Status Updates From Lectures on Architecture an...

Raphael’s works mark the separation between Medievalism and Modernism. As taught by John Ruskin.
‘In mediæval art, thought is the first thing, execution the second; in modern art execution is the first thing, and thought the second. … in mediæval art, truth is first, beauty second; … The mediæval principles led up to Raphael, and the modern principles lead down from him.’

‘… he always did his best. He never let a drawing leave his hands without having made a step in advance, and having done better in it than he had ever done before.’
He is William Turner—Joseph Mallord William Turner. He knows so well that his work is his passion and that he has nothing to do with his purchasers.
‘… his advance in power and grasp of thought was steady as the increasing light of sunrise.’

‘… then, if it is thus wrong to waste the time of the living, it must be still more wrong to waste the time of the dead; for the living can redeem their time, the dead cannot. But you waste the best of the time of the dead when you destroy the works they have left you; for to those works they gave the best of their time, intending them for immortality.’

There is an absolute right and wrong in all art, and try to find out the right, and like that.

Considering the times, his lectures are insightful. Unlike modern society with its world influence of varying beliefs, in Ruskin's world, there is no question that Christianity is the answer, and his analysis of ancient art vs. modern art. Thus, it's interesting reading about his insight into gothic architecture. Interesting - Beauty vs. Truth, considering that Beauty and Truth are relative. Are they objective?

His focus is on gothic architecture, which is fine by me, since I love the structure. Good explanation of form, function and aesthetics. I see that there will be more Turner in the second half.

2/2

In the small Room 15 in the National Gallery in Ldn, hang T's "Dido building Carthage" and his “Sun Rising through Vapour” and C's "Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba" and “Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca”. In his bequest and will, Turner asked for these two paintings of his to be hung together with those two of Claude at the National Gallery.

Was Ruskin upset?

1/2

"in order to provoke comparison between Claude and himself, Turner published a series of engravings, called he "Liber Studiorum" executed in exactly the same manner as these drawings of Claude".

I find it very funny the way Ruskin loathes 17th and 18th century landscape painting.

Okay, finally got the correct work by Rushkin. Read about 20 pages of another set of lectures (which were quite interesting and informative, I'm primed to read this now just based on that) only to find later that they were the Oxford lectures he gave and not th Edinburgh lectures.

"Turner, therefore, was the first man who presented us with the type of perfect landscape art: and the richness of that art, with which you are at present surrounded, and which enables you to open your walls as it were into so many windows, through which you can see whatever has charmed you in the fairest scenery of your country, you will do well to remember as Turneresque."

I am reading this in e-format. I should look for a printed version with illustrations.

End of Lecture I.

He does not foresee that iron and glass will be used in architecture in the future. He says this in 1853, or two years after the Great Exhibition in London for which the Crystal Palace was built, and which caused such a sensation.