Zermatt
Watercolour
1844 (painted)
1844 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
John Ruskin was an art critic as well as an artist. He advised painters to go directly to nature, 'rejecting nothing, selecting nothing'. This scene of Zermatt, Switzerland, is a carefully recorded view. Ruskin visited Switzerland in the summer of 1844 with his parents.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Zermatt (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Watercolour |
| Brief description | Watercolour 'Zermatt' by John Ruskin, painted in Switzerland, 1844 |
| Physical description | Ruskin conveys the different forms of the slopes, from the lower gently grassed pastures dotted with small chalets, past the densely wooded hillside, to the glaciers and jagged summits. The cursory watercolour treatment of the foreground buildings serves to emphasise the delicate observation of the distant mountains. Painting directly from nature - 'rejecting nothing, selecting nothing' - was to be his advice to the young Pre-Raphaelites seven years later. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Object history | In the summer of 1844, Ruskin visited Switzerland with his parents, and arrived in Zermatt, about ten miles from the Matterhorn, early in August. Although he visited Zermatt again in August 1849, he was by that date more interested in the geological structure of the mountains rather than, as here, in the careful record of a view and, important too for the Pre-Raphaelites, the clear light and atmosphere. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Place depicted | |
| Summary | John Ruskin was an art critic as well as an artist. He advised painters to go directly to nature, 'rejecting nothing, selecting nothing'. This scene of Zermatt, Switzerland, is a carefully recorded view. Ruskin visited Switzerland in the summer of 1844 with his parents. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | P.15-1921 |
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| Record created | December 15, 1999 |
| Record URL |
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