Mount Pilatus, Lake of Lucerne

In an early tour of Switzerland taken in 1835, Ruskin described the scene at Lucerne: ‘the whole chain of mountains round the lake, from Righi to the magnificent calcareous crags of Pilate, one of the most beautiful mountains … in Switzerland’ (D.1.43). Ruskin frequently returned to the city on the shores of Lake Lucerne, and planned to include it in an unfinished project on the history of Switzerland. This panorama dates from a long stay in Lucerne in 1846.

Ruskin was a skilled draughtsman, but did not think of himself as an artist and his works were not produced for sale or exhibition. Writing to his contemporary Samuel Prout, from the 1846 tour, Ruskin noted, ‘I have considered all my sketches merely as memorandums’ (LE 38 (1912)/341). Against a grey wash, a pencil line traces the irregular ridge of the mountain massif, recalling Ruskin’s description of ‘action and united movement …, nearly resembling that of sea waves; … governed by some grand under-sweep like that of a tide running through the whole body of the mountain chain’ (LE 6 (1904)/242).

Ruskin would have been aware of the biblical associates of the mountain’s name from reading the King James Bible with his mother as a child. A Calvinist Evangelical, Margaret Ruskin (1781-1871) held deep religious beliefs and insisted that her son read and learn passages from the Bible. Ruskin would experience increasing conflict between his religious beliefs and scientific knowledge, and the language, imagery and stories of the Bible would have a profound effect on his thinking. ‘Mount Pilatus’ is associated with the death of Pontius Pilate, some have claimed was buried there; it also recalls ‘pileatus’ – ‘cloud-topped’. In Modern Painters V, Ruskin noted that ‘the red and bare rocks of Mount Pilate, … have been renowned for their helmet of cloud ever since the Romans watched the cloven summit, gray against the south, from the ramparts of Vindonissa, giving it the name’ (LE 5 (1905)/164).

The drawing is inscribed in pencil, ‘Bought of Mr Arthur Severn at Brantwood June 1898 by his friend Mr C E Mathews,’ confirming that works were sold from Brantwood before Ruskin’s death in 1900. The purchaser of this drawing was probably Charles Edward Mathews, author of The Annals of Mont Blanc (1898).
Reference no. 1996P1436