Personalities

Abstract

Ruskin’s tour of 1845 did not end with the early masters of Florence.In July he moved up to the mountains, then on, slowly, through Italy, with J. D. Harding as his sketching companion for some of the journey. He spent five weeks in Venice, where he embarked on what was to be one of the major undertakings of his life, the study of Venetian architecture. Again he was horrified at the state of the city — ‘monuments torn down and pavements up, the cloisters everywhere turned into barracks or repainted barracks or repainted …’¹ St Mark’s captivated him, even though the carving of the capitals, each different from the others, had been blurred by an acid used to clear them. He spent a frustrating day in a gondola drawing the intricate details of the Ca’d’Oro palace (plate 4a) while workmen were hammering away the mouldings; and when he managed to obtain some daguerreotypes of the palaces he had been trying to draw, he was delighted. Unlike many of his fellow artists, who regarded the new invention as a threatening rival to their efforts, Ruskin saw it as a welcome ally. ‘Daguerreotypes taken by this vivid sunlight are glorious things. It is very nearly the same thing as carrying off the palace itself.’²