Review of “Ruskin Artist and Observer”- National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa)

April 26, 2014 

                I took a day trip to Ottawa to see the Ruskin Artist and Observer exhibition at the National Gallery before it returned overseas. As a scholar who has devoted a lot of time writing and researching about Ruskin, his life, and his works, it was an absolute necessity that I see this before it closes and I am glad that I did.

                The exhibition, which is a collection of over 140 drawings and watercolours, is superbly curated and speaks to the many aspects of Ruskin as an artist, scholar, social thinker, and critic. Throughout the exhibition the purpose of Ruskin’s drawings and work is emphasized: Ruskin drew to observe and to learn from his surroundings- Ruskin did not draw for the work to be exhibited. In fact one of the things that struck me as I entered the first room was how much Ruskin would have absolutely hated that this was all collected here for the public to see.

                The curators of course know this and started the collection with Ruskin’s “Self-Portrait, in Blue Neckcloth.” [Link ] There in the first room is Ruskin staring at you with his contempt, questioning why you are here, you who know that he would not approve. To be able to see this portrait and be in proximity of the piercing blue eyes was truly a moment. It was an instant that emphasized the reliance on sight that Ruskin professed throughout his career (“To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one” (Modern Painters)). The portrait has some sort of mystical power that had me returning to it over and over again because there was something unsettling there, as though I had to pay homage or repent my sins. I returned to the portrait after I had finished the exhibit, and after I had gone to another part of the gallery to see J.M.W. Turner’s “Mercury and Argus.” [Link] (For a day about Ruskin is not complete without a little Turner).  Each time I saw something different in Ruskin’s portrait. Each time that physical compulsion that Ruskin had in his own work: “I should like to draw all St. Mark’s and all this Verona, stone by stone, to eat it all up into my mind, touch by touch” (letter to his father dated June 2, 1852) (Newall 20-21)- was renewed.

                For all the emphasis on the vision and sight, there is very much a melding of the senses seen in Ruskin’s drawings. Touch in particular seems to have this consuming power; that through his pencil, his pen he can become one with the landscapes he is recreating. These drawings are mediated products of this union with nature- it is at once a time-specific observation of what is around him as well as a removed reflection of what is seen. This is especially true of his drawings of a geological nature and the mountains he has seen.  The two drawings that really stood out for me in all of Ruskin’s drawings of mountains in the exhibition are “The Glacier des Bossons, Chamonix” [Link] and “Studies of Alpine Peaks” [Link ]

                “The Glacier des Bossons, Chamonix” which was drawn in 1849 is laden with detail. The glacier’s movement seems tangible in the background and in turn frames the detail of the cottages in the foreground. Every part of the sepia-toned scene seems alive.  His “Studies of Alpine Peaks” juxtaposes time, place and space as Ruskin plays with the light and shade that he has encountered with these mountain peaks at various times.  Each peak is labeled and the observer can see the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between each attempt at drawing the peaks.

                Ruskin’s attention to detail and the ethics of minutiae is best seen in his “Byzantine Capitals, Convex Group, for ‘The Stones of Venice.’” [Link] After the self-portrait at the beginning of the exhibition, this study of Byzantine Capitals was another breath-taking piece, where there is so much beauty in such a small surface area. In particular what caught my eye was the attention to detail in the last capital of the second row (number 6). Here Ruskin is depicting a capital seen at St. Mark’s Basilica, and the representation of texture and plumage had me staring at that particular capital at length trying to figure out just how long it took him to recreate.

                Architecture is something that is integral to Ruskin’s critique of art and his drawings of buildings (or parts of buildings) are as true to his observational mode as his pictures of mountains and nature. “Merton College and Magpie Lane” [Link] a graphite drawing with bodycolour done in 1838, brings a scene from Oxford to life. The two scholars in the distance are dwarfed by the immensity of the chapel spires of the college. This particular drawing has a very real Hardyian Jude the Obscure feel to it for me (though this was completed more than 60 years before Jude  was published). Here is Ruskin mapping out the imposing structures of academia (literally and symbolically) in relation to those who aspire to be part of this structure.

                The possibility innate in lanes as part of our everyday landscapes is also revisited in Ruskin’s “Trees in a Lane.” [Link] The study of trees done in 1847 comes complete with Ruskin’s directive “best way of studying trees, with a view to knowledge of their leafage.” Everything in Ruskin’s drawings is with a view to knowledge, his art is about observation and learning as the title of the exhibition suggests. The detail of each type of tree allows the observer to understand the different types of trees and what shade and light is required to capture those differences. The lane to the right of the trees leads the observer’s eye away from the seat of nature to one of possibility and depth. Together this study is a stunning example of Ruskin’s work as an observer of nature, architecture, and humanity.

                The exhibition ends where it began, in a full-circle homage to Ruskin and his work with another self-portrait. This self-portrait done in 1874 [Link] at the request of colleague and friend Charles Eliot Norton, is a representation of the dichotomies at work in Ruskin. Norton notoriously wrote “not a good likeness” on the back of the portrait when he received it as a gift. However, the play of shadow and light highlights the two very real sides of Ruskin that this exhibition has emphasized- Ruskin the artist and Ruskin the observer. This exhibition is truly moving and rewarding, not only for those interested in Ruskin or the Victorian era, but for those who understand the need and complexity of the sensory and observation in our everyday world. Please do yourself a favour and go see it before it goes back across the pond.

Ruskin Artist and Observer is on at the National Gallery of Canada until May 11, 2014. It will be at the National Gallery of Scotland from July 4 to September 28, 2014.

Work Cited

Newall, Christopher. John Ruskin Artist and Observer. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2014. Print.