Go to Nature ...

[Ruskin in his study]

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"Go to Nature in all her singleness of heart,

and walk with her laboriously and trustingly,

having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning,

and remember her instruction,

rejecting nothing,

selecting nothing and scorning nothing;

believing all things to be right and good,

and rejoicing always in the truth."

John Ruskin - Modern Painters, vol I (1843)

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The art critic John Ruskin was a major influence on the PR's. Born in 1819 (the same year as Queen Victoria) and lived till 1900 he defined the aesthetic aspirations of the period. He was obsessed with the idea of Nature and trained in the sciences - principally biology, mineralogy and geology and in the arts, becoming particularly proficient at drawing, producing his important

[Trees in a Lane, Ambleside] 1847
The Elements of Drawing in 1857
http://ruskin.ashmolean.museum/
He was also very interested in architecture. He had what can only be called a moral view that workmanship was most important and reached its height in Gothic Art and pondered how this could be revived in the new Industrial Age.
Turner was his hero and for him represented how Nature should be represented in its minute observation nut also painted with passion. In 1843 he ublished the first volume in his Modern Painters, inspired by Turner but already looking foward to the theories of the Pre Raphaelites. Nature was the foundation of any creative process.
to be continued ...