Winter Scene
Item
Title
Winter Scene
Creator
Attributed to John Ruskin
English, 1819–1900
English, 1819–1900
Materials
Ink, watercolor, and gouache
Description
John Ruskin was a prolific and influential writer on a wide range of subjects throughout much of the nineteenth century—he published his first article, on the coloration of the Rhine in a natural history journal, when he was just 15 years old, in 1835. He was keenly interested in art, and he regularly focused his attention, particularly early in his career, on the significance of British watercolors. The interest extended to painting. Ruskin took lessons while still a teenager with Copley Fielding, and later, in his last year at Oxford, studied with James Duffield Harding. The appeal, though, was not so much professional—he never sold his work—as it was academic. Ruskin, it seems, felt in constant need of accurately recording his visual experiences.
The small watercolors on view here have likely been culled from what must have been hundreds of sketchbooks in which Ruskin transcribed the myriad of subjects, from a single leaf to whole city blocks, that attracted his eye over the course of his travels. It’s been suggested, but yet to be confirmed, that Winter Scene may have been drawn during one of the artist’s many visits to the Lake District in northwest England.
The small watercolors on view here have likely been culled from what must have been hundreds of sketchbooks in which Ruskin transcribed the myriad of subjects, from a single leaf to whole city blocks, that attracted his eye over the course of his travels. It’s been suggested, but yet to be confirmed, that Winter Scene may have been drawn during one of the artist’s many visits to the Lake District in northwest England.
Source
Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Struble
Identifier
UC 81.11
Rights
This image is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. Other uses are not permitted.