The Home of John Ruskin

Perhaps it was appropriate that we visited Brantwood on an relentlessly gloomy day. It began hopefully as we grew closer to the house. Across the lake we could see a rainbow lighting the village of Coniston. Rainbows generally come and then fade within moments but this one remained all day, hanging in the air as if posing for a painting.

Morning in Spring, with north-east Wind, at Vevey -John Ruskin

Ruskin didn't wait for still and sunny weather in which to paint:

It is not possible to find a landscape, which if painted precisely as it is, will not make an impressive picture. No one knows, till he has tried, what strange beauty and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by Nature.     John Ruskin - Modern Painters (1843-1860)

And the mantra of all who live in the Lake District:

'There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.'

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.
John Ruskin - Modern Painters (1843-1860)

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong, honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.
John Ruskin

To learn more from or about John Ruskin: http://ruskin.ashmolean.org/

http://ruskin.ashmolean.org/

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Oxford

Part of the reason I started writing this blog is that I love to read them. One of my very favourites is by an artist / post-grad student in archaeology / knitter / author. For a year she was an exchange student in Oxford, and her list of memories inspired us to see some of the places mentioned. 

 We arrived early for an appointment and so we sheltered from the rain in Green's Cafe, 'with its uneven old floors, sagging couches, and selection of thirty-year-old books'. It was just as I had imagined it. There were doorways in unexplained places; posters for obscure lectures that only four or five people would understand the title of and good large cups of strong tea. As we were sitting there, a light-fitting came half off the ceiling over our heads. Nobody minded us waiting quietly nursing our cold hands round our cups until we needed to brave the damp streets again.

 After the appointment we searched out the second most memorable destination on Madeline's list, 'The Natural History Museum and the fact that you could touch anything'.






Oh the riches of serendipity! This isn't a museum filled with gold, or Impressionist investment pieces. It is a collection of collections: souvenirs, curiosities, stories from the past about how people lived and still do.

{Japanese Noh Masks}

 If you lived in Oxford your entire life you could still find new things to study here. Rather like reading Proust, you can't help feeling you can't look closely or slowly enough. Thank you Madeline for our great day out!