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

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

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

Items marked 'M' are drawings "by my own Hand" (by Ruskin), P are photographs, E engravings and A by Ruskin's Assistant, Arthur Burgess.

Rudimentary 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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Photograph of Giotto's Fresco of Hope (from the series of Virtues and Vices in the Arena Chapel, Padua) Carlo Naya, firm

Location

    • Western Art Print Room

Position in Ruskin’s Collection

Ruskin's Catalogues

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

    R|89} Giotto’s Hope, from the Fresco at Padua. Placed at the beginning of the Italian Gothic Series in order to enforce on the student at once the fact that the power of Italian Gothic is in its use of sculpture and painting; and that no other school had so noble subordinate ministry. P.
  • Ruskin's Rudimentary series 4th ed. (1872)

    R|89} Giotto’s Hope, from the Fresco at Padua. Placed at the beginning of the Italian Gothic Series in order to enforce on the student at once the fact that the power of Italian Gothic is in its use of sculpture and painting; and that no other school had so noble subordinate ministry. P.
  • Ruskin's Rudimentary series, 5th ed. (1873)

    R|89} Giotto’s Hope, from the Fresco at Padua. Placed at the beginning of the Italian Gothic Series in order to enforce on the student at once the fact that the power of Italian Gothic is in its use of sculpture and painting; and that no other school had so noble subordinate ministry. P.
  • Ruskin's revision to the Rudimentary series (1878)

    89.

    This photograph begins the series illustrative of Southern Gothic; in which the student will at once recognise elements derived from the earliest Greek, and even Egyptian, schools. The Gothic form is extraneous to them, and their essential design, as here, is always in panels which are considered merely as frames for sculpture or picture. The Northern architects, who can neither paint nor carve, gradually diminished the sculpture and exaggerated the panels - until the English Perpendicular was architecture was produced, panels and nothing else.

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