Page 21 - Studio International - December 1974

determined to follow his lead, and to set about would not have qualified for Ruskin's approval; half-prophetic, half-jussive, an appeal to
what might seem an absurd project without it was almost a caricature of everything he most emblematic rather than actual charity, and a
even having his presence and leadership. It is loathed. He had constantly reviled such building, dramatic contrast between the nineteenth-
now that the concept of Ruskin's 'disciples' and such taste, since, when an undergraduate century city and Giotto's trecento Florence.
begins: We shall see, however, that there were himself, he had written 'The Poetry of The reference to 'shepherd-lords' is explained by
significant differences within this small band Architecture'. This was not all. A part of Ruskin's interest in Henry, Lord Clifford, the
regarding the validity of Ruskin's teaching. Oxford that Ruskin particularly detested was subject of Wordsworth's Song, at the Feast of
Ruskin wrote to Henry Acland to give him Jericho, a new slum development of small, Brougham Castle. Ruskin supposed, erroneously
an idea of his plans for the road. 'My chief wretched houses, in narrow streets with as it happened, that Lord Clifford had voluntarily
object is to let my pupils feel the pleasures of alehouses on every corner, at the side of the lived as a shepherd on his Yorkshire estates
useful muscular work ... that country road canal and the railway. 'He told me once', an during the reign of Henry VI [13]. Giotto's
under the slope of the hill with its irregular line Oxford acquaintance recalled, 'that he would figure of Charity is one of the contrasted Virtues
of trees, sheltering yet not darkening it, is not walk with me to the Upper River through and Vices in the Arena chapel in Padua.
capable of being made one of the loveliest Port Meadow, because, to do so, he would have Wreathed in roses, she tramples moneybags
things in this English world by only a little to pass through Jericho' [9]. The Harcourts under feet, looks up at the figure of Christ and
tenderness and patience in easy labour. We can also owned much of Jericho. Perhaps Ruskin holds out a bowl of flowers, fruit and corn.
get all stagnant water carried away, of course, would have seen there the public house which Since this was the kind of thing that was in
with the simplest arrangements of all, and we bears their name, the Harcourt Arms; one can Ruskin's mind, one cannot imagine that Ruskin's
can make the cottages more healthy, and the imagine the despision with which he would have instructions to his undergraduates to go out
walk, within reach of little time and a light noted the family motto which was emblazoned digging were merely whimsical. They came
strength from Oxford, far more beautiful than on the signboard; `le bon temps viendra'. from a social sensibility that was drenched by a
any college garden can be ...' [7]. Jericho and Ferry Hincksey had another, highly aesthetic view of cultural history. And
In this letter we also find that Ruskin asks terrible, thing in common. A rural slum and an it is for this reason that Ruskin's philanthropic
Acland to intercede on his behalf, by writing to urban slum, both inadequately drained, they motives in Hincksey should not be exaggerated.
the owners of the land for permission to build had suffered equally in the cholera epidemic When the newspapers began to criticise the
the road. Why would he not do this himself, as which attacked Oxford in 1854, when Acland diggings, Acland, who understood Ruskin very
would be courteous? The answer might well be had worked ceaselessly, with little help from well, wrote to The Times to say that Ruskin
that he felt an animus towards them, and that the University and none from the local was 'as interested in the greatness of the
an important aspect of the digging project was aristocracy, to limit the number of deaths. educated youth of England as he is in the well-
its implicit criticism of their lack of taste and Ruskin had been staying with Acland at the being of the poor' [15]. He was making the
their lack of charity. Ferry Hincksey belonged time that the doctor was writing his report on point that the social improvement which had
to the ancient family of the Harcourts. So did the cholera outbreak, and one notes that his been achieved, admittedly minimal, was not the
much other land in and around Oxford. The letter to Acland about the road-building also main aim of the enterprise.
family seat was originally at Stanton Harcourt, makes the point that the cottages might be The digging had a certain popularity among
which is about four miles from Hincksey. But made more healthy [10]. the undergraduates. Most of the London papers
the Harcourts largely demolished their twelfth- Given Ruskin's views about the feudal and which carried reports and caricatures said that
century manor house, with its chapel, its wall paternal duties of the English aristocracy, it twenty or thirty people had worked on the road,
paintings, its unique medieval kitchen and Tudor cannot be doubted that he considered the but Jackson's Oxford Journal, in June,
additions, when they decided to move the Hincksey diggings as a symbolic rather than estimated that about fifty of Ruskin's admirers
family seat to Nuneham Cortney, which is to practical lesson for undergraduates who would had joined in. Of course, many of them stayed
the south of Oxford on the old London Road. themselves, by reason of their class and only for a day or two. But they had taken
This was in the years around 1750. At Nuneham upbringing, soon be assuming such sides, and that was significant. As they
the Harcourts tore down the old village and responsibilities. They were not to behave as the demonstrated their unfamiliarity with shovels
church to make way for their new mansion. Harcourt family had behaved [11]. During his and pickaxes, they were jeered at by the
This was built to a pompous and confused first year as Slade Professor Ruskin had written villagers, and by the University too. Wedderburn
Palladian design by Stiff Lead better of Eton. in Fors Clavigera about his hopes for the Guild recalled that dons as well as other
The house was added to in the 1770s and of St George, the society which he hoped would undergraduates came to scoff [16]. A.B.
1780s by Lancelot Brown and Robert Adam, reclaim English land from the encroachments of Walkley felt like helping, but was too
and was then enlarged again in 1832 by Robert industrialization, and we gather from this that embarrassed. He remembered 'the Professor's
Smirke. The gardens were landscaped between he hoped that the landed aristocracy might sweet smile as he half-laughingly, half-earnestly,
1779 and 1782 by Capability Brown. This was anticipate the Guild's work by a realization of invited me to join in the work ... ' [17] and
in order to provide views of Oxford in the their ancient duties, their 'stewardship'. 'Long how he had shamefacedly made his escape
manner of paintings by Claude in which Rome before it can come to any convincing result, nonetheless. Ruskin had returned to Oxford in
is seen from the Campagna. Once the medieval I believe some of the gentlemen of England will October, after his summer in Italy. David
church had been demolished, a new one was have taken up the matter, and seen that, for Downs, his head gardener from Denmark Hill,
built within this park to the designs of the then their own sake, no less than the country's, they had been in charge while the Professor was
Earl of Harcourt, with some assistance from must now live on their estates, not in shooting- away. Conscientiously, Ruskin had sought out
James 'Athenian' Stuart. The design was that time only, but all the year: and be themselves a stone-breaker, a man wearing an iron mask to
of an ornamental temple. The tenants' cottages farmers, or 'shepherd-lords', and make the field protect his face from flying chips, to learn
were re-erected out of sight of the great house, gain on the street, not the street on the field; something of his job before going on to instruct
in a ribbon development on either side of the and bid the light break into the smoke-clouds, his students. Presumably, then, by the new
main road. They are totally uniform, are in and bear in their hands, up to those loathsome Michaelmas Term the excavations had been
semi-detached pairs, and are decorated with city walls, the gifts of Giotto's Charity, corn completed, pipes had been laid, and the paving
chequered bricks [8]. and flowers' [12]. had begun.
One does not need to stress, then, how the This is a fairly typical piece of argument A further point that Ruskin wished to make
Harcourts' attitude to their houses, their from Fors. It depends on a mingling of pastoral in the Hincksey diggings derived from his
parkland, their churches and their tenants and christian metaphor, a future tense that is hostility towards an exaggerated view of the

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