A Grammar of Ornament
My first attempt at piercing and enamelling copper plate wasn't at all disastrous. Ruskin's nose is slightly hawkish but perfection in craftmanship was not that important to Ruskin so I think it will do for now.
In the mean time a lot of things have happened. With funding from the Arts Council confirmed Henk Littlewood and I made a proper start on our project. Henk arranged for an immediate trip to Ruskin Land to fell the tree - the only one left standing in a small patch of Oak trees that needed to come down in order for the remaining trees to start thriving. Just in time before the nesting season, Henk took his Husqvarna chainsaw to our chosen one, and down it came. Long limbed and rather starved of light but still .... a skinny beauty of a specimen that has now been laid to dry at Victoria Sawmill in Darley Dale where it will be planked in two weeks time.
I have visited the Ruskin Gallery collection twice in the last two week. Louise Pullen, the knowledgeable and generous curator of the Ruskin Collection has been fantastically helpful in providing me with very clear explanations on the items Ruskin collected and commissioned. The collection is a curious mish mash of everything that Ruskin was interested in. I am particularly taken with the numerous drawings of Frank Randal who Ruskin frequently commissioned to draw examples of Gothic architecture.
My own attention was drawn to the many decorative patterns contained within the items collected. Louise then showed me a box filled with prints by Owen Jones who was an architect during Ruskin's time but also collated patterns from all over the world that he bound together in The Grammar of Ornaments. It was interesting to hear Louise explain that Ruskin didn't approve of Owen Jones' work as "Jones didn't choose to discriminate" - Jones collected, printed and presented these patterns without critical viewpoint of why they should be considered good or bad. Ruskin of course was an art critic first and foremost and, even though often sounding generous and forgiving, he did always judge the work using his own criteria and system of rules. Ruskin may also not have been keen on the kind of ornament that wasn't rooted in a Christian tradition.
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Example pattern by Owen Jones.
Anyway, I thought the prints were wonderfully inspiring and in my sample paintings I am beginning to bring all my ideas together: headless bureaucrats, patterns, detailed depictions of insects painted in Victorian style etc. These images will be uploaded in the next couple of weeks.
I'm also reading a lot about Ruskin's ideas around inequality and greed and how this links with current schools of thought since the financial crash of 2008. One of these is the Sheffield born writer, activist and columnist Owen Jones whose book 'The Establishment' will be next on my reading list. I was intrigued after a post film discussion between him, Ken Loach and Jeremy Hardy concerning Loach' 'The Spirit of 45' - about the transformation of Britain after the war.
