John Ruskin at 200

[Serial_Apologist]

This being the bi-centenary of John Ruskin's birth - his years almost exactly coincided with Queen Victoria's - the Friends of Ruskin Park, located right next door to Kings College Hospital, in Camberwell, have organised a number of commemorative events, including an exhibition in the Herne Hill Carnegie Library. Today's event was a guided walk through Ruskin Park to the sites of the two homes where Ruskin lived, at the start of his life and towards the end, led by the excellent Jon Newman, who has written several books on the district including one of the River Effra.

We learned that a puritanical sheltered upbringing helped to predispose Ruskin to a dislike for the Victorian London he saw spreading around him, which on the one hand could be seen as nimbyism par excellence, but on the other hand as an aesthete's disdain for what he saw as cheapened quality and workmanship, appalment at the deskilling brought about by mass production methods, and fears about the destruction of the natural environment, chiming in with present-day concerns.

The walk ended at the place where the second of Ruskin's homes in Herne Hill had been, since the 1950s a row of council flats lining Denmark Hill on its eastern side, where we learned he and his family kept a cellar full of fine wines and sherries with the Domecq label. Whereupon a lady figure floated into view from across the street, bearing a trayful of mini measures of a pale sherry, which were handed to all present - a delightful and most unexpected conclusion to a fairly exhausting hour and a half walk in the hot sunshine!

[gradus]

I remember Ruskin Park from childhood and it sounds a very enjoyable walk, did you ever visit Ruskin's house on Coniston? Years ago I bought three very tatty volumes of The Stones of Venice; I've never managed to read the whole thing but the drawings are excellent!

[gurnemanz]

Reminded me that a few years ago on a visit to Venice we randomly came upon the pensione where Ruskin stayed. Just checked my photos - it's La Calcina on the Zattere waterfront opposite Giudecca island. I found a photo of some chaps adding a wreath to his plaque on the front of the building to celebrate his anniversary.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Ruskin’s house Brantwood on the shores of Coniston is well worth a visit as they say. Idly Googling I see that the somewhat expensive Calcina restaurant does a Ruskin pizza for 19.5 Euros....

[Serial_Apologist]

I remember Ruskin Park from childhood and it sounds a very enjoyable walk, did you ever visit Ruskin's house on Coniston? Years ago I bought three very tatty volumes of The Stones of Venice; I've never managed to read the whole thing but the drawings are excellent!

Actually no - haven't visited Coniston since I was a child - but that house did get mentioned as one of Ruskin's "excapes".

[Serial_Apologist]

Ruskin’s house Brantwood on the shores of Coniston is well worth a visit as they say. Idly Googling I see that the somewhat expensive Calcina restaurant does a Ruskin pizza for 19.5 Euros....

[un barbu]

Ruskin certainly vented his spleen on the area: "The ghastly squalor of the once lovely fields of Dulwich, trampled into mud, and strewn with rags and paper by the filthy London population, bred in cigar smoke, which is attracted by the Crystal Palace, would alone neutralize all possible gentlemanly education there." ('Fors Clavigera', Letter 67, July 1876)

But vide also Samuel Palmer: "Note that when you go to Dulwich it is not enough on coming to make recollections in which shall be united the scattered parts about those sweet fields into a sentimental and Dulwich-looking whole. No. But considering Dulwich as the gate into the world of vision one must try behind the hills to bring up a mystic glimmer like that which lights our dreams. And those same hills, (hard task) should give us promise that the country beyond them is paradise." (From a sketchbook, 1824).

And I should declare an interest having been a member of the Dulwich College Common Room for some 20 years until my retirement.

[un barbu]

I had hoped that my comment suprs might have led to more comments anent Ruskin et al and attitudes to popular culture. I'm sorry if it put the kybosh on the thread, especially if my revelation that I was a latter day Mr King [See 'Stalky & Co'] did for it. I can only apologise.

[Old Grumpy]

I had hoped that my comment suprs might have led to more comments anent Ruskin et al and attitudes to popular culture. I'm sorry if it put the kybosh on the thread, especially if my revelation that I was a latter day Mr King [See 'Stalky & Co'] did for it. I can only apologise.

Don't worry, M. Barbu, you are one who has the magic touch

It happens to me from time to time too.

OG

(Barbu aussi)

[vinteuil]

I had hoped that my comment suprs might have led to more comments anent Ruskin et al ...

.

... sorry not to have chipped in so far. I've lived with Ruskin for half my life, lugging around the 39 vols of the Cook & Wedderburn edn for the last twenty five years. I haven't looked at him in depth, tho', for quite a few years - nowadays he irritates me more often than he rewards. But recently I was dipping in to to the opening paras of his description of Torcello - and, boy, he could write :


§ 1. SEVEN miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea. One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some time among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened with webs of fucus, stays itself in an utterly stagnant pool beside a plot of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey; not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath, but lifeless, the colour of sackcloth, with the corrupted sea-water soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleaming hither and thither through its snaky channels. No gathering of fantastic mists, nor coursing of clouds across it; but melancholy clearness of space in the warm sunset, oppressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To the very horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north and west, there is a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this, but farther back, a misty band of mountains, touched with snow. To the east, the paleness and roar ofthe Adriatic, louder at momentary intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand; to the south, the widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost beneath our feet, on the same field which sustains the tower we gaze from, a group of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages (though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than the flat red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a considerable church with nave and aisles, but of which, in like manner, we can see little but the long central ridge and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea.

§ 2. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening branches of the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into which they gather, there are a multitude of towers, dark, and scattered among square-set shapes of clustered palaces, a long and irregular line fretting the southern sky.

Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their widowhood,-TORCELLO, and VENICE.



.

[gradus]

.

... sorry not to have chipped in so far. I've lived with Ruskin for half my life, lugging around the 39 vols of the Cook & Wedderburn edn for the last twenty five years. I haven't looked at him in depth, tho', for quite a few years - nowadays he irritates me more often than he rewards. But recently I was dipping in to to the opening paras of his description of Torcello - and, boy, he could write :

§ 1. SEVEN miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea. One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some time among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened with webs of fucus, stays itself in an utterly stagnant pool beside a plot of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound is built a rude brick campanile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey; not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath, but lifeless, the colour of sackcloth, with the corrupted sea-water soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleaming hither and thither through its snaky channels. No gathering of fantastic mists, nor coursing of clouds across it; but melancholy clearness of space in the warm sunset, oppressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To the very horizon, on the north-east; but, to the north and west, there is a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this, but farther back, a misty band of mountains, touched with snow. To the east, the paleness and roar ofthe Adriatic, louder at momentary intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand; to the south, the widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost beneath our feet, on the same field which sustains the tower we gaze from, a group of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages (though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than the flat red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a considerable church with nave and aisles, but of which, in like manner, we can see little but the long central ridge and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little company of ships becalmed on a far-away sea.

§ 2. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening branches of the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into which they gather, there are a multitude of towers, dark, and scattered among square-set shapes of clustered palaces, a long and irregular line fretting the southern sky.

Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their widowhood,-TORCELLO, and VENICE.



.

I have now actually read Ruskin on Venice, from The Sea Stories - preceding ch.to Torcello. Oh my word, it's wonderful although I think I would find him difficult to take in huge doses so will keep it down to half hours.
I wouldn't have done this without barbu and vinteuil's promptings for which many thanks.

[gurnemanz]

I have now actually read Ruskin on Venice, from The Sea Stories - preceding ch.to Torcello. Oh my word, it's wonderful although I think I would find him difficult to take in huge doses so will keep it down to half hours.
I wouldn't have done this without barbu and vinteuil's promptings for which many thanks.

That description of Torcello is evocative of what met our eyes when went there a few years ago. It was October with hazy grey sunshine ("a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey") and not that many visitors at that time of year. The "rude brick campanile" was under repair and covered with scaffolding and the nearby Burano island with its brightly painted fishermen's houses was almost deserted.

Thanks for the prompt to seek out more of his writings about Venice.

[Serial_Apologist]

A talk is to be given by author Suzane Fagence Cooper, titled Why Ruskin Matters, at the Herne Hill Carnegie Library, next Tuesday (12 November), hosted by the Friends of Ruskin Park, starting at 7pm:

http://eventbrite.co.uk/e/john-ruskin-at-200-why-ruskin-matters-tickets-62999037818

PM me if you're interesting in going.

[gradus]

A talk is to be given by author Suzane Fagence Cooper, titled Why Ruskin Matters, at the Herne Hill Carnegie Library, next Tuesday (12 November), hosted by the Friends of Ruskin Park, starting at 7pm:

http://eventbrite.co.uk/e/john-ruskin-at-200-why-ruskin-matters-tickets-62999037818

PM me if you're interesting in going.

I hope that you enjoy it and would like to join you but unfortunately can't get there but the book looks interesting and I'll ask the Ipswich Institute to get it.

[JasonPalmer]

I enjoyed a visit to Venice with a book that had modern photos with the text from Ruskin stones of Venice.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruskins-Venice-Stones-Revisited-New/dp/1848221797/

And I wrote a poem about Venice

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/venice-17/

Ruskin is an interesting character, he influenced many people and his utopian building ideas led on to many things we take for granted like free libraries,NHS,national insurance, national trust etc etc

Ruskinland is an excellent book on the subject

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruskinland-Andrew-Hill/dp/1843681757