Light in the West, Beauvais (2)

Light in the West, Beauvais.
John Ruskin

In 1856, Ruskin wrote that if a ‘characteristic name were needed for modern landscape art, none better could be invented than “the service of clouds”.’ (LE 5 (1904)/318). The centrality of clouds to Ruskin’s understanding of painting as an artform is evident in the focus given to the subject in Modern Painters: the first volume (1843) included three chapters, ‘Of Truth of Clouds’. In 1860, the nature of clouds remained a primary concern: Light in the West, Beauvais, painted by Ruskin in 1845, was engraved by the printmaker James Charles Armytage (1802 – 1897) as Plate 66 of Modern Painters Vol. V, published that year (volume V).
Discussed in Chapter II, ‘The Cloud-Flocks,’ Ruskin is developing his argument on the laws of perspective for clouds. He writes, ‘In [this] sketch of an actual sunset behind Beauvais cathedral (the point of the roof of the apse, a little to the left of the centre, shows it to be a summer sunset), the white cirri in the high light are all moving eastward, away from the sun, in perfectly parallel lines, curving a little round to the south’ ((LE 7 (1905)/154)Library Edition, 7.154).
Ruskin’s cloud studies document the changing atmosphere that he saw resulting from increased industrialisation. His work was part of a growing awareness in the nineteenth century of the ways that human activity could directly affect the atmosphere and life on earth. He engaged with contemporary debates, including John Tyndall’s experiments to show why the sky is blue.
The verso drawing, of a study of steps, was made at Aiguebelle in the Haute Savoie south of Chambery in 1846.

Reference no. 1996P1146