1873)

    R|103} Decoration of the Monastero Maggiore, Milan, Gruner’s plate. See my pencil note on it. E.
  • Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)

    remains 103.

    One of Gruner’s engravings very admirably representing, as far as stamped colour and engraving can, one of the compartments of the church at Milan containing Luini’s frescoes , of which the St. Catherine in the alcove was chosen as a leading example. The decorations in the rest of the church are all of the finest time and perfectly represent to the student what painters like Luini, Carpaccio, and Perugino thought beautiful in building, condescending also themselves, like their great ancestors Cimabue and Giotto, frequently to execute the most subordinate details with their own hands. There is no saying what such architecture might have become had Italy persevered in the Christian faith. Its actual beauty was greatly interfered with by the impossibility of finding pupils good enough to work with the great masters, and such pupils could only have been supplied by a permanently disciplined & monastic school. Actually uneducated and infidel workmen were more and more admitted in the completion of the subordinate parts and the redundance of ornament became instantly vulgar when produced by sensual mechanism instead of religious R. enthusiasm. The main point which students have now to observe is that they need not pretend to imitate the Italian Renaissance until the best painters in the Academy are content to work on house-walls.

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