Published Tuesday, January 1, 2008

In 1872, Albert Goodwin , among others, accompanied John Ruskin on a tour of Switzerland and Italy. For Goodwin, it was a seminal experience, perhaps the seminal experience of his career. Not only was it his first ever taste of foreign travel, but it was taken in the company of a writer expert in the subject of landscape painting. Seeing Europe with Ruskin helped him to define himself in terms of the critic's aesthetic, and so synthesize its Turnerian and Pre-Raphaelite elements in his own practice.

A knowledge of the tour, and of its affect on Goodwin, can now be further illumined by a sketchbook of drawings that the artist produced en route. The sketchbook drawings add helpful details to an understanding of both Goodwin's appreciation of the itinerary, and of the development of his working methods. This brief text rehearses that itinerary, giving a context for the sketches and so suggesting their importance both to the art of Goodwin and to a study of Ruskin.

The tour of 1872 was for Ruskin one in a series in which he examined the art and landscape so central to his writing, and also revived and reviewed feelings concerning his cultural and personal experience; for he first went abroad in 1825, at the age of six, and first visited Italy and Switzerland in 1832, at the age of thirteen. Most of the places that he and his party visited in 1872 had long been known and valued by him; he returned to them precisely because he wished to further explore their cultural riches, and explain them to others, both his companions on the tour, and his audiences and readers. Recently appointed as the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, he had need to prepare lectures on his chosen subject of the early Italian Renaissance. In order to deepen his knowledge, he would, in particular, examine the work of Botticelli against that of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, and make his first visit to Assisi.

At the same time, Ruskin had reasons to be away from England, and in sympathetic, supportive company. He had recently vacated one of his two family homes, that on Denmark Hill, and had not properly settled into Brantwood, his new property on Lake Coniston, in the Lake District. But far more emotionally disturbing was his relationship with, and love for, Rose La Touche, a hyper-anxious evangelical Irishwoman thirty years his junior. The silence that followed his proposal of marriage in 1866 had led to his breakdown in 1871, and continued to torture him; her attempt to revive contact with him, while he was in Venice, would bring his tour of 1872 to an abrupt end. And there was a backdrop to this emotional torment, provided by the aftermath of European war: the devastation of Paris and the unification and modernization of Italy emphasized the frailty of the civilization that Ruskin found so nurturing.

Ruskin financed, organised and aimed to control his tours of Europe. He chose his companions carefully, from among those who would provide him with comfort, and those whom he could help. His cousin, Joan Agnew, fitted both criteria. As he had once been her guardian, so she rapidly became his, her recent marriage to the painter Arthur Severn marking an outward maturity and independence. But she continued to depend on him for financial security, and it was he who enabled her to travel to Rome with her husband to meet her father-in-law, Joseph Severn. His relationships with the others on the tour, including Goodwin, were less fraught with complication. Mrs Kate Hilliard and her daughter Constance were close and reliable friends; Frederick Crawley a most trusted servant.

Ruskin's party left London on Friday 12 April; it probably traveled mostly by rail, via Dover, Calais and Paris (13 April), then down the Rhone Valley to Geneva (14 April). Ruskin had many fond memories of Geneva, especially as a centre for his impressive studies of geology and meteorology. These he had used to help himself understand and explain Turnerian topography, and now revived to encourage Goodwin. He noted in his diary (15 April) that 'Goodwin and Arthur [were] hard at work on my well known path, at the sunset over Bonneville' Severn later remembered that Ruskin had been 'anxious to take us for a drive up the Salève to get a view of Mont Blanc in the evening sunlight. The expedition was a great success: Mont Blanc behaved beautifully ... Goodwin and I did sketches on the spot.' However, the sketches from the book that are illustrated here were made by Goodwin at the following destinations, Annecy (16 April) and Chambéry (19 April). While Ruskin corrected the proofs of ,Elementary Drawing, his forthcoming manual, Goodwin worked independently on his elemental drawings. Though Severn remembered Ruskin 'in the best of spirits', Ruskin himself had noted the 'dismal inn, and more dismal morning' at Chambéry (20 April).

According to Ruskin it remained 'wet all the way to Turin' (20 April) and, though the skies brightened temporarily, a 'storm [broke] among Apennine to Genoa' (22 April), where 'dismal rain' continued to fall (23 April). Apart from a visit to the monastery of Superga, outside Turin (21 April), Ruskin and his party probably spent most time surveying the palace picture galleries; these included the Galleria Sabada, in Turin, where, in 1858, Ruskin had, in studying Veronese's Solomon and Sheba, undergone what he later described as his 'unconversion', an important shift in his belief from evangelicalism to a religion of humanity. Leaving Turin, they traveled along the coast to stay at Sestri Levante (23 April), the beauty of which only Ruskin appreciated; according to Severn, the others 'all rather rebelled. It was very hot; the windows of the hotel were not properly shut...; our sitting room was full of flies; the beach was dirty'. So they quickly moved on to La Spezia, arriving in moonlight (24 April), and next day exploring the valley and visiting an Italian warship (25 April). On leaving La Spezia for Pisa, Goodwin drew the Carrara Mountains, with their famous marble quarries, the material source for so many of the sculptures that Ruskin admired.

Santa Maria della Spina, Pisa

Ruskin had intended Pisa to be one of the more important stops on the journey, an exemplar of late mediaeval culture. On the first full day in the city (27 April), Ruskin took the party across the River Arno from the Hotel Victoria to look at Santa Maria della Spina, an exquisite chapel of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (built to house the sacred relic of a fragment of Christ's crown of thorns). However, he received his first great disappointment on finding that it was in the radical process of being demolished prior to rebuilding and restoration.

This experience would be repeated a few days later, when, on visiting Lucca (30 April-3 May), he discovered that Santa Maria della Rosa, to him the sister chapel to that in Pisa, was also under threat. In Pisa, he compensated by spending many hours making drawings, sometimes in the company of Goodwin and Severn, and sometimes alone; his records of such favourite buildings as the Palazzi Gambacorti and Guinigi, the Duomo and the Campo Santo, as well as the chapel itself, would be integrated into the Oxford lectures collected as Val d'Arno. In Lucca, he wrote prefaces to Christian Art and Symbolism by the Reverend St John Tyrwhitt and to his own lecture on Michelangelo and Tintoretto, as well as passages of Fors Clavigera, a long series of wilful, urgent, even prophetic public letters. When the party left Pisa for Florence (8 May), Goodwin sketched the fortified towns en route and the Ponte Vecchio on arrival. Followed by rain and wind, the party stayed only briefly at this stage in the Tuscan capital; however, Ruskin did find time to visit the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella, and probably the major galleries.

As the party moved south from Florence (11 May) to Rome (12 May), Ruskin became increasingly irritable, his mood not helped by the continuing rain. Joan Severn wrote to Ruskin's friend, Charles Eliot Norton, the Harvard academic, that Ruskin was 'much out of humour, with everything, or, rather, triumphant at having his bad opinion of things in Rome confirmed'. Goodwin, however, obviously felt a great sense of expectation, as suggested by the drawings he made on arriving in the Roman Campagna, first of Narni and then of a distant view of Rome itself. Even Ruskin accepted that the city had much to offer, as he settled into one of his more concentrated periods of work. Over a stretch of ten days, he studied the work of Botticelli in the Sistine Chapel, to the detriment of Michelangelo , for his forthcoming Oxford lectures, Ariadne Florentina; he also visited the surviving Romanesque churches. As a result, the other members of the party were mostly left to their own devices. Joan and Arthur spent time with Joseph Severn, in his apartment overlooking the Fontana di Trevi, while Goodwin drew many of the city's most memorable sights, including the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Teatro Marcellus and the Piazza Barberini. As always, Ruskin was attentive to changes in the weather and the effect that it had on him; so he noted in his diary, 'glowing sunshine with painted sky' (17 May), 'soft grey sky; flaky cloud' (18 May) and 'fierce dust and sirocco, making me ill' (19 May).

Ruskin gradually improved in health and temperament as the party moved north again, leaving Rome for Assisi (21 May). Even Ruskin was visiting the city for the first time, and Severn remembered that they 'liked it better than any of the other places. It was quiet and we were not pestered by beggars. Goodwin did some beautiful pencil sketches here and the Professor gave him the very highest praise'. The subjects of these sketches certainly included the famous monastery, and especially 'the Fathers of all the flying buttresses', as Ruskin described them to Goodwin. The party went from Assisi to Perugia for a day (24 May), the excursion enabling Ruskin to properly appreciate the merits of Perugino . Then, on leaving Assisi, it traveled via Florence (25 May) and Siena (27 May) to Orvieto (30 May). There Goodwin visited the market in the company of Ruskin, who recalled the event two years later, in writing the lecture Giotto's Pet Puppy considering the warm red ochre of the earth of the Apennines, he described the 'steps of its cathedral occupied on market-day with such a company of lively modern Etruscan pots'. Once again in Florence (1 June), and for a more substantial stay, Ruskin set to work, devoting attention mainly to the Baptistery, and leaving Goodwin to make sketches, including studies of the Via Crucis.

Ponte Pietra, Verona
Watercolour, 1896
10 ½ x 14 ¼ inches

The final stage of the party's journey through Italy augured well; for though Ruskin noted at Bologna (14 June) of a 'pain in side (bilious)', the weather was 'perfectly fine ... and very hot'. Verona and Venice, two of the most important sites in Ruskinian topography, were surely expected to prove the climaxes of the trip. Goodwin made a sketch of Padua on the way to Verona (15 June), and continued to concentrate on drawing, both the city and surroundings, while Ruskin prepared a pamphlet for the Arundel Society on the Cavalli tombs in Santa Anastasia. On arrival in Venice (2 July), the party was greeted by Rawdon Brown, as expert as his old friend Ruskin in the history and culture of the city. Ruskin encouraged the party to enthuse about its major sights, though was amused that Goodwin should liken the Byzantine splendour of San Marco to a 'traveling show'. Then, when Ruskin turned to his studies, examining the work of Carpaccio at the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Goodwin again made many drawings, concentrating on such picturesque elements as the traditional fishing boats. Goodwin's work was admired by John Wharlton Bunney, another of Ruskin's protégés, best known for his depiction of the facade of San Marco. He remembered how on one evening 'I went to see Mr Goodwin's sketches; he has a good many. I was greatly pleased with them. Some of them are very lovely, very tender and beautiful'. He described Goodwin himself as 'quiet, practical, full of feeling. No gush but very earnest, without pretension of any kind'.

Unfortunately, Goodwin's experience of Venice was soon brought to an end. Ruskin learned from the writer George MacDonald that Rose la Touche was anxious to see him. At first unwilling to interrupt his work, or again subject himself to the pain of rejection, he sent a telegram (30 June) and letters (5 July); but he soon decided to return home. Goodwin, Crawley and the Hilliards went with him, while the Severns traveled separately. The speed at which he and his companions crossed the continent indicates his sense of urgency, and he could no longer allow Goodwin much time for drawing. Numbers 6-24 (excluding no 17) are all pages from a sketchbook taken on the 1872 tour with Ruskin. The route taken, in late July, was as follows: Milan (13), Como (14), Baveno (15), Domo d'Ossola (19), Simplon (20), Brieg, Sion (23), Geneva (24), Sens, Paris, Herne Hill (26). For Ruskin, this journey marked the beginning of the end of his relationship with Rose La Touche, for she would die in 1875. But for Goodwin it marked the end of the beginning of his life as a landscape painter and traveller. 'When I first went to Italy', he wrote excitedly in his diary thirty-five years later, on 21 April 1909, 'it was my firm conviction that I should never be able to afford to go again, and here I am taking once more the family not only to Switzerland but Italy!' The tour of 1872 may have represented for Ruskin a personal failure. However, he should have considered it a success, if only in its essential contribution to making an artist of Goodwin.