Page 20 - Studio International - December 1974

ROAD DIGGING to the farm at Ferry Hincksey, and that carts
therefore had to drive over the village green.
AND AESTHETICISM Hincksey is on flat and marshy ground between
two rivers, and was extremely badly drained.
The green was deeply rutted, and in wet weather
and winter became a quagmire.
OXFORD1875 spring of 1874 reveal the extent of his distress
Ruskin's diaries from the winter and early
over his beloved Rose la Touche. He had fallen
in love with her some years before, when she
TIM HILTON was a child of ten. The difference in their ages
and the scandal of Ruskin's divorce divided them.
So did the acute mental disorders brought about
by Rose's fanatical religious beliefs, for Ruskin
by this time had lost the evangelical outlook of
his earlier years. Rose had suffered her first
nervous breakdown shortly after her first
communion, and had been in nursing homes for
Most people have heard how John Ruskin, when response in the national press. One hundred long periods ever since then. She was now in the
Slade Professor of Art in the University of years later, when there is no longer any interest last year of her young life, and was in the
Oxford, set his students to build a road. The in Ruskin's views on Renaissance painting, the nursing home in South London where she had
episode is mentioned in many accounts of road-digging is still remembered, but always in once been bound to a bed. Ruskin was
nineteenth-century English culture. Linda jumbled accounts. This is partly because Ruskin convinced that she could be cured only by his
Nochlin's recent 'Realism' describes the project himself never explained his motives for love and his company, but he was forbidden to
as follows: 'Ruskin could still appear radical organising the Hincksey diggings in any see her. He waited outside, and on occasion his
rather than merely quixotic (or just plain silly) publication or public lecture. These motives cousin Joan Severn, acting as an intermediary,
when, as part of his back-to-the-land campaign, can nonetheless be reconstructed. brought him a note or a message. In February
he organized a party of Oxford undergraduates 1874 Ruskin went to Oxford for a week and
in a road-mending expedition, armed with When he first moved into residence in Oxford, walked to Hincksey and Cumnor Hill. A few
navvies' tools, in order to accustom them to Ruskin stayed in Henry Acland's house in the days later, at his house on Coniston Water, he
working with their hands' [1]. This is an Broad, and later on moved to rooms in Corpus fell into 'sore distress and gloom, deeper than
inadequate account of the significance of the Christi. But he often lodged for short periods distress' with anger at Rose's father. He was
road-building at Ferry Hincksey. It can be in Abingdon, at the Crown and Thistle. bilious, shivering, unable to sleep. On March 3
shown that Ruskin activated a complex set of Abingdon is six miles south of Oxford. Ruskin he noted that his father had been dead for
cultural attitudes at this time; that his radicalism was never averse to staying in hotels, or the ten years, and remembered shared tears at a
was not as simple, nor as radical, as Ms Nochlin better sort of inn, as this was. He liked the railway station when he had been going away
believes; that the digging originated a division Crown and Thistle's landlady, and Abingdon with 'that wretch', his wife. He rowed across
between aesthetic and sporting culture which was a relief from the constant bustle in Oxford, Coniston Water, climbed up past the tarn to the
has been malificently active in English education the introductions, requests and questions. From top of the mountain, then descended to a grassy
in the last century; and that by looking at the there he could walk or drive into the city by part on the other side. It was the evening of a
situation of art in Oxford in the 1870s we may various routes. Despite the nineteenth-century fine day; he knelt down there and prayed that
learn something which will contribute to the — expansion of the Oxford suburbs, its medieval the sun would not set on his anger [5].
as yet unwritten — social history of centre is so compact that the sight of its spires Ruskin was too ill to contemplate delivering
homosexuality. and towers seen from raised ground outside the any lectures in Oxford in the term that was
Ruskin was the first Slade Professor of Fine city could be thrilling. One could imagine about to begin. He decided to go to Italy. But
Art at Oxford. He was elected to the position oneself quite outside modern life. Ruskin liked he passed through Oxford on his way to the
through the influence of old friends; Henry to walk from Abingdon through Bagley Wood, continent and gave a breakfast for some of his
Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church, Charles which is high above the city, rejoicing there in most devoted undergraduates, most of them
Newton, Ruskin's undergraduate contemporary the 'wild hyacinths, opening in flakes of blue from Balliol. There he told them that their
and Keeper of Antiquities in the British fire' [2], and thinking of Turner's watercolour study of art in the coming term would be to
Museum, and Henry Acland, another of the vista of Oxford as seen from Headington repair the road and the village green in Ferry
undergraduate friend of Ruskin's who at this Hill, which hung at this date in the University Hincksey. Alexander Wedderburn was at this
time was Professor of Medicine in the University. Galleries [3]. In its foreground is a coach breakfast, and he later recalled that 'Ruskin on
Ruskin's first tenure of the Slade chair lasted exactly like that in which Ruskin himself had this occasion described to us his ideal state of
from 1870 to 1878. There was no formal travelled from London to Oxford as an society ... he was to go abroad at once while
teaching, nor was there any course which an undergraduate, forty years before. Since then we started the work, and I remember saying to
undergraduate might follow with a view to the railway had been built, on the east side of him "Well, we will do the rough work, and you
obtaining a degree. Ruskin's lectures were Oxford, rather away from the centre. On the can make it beautiful when you come back", on
splendid public occasions, attended by the heads way from Abingdon to Oxford lay the hamlet which he held out both his hands and shook
of houses and several hundreds of of Ferry Hincksey, under Cumnor Hill and at both of mine with gratitude. His desire for
undergraduates. However controversial they the side of the Thames and the Hincksey stream. sympathy and delight at getting it were pathetic.
were, damning Michelangelo, asserting that Ruskin especially liked the church there. He When we came away I recall someone saying
unknown painters like Botticelli were the asked his assistant Albert Goodwin to paint it, "Well, if he's mad, it's a pity there are not more
leading artists of their time, the contentious later on, as the beginning of a project to record lunatics in the world," and this expressed the
nature of his views had far less effect than the all the countryside around Oxford [4]. By 1874, feeling of us all [6]. This is an important
road building. It caused an uproar in Oxford, Ruskin had walked through the village many moment. His students, among themselves, were
and there was an immediate and vehement times. He noted that there was no proper road led to question Ruskin's sanity, yet nonetheless

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