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

The old covered wooden bridge at Luzern, known as the Kapellbrücke, traverses the page from the left to meet the solid tower of the Wasserturm on the right. Above its roof the twin towers of the Hofkirche are visible. Below it flow the waters of the Reuss.

Although Ruskin dates the drawing to 1862 in his entry in the first Educational Series catalogue, Taylor proposes that it should be connected to diary entries 17 to 19 October 1861: 'Paint bit of Lucerne Bridge'; 'Painting Bridge. Get on badly'; 'Paint Bridge; get on well but stopped by cold' (Ruskin, Diaries, vol. II, p. 554) and to details in an unpublished summary of Ruskin's journeys of 1884 (Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster, L 8).

First catalogued in 1871 as no. 71 in the Educational Series, the drawing was listed in Case V, which contained 'Elementary Illustrations of Landscape'; it was renumbered as no. 116 in 1874. Although not mentioned in Ruskin's 1878 reorganisation of the Series, it seems likely that it retained its position, as it would certainly fit in the group of works which were intended to illustrate 'what German and Swiss life were in their happiest associations with landscape about the beginning of this Century' (Educational Series manuscript catalogue, fol. LXXV).

bridge

church

landscape

river

tower

Taylor, Gerald, ‘John Ruskin: A Catalogue of Drawings by John Ruskin in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 7 fascicles, 1998, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, no. 083

Cook, Edward T., Studies in Ruskin: Some Aspects of the Work and Teaching of John Ruskin (Orpington: George Allen, 1890), pl. IV, f.p. 306

Ruskin, John, The Diaries of John Ruskin, ed. Joan Evans and John Howard Whitehouse, 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956-1959)

Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Smith, Elder, 1871), cat. Educational no. 71

Ruskin, John, Catalogue of the Educational Series (London: Spottiswoode, 1874), cat. Educational no. 116

Hayman, John, John Ruskin and Switzerland (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1990), no. 81, p. 105, no. 81, p. 105

Ruskin, John, ‘Unbound Letters to Various Correspondents’, n.d., Lancaster, Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster

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. VI, pl. A, f.p. 394

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. 116