Power of the Hills: Ruskin’s Mountains
18 April – 23 September 2016
The magic of mountain landscapes, as captured by John Ruskin.
“Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man.”
John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. 1
To John Ruskin, mountains were powerful evidence of a living Earth and a great inspiration. His fascination with them led him to reach a detailed understanding of their nature, through his own work as well as his reading of Wordsworth and his discovery of the work of J.M.W. Turner.
This exhibition displayed some of Ruskin’s finest drawings and watercolours of mountain landscapes, from his childhood visits to the Alps in the 1830s to his tours in the 1860s in Turner’s footsteps. Also exhibited were subjects in and around his later home at Brantwood in the Lake District.
