John Ruskin: Photographer & Draughtsman by Watts Gallery

OHN RUSKIN J Photographer & Draughtsman

Stephen Wildman 1

JOHN RUSKIN Photographer & Draughtsman

OHN RUSKIN J Photographer & Draughtsman

Stephen Wildman

ÂŠ Copyright Watts Gallery, 2014 First published by Watts Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition John Ruskin: Photographer and Draughtsman, 4 February - 1 June 2014 Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford, Surrey, GU3 1DQ www.wattsgallery.org.uk Watts Gallery Registered Charity No. 313612 ISBN 978-0-9561022-4-9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publishers. Edited by Dr. Nicholas Tromans, Brice Curator, Watts Gallery and Rhian Addison, Curatorial Assistant, Watts Gallery Designed by Andrew Churchill, Commercial Manager, Watts Gallery All images are copyright The Ruskin Foundation (Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster), unless otherwise stated. Cover: Rouen Cathedral, Lady Chapel c.1854 Daguerreotype (image reversed) Back cover: John Ruskin (Carte de visite, Elliott & Fry, 1869)

Contents 9 Foreword 11 Introduction 12 Ruskin the Draughtsman 15 Ruskin and the Daguerreotype 19 Venice & Verona 27 Tuscany 35 France 47 Switzerland 54 The Ruskin Library

‘Nothing interrupts him and whether the Square is crowded or empty he is either seen with a black cloth over his head taking Daguerreotypes or climbing about the capitals covered in dust’ Effie Ruskin discussing Ruskin’s work in a letter to her mother, 24th February 1850

‘… they are of course more valuable than any sketch can be in the way of information, and on this journey I have considered all my sketches merely as memorandums.’ John Ruskin discussing daguerreotypes in a letter to artist Samuel Prout, 1846

‘So far as their coarseness and rudeness admit, the plates are valuable; being either copies of memoranda made upon the spot, or enlarged and adapted from Daguerreotypes, taken under my own superintendence.’ John Ruskin in the Preface of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849

‘… as I had my arms full with the Daguerreotype machinery it was no joke I assure you, jumping from stone to stone.’ John Hobbs diary entry, Chamonix in 1849 8

Foreword John Ruskin and George Frederic Watts were contemporaries - born in 1819 and 1817 respectively and have much in common. By the 1890s both were seen as men who had greatly expanded modern ideas of the ethical possibilities of art. Their approaches were certainly very different - Watts aiming, in his later work, at the big idea and the magnificent gesture; Ruskin ever attached to the particular and the concrete. But in showing Ruskin at Watts Gallery we feel we are very much on home territory. Watts Gallery has, since its reopening after a thoroughgoing restoration in 2011, developed a reputation for, among other things, modestly-scaled but powerful exhibitions which combine challenging ideas with strong visual impact. This book has been published to accompany just such an exhibition, one in which we have sought to show the passion of Ruskin’s eye as he toured Europe in search of significant forms in nature and architecture. The traditions of watercolour and the

innovations of photography were both tools in his hand for use in the larger labour of opening the eyes of others. We are enormously grateful to the Trustees of the Ruskin Foundation for their approval of loans to this exhibition, and to the Director of the Ruskin Library at Lancaster University, Professor Stephen Wildman, who selected the exhibits and wrote the text for this publication. We have been fortunate indeed to have been able to work in collaboration with such a collection and such a scholar, especially at a time when Ruskin’s use of photography has become an important area of research. All of us look forward to the

publication of the researches of Ken and Jenny Jacobson, who made the astonishing discovery of a collection of Ruskin’s daguerreotypes containing almost all the plates not to have found their way to Lancaster. The study of Victorian art continues to turn up the most wonderful surprises. We look forward to welcoming you to Watts Gallery to share in some of them. Perdita Hunt Director Watts Gallery

Above Ruskin at Brantwood, September 1894 Platinotype print. Frederick Hollyer The Rob Dickins Collection, Watts Gallery

Introduction John Ruskin (1819-1900) became the most prominent writer on art, architecture and society between the publication of Modern Painters in 1843 and the last of his Slade Lectures at Oxford University in 1884. A champion of J.M.W. Turner when the painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s later work was receiving hostile criticism, Ruskin also supported the young artists of the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood when their exhibits at the Royal Academy were attacked in the popular press. He argued that in both cases their paintings were grounded in the observation and understanding of nature, which was essential to the making of great art. He was himself a skilled draughtsman, unquestionably the finest non-professional of his age. An only child in a prosperous family, Ruskin received some private tuition in drawing but otherwise relied on an inherent gift. Never needing to think of

making finished works of art for exhibition or sale, he concentrated on the accurate rendering of what he could see, producing records of places and details of buildings and works of art which would prove invaluable aides to the writing of books such as The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), The Stones of Venice (1851-53) and Modern Painters vols. III, IV and V (185660). In later life he also made copious drawings of the natural world, to illustrate writings on botany, geology and ornithology. Although never regarding it as an art form, he found photography useful as a supplementary tool in providing records of buildings and landscape during travels on the continent between 1845 and 1858. The first popular process of permanent photography, the daguerreotype had been invented in 1839, and Ruskin was an early devotee of the brilliant, almost magical, one-off plates. He may

well have been one of the first to have introduced them to Oxford while still an undergraduate, and acquired a large number in Venice in 1845. By 1849 he had his own daguerreotype camera, his manservants John Hobbs (up to 1852) and Frederick Crawley becoming adept practitioners under his direction. Some 325 plates were made, bought or commissioned. This exhibition brings together twenty daguerreotypes and an equal number of complementary drawings, all from the Ruskin Library at Lancaster University. Stephen Wildman Director Ruskin Library and Research Centre, Lancaster University

Opposite Ruskin at Brantwood, 1881 T.A. and J Green, Grasmere The Rob Dickins Collection, Watts Gallery

Ruskin the Draughtsman “There is a strong instinct in me, which I cannot analyse, to draw and describe the things I love – not for reputation, nor for the good of others, nor for my own advantage, but a sort of instinct, like that for eating and drinking” (John Ruskin, letter to his father, 2 June 1852)

As part of his passion for observing nature and looking at art and architecture, Ruskin drew constantly. One of his fundamental beliefs was that understanding came from close observation, and could be enhanced by the hand copying what the eye could see. Tuition from Charles Runciman, Copley Fielding and J.D. Harding, and a friendship with Samuel Prout, whose work his father bought at the Old Water Colour Society, developed the young Ruskin’s talent as a draughtsman to a point in the early 1840s when, under other circumstances, he might have become a professional

artist. He was aware of his natural gift and command of technique: “Architecture I can draw like an architect, and trees a great deal better than most botanists, and mountains rather better than most geologists . . . I have done some good to art already, and I hope to do a great deal more” (letter to his mother, 24 August 1845). Curiously, what he lacked as an artist was purpose and imagination. Without the need to travel widely, and to paint a variety of subject matter as professional watercolourists like Prout and Harding had to, Ruskin confined himself to visiting only those places which he liked – on a fairly set route through France, Italy and the Alps – and then mostly in the footsteps of his artistic idol, Turner. Inspired by the gift, on his thirteenth birthday, of a copy of Samuel Rogers’s Italy, Ruskin embarked on a lifelong defence and study of Turner, during which

he quite naturally attempted to emulate the artist’s style. But as early as 1846, he had to admit to George Richmond that “I can do nothing that I haven’t before me; I cannot change, or arrange, or modify in the least, and that amounts to a veto on producing a great picture . . . Anybody can pick the picturesque things and leave the plain ones, but [Turner] doesn’t do this . . . [and] of the ugly things he takes and misses and cuts and shuffles till everything turns up trumps, and that’s just what isn’t in me.” His great frustration – which paradoxically was also a strength – was in only feeling able to draw exactly what he saw. This principle he had famously expounded in the passage of Modern Painters I urging the aspiring artist to go to Nature “rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing,” and when he took it to extremes in his own work, he was

St Sauveur, Caen 1848 or later Pencil and wash

capable of matching the young Pre-Raphaelites, in obsessively meticulous watercolours such as Gneiss Rock, Glenfinlas (1853, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) and In the Pass of Killiecrankie (1857, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). These are airless and two-dimensional compositions, however, and when it came to completing large landscapes Ruskin found himself in difficulty, ironically caught between the twin poles of Turnerian breadth and Pre-Raphaelite detail. To his father, on 24 May 1858, he confided that, although “getting on well with my drawing, the worst of it is that unless it be as good as Turner’s, it doesn’t please me; so that on the whole I am seldom pleased.” This self-doubt and frustration as to his abilities as an artist coincided with the lessening of his close involvement in the practice and criticism of art, following the last Academy Notes in 1859, and his gradual withdrawal from teaching at the Working Men’s College. There were still to be regular attempts at large-scale watercolours, but much more of

Ruskin’s later work was to be of a didactic nature. Having established a Drawing School early on in his tenure of the Slade Professorship at Oxford University, he threw himself into providing a wide range of ‘examples,’ of the focused kind that best suited his exacting powers of observation and transcription. Exquisite studies of plants, rocks, animals and birds descended on Oxford throughout the 1870s, providing not only the means for students to learn by making copies of them, but also fulfilling Ruskin’s incessant urge to portray “the true appearance of things.” While often using such studies as visual aids during his lectures, only rarely did he exhibit his work in public. In 1884 his architectural watercolours were criticised in the Art Journal, the reviewer taking him to task for showing works “in the unfinished state he condemns in others.” The question of ‘finish’ was one that dogged Ruskin throughout his working life: few of his watercolours were ever taken to a significant degree of completion, chiefly because this was never necessary. The painter

Herkomer noted that Ruskin “never finishes his work to the edges,” and Ruskin himself chided Kate Greenaway that she was “nearly as bad as me, that way;” yet he did not need to produce work which would please an exhibition audience, and was usually content when the immediate effect or purpose had been obtained. And in purely practical terms, he would not have had time for tedious studio work, with so many other constant calls on his concentration. Ironically, we now hold in the highest admiration those drawings which combine the two dominant aspects of his character: loving, fiercely precise detail – often with a distinctive combination of pencil and bodycolour – and an impatient, spontaneous rendering of space and atmosphere, through loose and often vibrant watercolour washes. Along with this trademark of high detail amid unconcerned incompletion comes a fresh and

exceptional directness in nearly all his drawings, whether of mountain, spire, or plant, which brings an instant recognition that they could belong to no other hand.

Chartres: Cathedral and old houses c. 1866 Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour

Ruskin and the Daguerreotype The Daguerreotype was the first popular practical photographic process, introduced in 1839 by Louis (Louis-Jacques-Mandé) Daguerre (1787-1851), the former partner of JosephNicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), acknowledged as the inventor of photography. In essence, an image is formed on a silvercoated copper plate exposed to mercury vapour, the residual silver iodide being washed off by immersion in a solution of salt or sodium thiosulphate. The plate is toned with gold chloride and then polished. All daguerreotypes are one-off positive images, which would appear in reverse without the usual employment of an integral correcting mirror in the camera. Ruskin was an early enthusiast for the Daguerreotype (invariably using the upper case, which gradually fell out of use) claiming a knowledge dating from the

early 1840s. His most significant encounter with them took place in 1845, on his epiphanic tour of Northern Italy. Writing to his father from Venice on 7 October, Ruskin reported that “I have been lucky enough to get from a poor Frenchman here, said to be in distress, some most beautiful, though small, Daguerreotypes of the palaces I have been trying to draw; and certainly Daguerreotypes taken by this vivid sunlight are glorious things. It is very nearly the same thing as carrying off the palace itself; every chip of stone and stain is there, and of course there is no mistake about proportions. I am very much delighted with these, and am going to have some more made of pet bits. It is a noble invention, say what they will of it, and any one who has worked and blundered and stammered as I have for four days, and then sees the thing he has been trying to do so long in vain, done perfectly & faultlessly

Tomb of Can Signorio,Verona, from the South-East c.1852 Daguerreotype (reversed image)

in half a minute, won’t abuse it afterwards.” One purpose of Ruskin’s return journey to Italy in 1846, in the company of his parents, may have been to make or procure daguerreotypes of buildings seen on the 1845 tour. An original mahogany storage box survives (in the Ruskin Library), inlaid with a plate inscribed TUSCANY 1846, and with paper labels for Lucca, Pistoia, Sienne [sic], Pisa and Florence. On 12 August 1846, writing from Switzerland, Ruskin told his friend W.H. Harrison that “I have allied myself with it [the daguerreotype] … and have brought away some precious records from Florence. It is certainly the most marvellous invention of the century; given us, I think, just in time to save some evidence from the great public of wreckers.” Daguerreotypes were made during the Ruskins’ delayed honeymoon in northern France in 1848 and were put to immediate use as the basis of plates in The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in the following year and illustrated

with soft-ground etchings made by Ruskin himself. Photographic equipment had been acquired by 1849: Ruskin’s diary during his month-long stay in Chamonix in June reveals that the making of daguerreotypes went hand in hand with drawing. The entry for 28 June notes: “I was tired last night after having had a long scramble at C[ascade] des Pèlerins. Went there early … and got some pines, in Dag[uerreotype], then finished my drawing successfully.” In his autobiography Praeterita (1887), within the context of this 1849 visit, Ruskin recalled his manservant “George [i.e. John Hobbs] indefatigably carrying his little daguerreotype box up everywhere, and taking the first image of the Matterhorn, as also of the aiguilles of Chamouni, ever drawn by the sun.” A letter from Effie Ruskin to her mother is the only piece of evidence that Ruskin might have ‘taken’ a photograph himself. Writing from Venice on 24 February 1850, she reported how “John excites the liveliest astonishment to all and sundry in Venice and I do not think they

have made up their minds yet whether he is very mad or very wise. Nothing interrupts him and whether the Square is crowded or empty he is either seen with a black cloth over his head taking Daguerrotypes [sic] or climbing about the capitals covered with dust, or else with cobwebs exactly as if had just arrived from taking a voyage with the old woman on her broomstick.” Of course, it is just as likely that he may simply have been checking Hobbs’s preparations. As with the French subjects of 1848, plates made in 1850 were pressed into service to underpin illustrations, now for The Stones of Venice. In a prefatory note to Examples of the Architecture of Venice, the series of folio engravings which accompanied the first volume in 1851, Ruskin admitted using photographs both for Seven Lamps and Stones, but not to the extent of making slavish copies: “Had they been so, I should certainly not have stated them to be copies of my own drawings; but I have used the help of the daguerreotype without scruple in completing many of

the mezzotinted subjects for the present series; and I much regret that artists in general do not think it worth their while to perpetuate some of the beautiful effects which the daguerreotype alone can seize.”

Window and Balcony, Piazza Collegiata, Bellinzona 1858 Daguerreotype

Later specific references to the daguerreotype are frustratingly few. Certainly, more were taken in Venice over the winter and spring of 1851-52, along with some in Verona. “Daguerreotype apparatus” was an important part of his luggage, and although Hobbs was “in great confusion and discomfiture with his daguerreotype” on 2 April 1852 (letter to John James Ruskin), he was “daguerreotyping very busily” by the 25th. Hobbs left Ruskin’s service in 1852, and later plates are credited to his successor Frederick Crawley, including further Alpine studies acceptably dated to 1854-56. Other Swiss scenes in Ruskin’s collection presumably date from the tours of 1854, 1856 and 1858, by which time the daguerreotype process had become effectively obsolete.

Ruskin’s connections with photography did not end entirely at this point, but he would never again show the same affection for the almost magical capture of natural truths which Louis Daguerre’s process had seemed to present. Instead, he stuck steadfastly to their even more miraculous interpretation by his artistic idol, J.M.W. Turner. “Fifteen years ago,” he told Julia Margaret Cameron in a letter of 1868, “I knew everything that the photograph could and could not do; – I have long since ceased to take the slightest interest in it, my attention being wholly fixed upon the possibility of wresting luminous decomposition which literally paints with sunlight – no chemist has yet succeeded in doing this – if they do, the results WILL be precious in their own way.”

Venice & Verona Ruskin’s serious enthusiasm for the daguerreotype began in Venice in 1845, on his third visit. By his own account, in letters to his father, he bought a substantial number of Venetian subjects from “a poor Frenchman”: these he thought “glorious things. It is very nearly the same thing as carrying off the palace itself; every chip and stone and stain is there”. Venice and Verona subjects account for nearly half of the more than 300 daguerreotypes made or bought by Ruskin. These were not just permanent records or visual reminders of cities dear to Ruskin’s heart: they also provided valuable material in support of arguably his most important achievement as a writer on art and architecture, the three volumes of The Stones of Venice (1851-53). Ruskin had acquired daguerreotype equipment by the time of his first sustained period of study of Venice in 1849-50, and

his manservant John Hobbs soon became a proficient photographer, working under Ruskin’s direction. Plates would have been made during this visit (November 1849 to March 1850) and in the later stay between September 1851 and June 1852. On both occasions he also visited Verona, which he later described as his “dearest place in Italy.” Effie Ruskin reported to her mother in a letter of 24 February 1850 that “John excites the liveliest astonishment to all and sundry in Venice and I do not think they have made up their minds yet whether he is very mad or very wise. Nothing interrupts him and whether the Square is crowded or empty he is either seen with a black cloth over his head taking Daguerreotypes or climbing about the capitals covered with dust”. Opposite Palazzo Bernardo a Polo,Venice c.1850-52 Daguerreotype (reversed image)

Castelbarco Tomb and Gate, Santa Anastasia, Verona c.1852 Daguerreotype (reversed image) The effigy of Count Guglielmo da Castelbarco (died 1320) sits beneath a stone canopy over a gate adjoining the church of Santa Anastasia, leading to the cemetery and cloister. Ruskin thought it “the most perfect Gothic sepulchral monument in the world” and “my most beloved throughout all the length and breadth of Italy” (The Stones of Venice, volume I). To him it seemed to encapsulate the particular quality of a Veronese, as opposed to Venetian, Gothic style.

Castelbarco Tomb, Verona 1869 or earlier Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour

The gateway leads to the cloister of Santa Anastasia, Verona (on the right), an adjoining convent (now a school of music) and on the left, the church of San Pietro Martire. The carefully drawn sign indicates that the convent was also a refuge for homeless children.

Morning at Venice, from the Giudecca 1845? Pencil, ink wash, watercolour and bodycolour on brown paper Inscribed in brown ink: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Venice from Giudecca Sept 13thâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

This watercolour is composed of a mixture of individual parts rather than representing a single actual view. The drawing is inscribed 13 September (but with no year given); Ruskin was in Venice on that day in 1845, a date which would suit the style of the work.

Tomb of Can Signorio, Verona, from the South-East c.1852 Daguerreotype (reversed image) “Close to this monument is another, the stateliest and most sumptuous of the three; it first arrests the eye of the stranger, and long detains it, – a many pinnacled pile, surrounded by niches with statues of the warrior saints. It is beautiful, for it still belongs to the noble time, the latter part of the fourteenth century; but its work is coarser than that of the other, and its pride may well prepare us to learn that it was built for himself, in his own lifetime, by the man whose statue crowns it, Can Signorio della Scala” (The Stones of Venice, volume III).

St Mark’s, Venice, South Façade: Detail and Tetrarch Sculpture c.1850-52 Daguerreotype (reversed image)

This is one of two attempts, doubtless made in the same session, to capture one of the most appealing parts of the basilica’s exterior, a stone bench on the south façade with decorative Byzantine sculpted panels above and the porphyry group at the corner known as the Tetrarchs (four

kings). Probably dating from the fourth century, it is likely to represent Diocletian and three other emperors.

The South Front of St Mark’s, with the Procuratie and the Clock Tower c.1845-52 Daguerreotype

This plate might be one of those bought by Ruskin in Venice in 1845, although it could also have been taken by John Hobbs. Figures do not usually feature in the daguerreotypes set by Ruskin, and appear only rarely in his mature drawings (from 1845 onwards). The image provides important evidence of the appearance

of the south side of the basilica of St Mark’s before its restoration in the 1870s. The clock tower dates from 1496-99, its wings added in 1506. To the left is part of the large mass of the Procuratie Vecchie (offices of the Procurators in charge of the fabric of St Mark’s), reconstructed after a fire in 1512.

Tuscany The Ruskin Library holds 28 daguerreotype plates of architectural subjects in Pisa, Lucca, Pistoia, Florence and Siena – cities in the central Italian region of Tuscany. These seem to have once been kept in a mahogany box bearing a title plate engraved TUSCANY 1846. The daguerreotypes evidently acquired in 1846 were valued highly by Ruskin, and were to prove useful as aids to his writings. Several of the etched illustrations to The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1849, echo motifs from details of buildings in Florence, Pistoia and Lucca.

While each of these etchings was made from Ruskin’s own drawings, the daguerreotypes would also have been to hand as additional evidence. As Ruskin had written to the artist Samuel Prout at the end of the 1846 tour, “they are of course more valuable than any sketch can be in the way of information, and on this journey I have considered all my sketches merely as memorandums.”

Above Campanile and cloister, San Francesco, Pisa (detail), 1845 Pencil, black and brown ink, watercolour and bodycolour Opposite West Façade, Santa Maria della Spina, Pisa (detail) c.1846 Daguerreotype

Cathedral of San Martino, Lucca 1882 Pencil and bodycolour Inscribed in brown ink: ‘J.R. Lucca 30th Sept. 82’ Other than Venice and Verona, Lucca was the Italian city that meant most to Ruskin, its cathedral of San Martino containing his favourite piece of sculpture, the tomb of Ilaria del Caretto. Newly revealed on the back of this drawing is a more detailed study of the early thirteenth-century arcaded gable, which had provided an illustration for The Seven Lamps 28

of Architecture (1849). The reference in the inscription is to a watercolour commissioned from the American artist Henry Roderick Newman, completed in 1885 for the Guild of St George museum in Sheffield. Façade of Lucca Cathedral c.1846 Daguerreotype Ruskin thought the façade of San Martino (the Cathedral) less impressive than that of the church of San Michele, being too wide in proportion to a height lacking a fourth row of arches.

Campanile and cloister, San Francesco, Pisa 1845 Pencil, black and brown ink, watercolour and bodycolour

This drawing has been identified as a depiction of the campanile and cloister of San Francesco, Pisa. In his autobiography Praeterita, Ruskin recalled it as â&#x20AC;&#x153;exquisite in its arched perspective and central garden, and

noble in its unbuttressed height of belfry tower.â&#x20AC;? The odd perspective, unusual for Ruskin, is probably a result of hurry combined with an attempt to include in one image two sides of the cloister as well as the tower.

Tomb of Ilaria del Caretto, Duomo, Lucca Cathedral c.1846 Daguerreotype Certain individual works of art held great personal resonance for Ruskin, and he would return to them again and again without any lessening of enthusiasm. One such was a marble tomb in the Cathedral at Lucca, carved by Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438). Commemorating a young woman named Ilaria del Caretto, who died in 1400, in his own words this serene image “became at once, and has ever since remained, my ideal of Christian sculpture.” Probably commissioned from a professional photographer, this is the only known daguerreotype of sculpture in Ruskin’s collection.

Tomb of Ilaria del Caretto, Duomo, Lucca Cathedral c. 1874 Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour Ruskin made a number of drawings of the Ilaria tomb, mostly on his return to the city in 1874. In one of his Slade Lectures in Oxford later that year, devoted to the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, he not only praised the workmanship but made a typical judgement on the moral beauty of the monument: â&#x20AC;&#x153;this statue of the lady of Caretto marks for you not only the time of perfect law in art, but of perfect law in life; only such a [virtuous] woman can ever have had such a tomb.â&#x20AC;?

West Façade, Santa Maria della Spina, Pisa c.1846 Daguerreotype The Chapel of the ‘Spina’ (housing a relic said to be from Christ’s crown of thorns), nestling on the south bank of the river Arno, is one of the principal landmarks of medieval Pisa. On his second visit, in 1845, Ruskin was horrified to hear rumours of its proposed demolition. He made drawings of its carved details, and on his return worked up from a second daguerreotype a large watercolour later presented to the St George’s Guild museum at Sheffield.

Duomo and Campanile, Florence c.1846 Daguerreotype Begun by the famous artist Giotto in 1334 and completed by 1359, the Campanile (bell tower) of Florence Cathedral was described by Ruskin as “the model and mirror of perfect architecture”. He had originally thought it “merely smooth and finished”, but close observation in 1845 (from rooms overlooking the Cathedral) caused a change of mind. In The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), he described Giotto’s campanile as ”an exquisite instance of the union of the two principles, delicate bas-reliefs adorning its massy foundations, while the open tracery of the upper windows attracts the eye by its slender intricacy, and a rich cornice crowns the whole.”

France Some 35 daguerreotypes of identifiable architectural subjects in Rouen, Rheims and Chartres survive from Ruskin’s collection. During a tour of Northern France in 1848, Ruskin’s wife Effie wrote that the constant encounter with insensitive architectural restoration “distresses John exceedingly and he was very busy during the week we spent in Rouen taking sketches of some of the most valuable parts and getting a number of Daguerreotypes taken.” These studies were put to immediate use in The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in the following year and illustrated with etchings made by Ruskin himself. “So far as their coarseness and rudeness admit,” he noted in the Preface, the illustrations were still valuable, “being either copies of memoranda made upon the spot, or enlarged and adapted from Daguerreotypes, taken under my own superintendence.”

Many of the French daguerreotypes date from around 1854, when Ruskin travelled to France with his manservant Frederick Crawley. They spent a week at Rouen in May, when Ruskin seems to have supervised the making of some twenty plates. He included Chartres and Paris on the same trip, in May and September respectively. Ruskin visited Paris again in 1856, when he also visited Rheims and Strasbourg, subjects of other daguerreotypes. Some of Ruskin’s French daguerreotypes show their subjects in reverse, while others show views as they would have appeared to the eye: the reasons for this variation are not fully understood.

Above Wooden angel, Chartres c. 1866 Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour Inscribed in pencil on former mount: ‘Wooden angel face broken off / Chartres’ Opposite Chartres Cathedral, Central Porch and Door c.1854 Daguerreotype

Chartres: Cathedral and old houses c. 1866 Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour Ruskin visited Chartres less often than some of his favourite towns and cities of Picardy and Normandy, but still always considered its Cathedral “the grandest in France”. Its chief attraction was the wonderfully preserved medieval stained glass. He was also able to find decorative sculpture elsewhere in the town, as shown in his study of a carved wooden bracket on an old house (see page 35). The characteristic blue paper on which these studies are made was typically used by Ruskin on later trips abroad, and both may date from a fleeting visit on 2 May 1866. His diary for the following day records walking in Chartres in a “cold wind, with warmish sun and flying showers.”

St Maclou, Rouen, Porch c.1854 Daguerreotype (image reversed) Apart from two street scenes, there are only two Ruskin daguerreotypes of Rouen not of the Cathedral: both are of the grand late Gothic church of St Maclou, begun in 1436. This shows the richly-carved tympanum (portal sculpture) which depicts the Last Judgement. In Ruskin’s words, “the sculpture of the Inferno side is carried out with a degree of power whose fearful grotesqueness I can only describe as a mingling of the minds of Orcagna and Hogarth” (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849).

Rheims Cathedral, Façade: North Portal, St Denis and Angels c.1856 Daguerreotype

Ruskin visited Rheims on early tours in 1835 and 1840, but not again until 1856, which is the probable date of this daguerreotype. All four of the known Rheims subjects are of the portals of the main façade. His youthful impression was of ‘heavy’ architecture and carving ‘not rich’, but he later included the Cathedral in a list of the best Gothic: ‘no thirteenthcentury work in Italy is comparable for

majesty of conception, or wealth of imaginative detail, to the Cathedrals of Chartres, Rheims, Rouen, Amiens, Lincoln, Peterborough, Wells, or Lichfield’ (Modern Painters, volume IV, 1856).

St Sauveur, Caen 1848 or later Pencil and wash On their deferred honeymoon in northern France, John and Effie Ruskin travelled from Mont St Michel to Coutances, St Lô and Bayeux before reaching Caen on 22 September 1848, moving on to Rouen for the first two weeks of October. Ruskin’s architectural drawing had been well honed in Italy, especially Venice, since 1845, and on this part of the tour he made several elaborate studies at each place, concentrating on carved details of this kind. Niches at St Lô were later used to illustrate The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), as examples of the “vital energy” and natural flow of Gothic architecture.

Rouen Cathedral, Lady Chapel c.1854 Daguerreotype (image reversed) There are twenty known daguerreotypes of Rouen Cathedral from Ruskinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection, mostly attributable to his manservant Frederick Crawley and probably made during a weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stay in May 1854. This is the only plate of the Lady Chapel and compositionally one of the most interesting.

St Wulfran, Abbeville, detail of carved figures on south porch 1868 Pencil, ink, ink wash and bodycolour As early as 1853, in The Stones of Venice, Ruskin declared that St Wulfran’s ‘southern lateral door is one of the most exquisite pieces of flamboyant Gothic in the world’. Its tall pointed arch surmounted by an elaborately carved gable is flanked by near life-size carvings of saints. Being of soft stone and in a damp climate, each statue, “instead of being freely exposed to sun and storm, as in Greece – has its little canopy well projecting over it, and the niche becomes as important as the statue”.

Light in the West, Beauvais c. 1854 Pencil, ink, ink wash and bodycolour Engraved as Plate 66 of Modern Painters, volume V, 1860

In Modern Painters, Ruskin makes a remarkable attempt at drawing up laws of perspective for clouds: â&#x20AC;&#x153;In [this] sketch of an actual sunset behind Beauvais cathedral (the point of the roof of the apse, a little to the left of the centre, shows it to be a summer sunset), the white cirri in the high light are all moving eastward, away from the sun, in perfectly parallel lines, curving a little round to the southâ&#x20AC;?.

Old Houses and tower, Rouen 1840 Pencil, ink, watercolour and bodycolour This drawing is consistent in style and technique with others made on the long winter tour of 184041 undertaken by Ruskin, with his parents, for the benefit of his health. One of their first stops, at the end of September 1840, was at Rouen. To the crumbly architectural details in pencil and ink, dabs of white highlight are skilfully added, along with broad washes, in a manner associated with topographical artists such as David Roberts (1796-1864).

Rouen Cathedral, Façade c.1854 Daguerreotype (image reversed) Ruskin saw the elaborate late fourteenth-century tracery on the façade of Rouen Cathedral as a turning point in Gothic architecture – ‘the substitution of the line for the mass, as the element of decoration’ (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849). Having a particular taste for the style called either Decorated or Flamboyant, he declared it “the noblest manner of Northern Gothic.”

Opposite Rouen Cathedral, Lady Chapel (detail) c.1854 Daguerreotype (image reversed)

Switzerland Ruskin’s Swiss daguerreotypes cover the whole period of his use of the process. Entries in his diary, and in that of his manservant John Hobbs, confirm that photographs were being made at Chamonix in the summer of 1849. Hobbs tells us that “as I had my arms full with the Daguerreotype machinery it was no joke I assure you, jumping from stone to stone”. It was also Hobbs who would have taken what Ruskin later proudly described as “the first image of the Matterhorn, as also of the aiguilles of Chamouni, ever drawn by the sun”, that is, ever photographed. Throughout the 1850s Ruskin continued to make use of daguerreotypes when composing literary works including The Stones of Venice (1851-53) and Modern Painters (volumes III-V, 1854-60). A projected history of Switzerland, to be illustrated with engravings, provided further incentive for work in Thun and Rheinfelden, the small town on

the northern border with Germany which Ruskin discovered had been drawn by his artistic idol J.M.W. Turner. A summer tour of 1858 took Ruskin and his servant Frederick Crawley – whose name appears on several of the Swiss daguerreotypes – to Bellinzona, then on to Arona and Turin. By this time the medium had become effectively obsolete, and to this year belong the last of Ruskin’s known daguerreotypes.

Above Red Tower, Fribourg c. 1854-56 Daguerreotype Opposite Red Tower, Fribourg c. 1854-56 Pencil, ink and watercolour

Aiguilles, Chamonix (Le Grépon, Aiguille de Blaitière, Aiguille du Plan) 1854 Daguerreotype Inscribed in pencil on mount, verso: ‘The Aiguilles in Chamonix / Savoy / 1854 / F Crawley’ 48

The profile of these Alps, perhaps taken from this daguerreotype, was used by Ruskin in Modern Painters, volume IV (1856), illustrating the chapter on ‘Aiguilles,’ where he likens them to a castle wall with buttresses.

This is one of several plates carrying an inscription by Ruskin’s manservant Frederick Crawley.

Chamonix: Mont Blanc from the Aiguille Bouchard 1844 Pencil and watercolour

Among Ruskin’s finest drawings of the Alps are the very direct studies he made of mountain peaks (‘aiguilles’ meaning ‘needles’), especially those around Mont Blanc. Long stays at Chamonix in 1844 and 1849 gave

rise to more than sixty drawings of a similar type – clear pencil outline, with a little wash for depth, and sometimes highlights in opaque white pigment.

Houses on the Rhine, Rheinfelden 1858 Daguerreotype

“Rheinfelden – an old Swiss town, seventeen miles above Basle, celebrated in Swiss history as the main fortress defending the frontier toward the Black Forest” (Modern Painters, volume V, 1860). Ruskin discovered the town during his tour of 1858, pursuing sites drawn by Turner. He was surprised to find it much smaller than Turner had made it appear – only

“one street and a few lanes” – but was delighted by its exceptionally wellpreserved walls, towers and covered bridge. This view shows the backs of the houses lining the main street, the Marktgasse, with the Messerturm in the distance.

Window and Balcony, Piazza Collegiata, Bellinzona 1858 Daguerreotype This image was engraved by R.P. Cuff as part of the frontispiece to The Two Paths (1859), under the title Ironwork of Bellinzona. Ruskin praised the “very quaint and beautiful” balconies in Bellinzona: “noble in ironwork, they would have been entirely ignoble in marble … The real plant of oleander standing in the window enriches the whole group of lines very happily”.

Houses and Pont de Berne, Fribourg c. 1854-56 Daguerreotype

This is one of several studies of houses on the river. A detailed drawing by Ruskin of 1859 in the British Museum includes the buildings and covered bridge, together with the local well still further to the left.

Thun 1854 Pencil, ink, watercolour and bodycolour on two joined sheets Both sheets inscribed in black ink, verso: ‘Thun. JR’ Although Murray’s Handbook for travellers in Switzerland described Thun as “a very curious old town [which] contains within its walls nothing especially worthy of notice”, Ruskin always liked the place. This was partly for its associations with Turner, who had painted several watercolours of scenes around the lake of Thun, but also for its simplicity. In Ruskin’s diary for 24 June 1854, he recorded “a lovely walk this afternoon through the streets of Thun in the balmy air, all the people at their windows, looking happy and quaint, and full of interest”. 53

The Ruskin Library The Ruskin Library holds the largest single collection of material – including 125 daguerreotypes – relating to John Ruskin’s work, his interests and his associates. At its core is the collection formed by John Howard Whitehouse (1873-1955), Liberal M.P. from 1910 to 1918 and founder of Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight. As Secretary of the Ruskin Society of Birmingham, he was deputed to deliver a loyal address from various institutions to Ruskin at Brantwood, Coniston, on his eightieth birthday on 8 February 1899. After Ruskin’s death in January 1900, Whitehouse became the pivotal figure in the preservation of his memory and reputation, editing the Ruskin Society’s magazine Saint George and organising centenary celebrations in 1919. At Bembridge School, founded in the same year, he began to assemble a collection of drawings, books, manuscripts and archive material, which was hugely 54

expanded with purchases made after the Brantwood sale of 1931; he bought the house itself soon afterwards. Both Brantwood and the collection are vested in the educational trust established by Whitehouse in 1921. When Bembridge School closed in 1996, the collection was brought to Lancaster University as the focus of academic use and research, under the aegis of the Ruskin Foundation. Support from the Heritage Lottery Fund made possible the building of the Ruskin Library, designed by Sir Richard MacCormac and opened by Princess Alexandra in 1998. Three exhibitions a year are held in its public galleries, and in addition to welcoming readers from around the world, its small staff continues to work on providing access to the collection through electronic cataloguing, digitisation projects and publications, as part of the Ruskin Library and Research Centre.