John Ruskin and the Geographical Imagination

Author(s): Denis E. Cosgrove

Source: Geographical Review , Jan., 1979, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), pp. 43-62
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

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 JOHN RUSKIN AND THE GEOGRAPHICAL
IMAGINATION*
DENIS E. COSGROVE

G EOGRAPHERS have recently been moving away from p

quantitative examination of the human organization of
ining the qualitative dimensions of our experience of
uniqueness of place.' The roots of geography lie in a naive pr
place and of variation between areas.2 The geographical ima
common experience of man, from which the professional
remove himself in the abstractions of theoretical landscapes.3 A
which this occurred in the I950'S and the 1960's, some geog
develop approaches to the study of place and landscape that rec
the phenomenological roots of our discipline.
Such a return to the origins of geographical understanding f
that many of the questions currently occupying the center
received detailed examination in the past. Concern with the
or with a growing tendency towards placelessness in moder
means solely a product of late twentieth-century thought. Resu
arship often have considerable value if reinterpreted in t
knowledge and of our own perspectives. This is true of John R
tion to the geographical study of landscape, though frequently
not received from geographers the detailed examination it dese
John Ruskin's literary output was enormous. Its sheer ra
examination for consistent theories. His collected works,
covering almost two-thirds of the nineteenth century, were pu
death and run to thirty-nine volumes.7 Since that publicatio

* Acknowledgements are due to The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, for per

3 and 4; and to David Pepper and Howard Andrews for comments on an ea
1 This move has been pioneered particularly by Yi-Fu Tuan. See Yi-Fu T
Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values (Prentice Hall, Inc., Engl
idem, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Univ. of Minnesot
For an alternative approach to the subject see Jay Appleton: The Experien
and Sons, London, 1975).
2 The point has frequently been made. See, for example, C.O. Sauer: The M
Land and Life: A Selection from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer (edi
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1963), pp. 315-350, referenc
L'Homme et la Terre: Nature de realite geographique (Presses Universitair
E. Relph: Place and Placelessness (Pion Ltd., London, 1976), pp. 4-6.
3 Hugh C. Prince: The Geographical Imagination, Landscape, Vol. 11, 196
4Appleton, op. cit. [see footnote I above].
6 Relph, Place and Placelessness [see footnote 2 above].
6 Edmund W. Gilbert: British Pioneers in Geography (David and Charles
Richard J. Chorley, Antony J. Dunn, Robert P. Beckinsale: The History of th
Development of Geomorphology Before Davis (Methuen and Co. Ltd., London
New York, 1964), pp. xii-xiii; and John Kirkland Wright: Human Nature in
1925-1965 (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p. 22.
7The complete published works were first edited by E. T. Cook and A
Works of John Ruskin (Library Edition; 39 vols.; George Allen, London,
New York, 1903-1912). In this article references to Ruskin in parentheses refe
from that edition, and follow the specific reference to title, volume numbe
cited.

* DR. COSGROVE is a senior lecturer in geography at Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford, England

OX3 oBP.
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44 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

letters, diaries, and notes have appeared, and the list continu
writings mirrored many of the concerns of Victorian societ
subjects as diverse as landscape art, architecture, geology, conser
plant and animal studies, children's literature, socialism, and
his mind everything was more or less reflected in everyth
difficulty we might add that encountered in the variety and
Ruskin's prose style, which makes him an often unattractive wr
readers.8
From a wide popularity and enormous influence in his own da
out of fashion in the early part of this century. Interest revived
centered on the debate over his personal life rather than on his
this has been balanced by a growing concern to discover a co
vast output."? In this paper I examine the geographical imaginati
demonstrate how it developed and was directed into a theo
landscape that not only prefigures much of what geographers la
but may also serve to guide us into a fruitful synthesis of the c
place or landscape and social critique.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF RUSKIN's GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION

Love for landscape had "been the ruling passion of my life and the reason for the
choice of its field of labour" said Ruskin, 1 and in his later life he claimed that "the
beginning of all my own right art work in life, . . . depended not on my love of art, but
of mountains and sea."12 Ruskin's geographical imagination may be traced to three
early influences in his life. Born in 1819, he was a child of late romanticism, and his
early introduction to romantic writers-particularly Walter Scott-developed an
appreciation of mountain landscapes that he always maintained. Complementing and
extending the literary influence was the fact that the Ruskin family was wealthy
enough to afford an annual holiday of some months' duration that was spent moving
through the landscapes of Britain and later of Europe elegantly and slowly in a horse-
drawn carriage. During his early childhood Ruskin saw much of England and
Scotland, and he later traveled in France, Germany, and northern Italy. Switzerland
was his most momentous experience. He described vividly his ecstasy at the first sight
of the Alps.13 In later life Ruskin bemoaned the increased speeds of travel introduced
by railways and echoed familiar advice to geographers in recommending a carriage
speed of four to five miles per hour with frequent stops as the best pace for gaining a
detailed understanding of landscape.
The romantic impulse that directed the Ruskin family mainly toward mountain
scenery and the young John Ruskin's overwhelming sense of sublimity in the Alps
coupled with a natural empiricism, which early training in landscape sketching and
painting had developed. Although he claimed "whatever other faculties I may or may

8 Kenneth Clark: Ruskin Today (John Murray, London, 1964), pp. xv-xvi.
9 William Milburne James: The Order of Release (John Murray, London, 1947).
10 Three books pertinent to the ideas discussed in this article are George P. Landow: The Aesthetic and
Critical Theories of John Ruskin (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N.J., 1971); Robert Hewison: John
Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye (Thames and Hudson, London, 1976); and John D. Rosenberg: The
Darkening Glass: A Portrait of Ruskin's Genius (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1963).
"Modern Painters," Vol. III, 1856 (The Works, Vol. 5, p. 365).
12"The Eagle's Nest," 1872 (The Works, Vol. 22, p. 153); quoted in Hewison, op. cit. [see footnote io
above], p. 13.
" "Praeterita," Vol. I, 1885 (The Works, Vol. 35, p. 115).
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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 45

not possess, this gift of taking pleasure in landscape I assuredl

degree than most men,"14 his approach to that pleasure and i
purely aesthetic but was linked to a scientific study of form."6
For a period in his youth, Ruskin directed his interest in moun
a study of Alpine geology. He followed the controversy betw
and the Huttonians concerning the crystallization of Alpine
published a paper in the Geological Magazine defending de S
Ruskin subsequently rejected a purely scientific approach to lands
or character of a landscape, he believed, was beyond science. It co
merely by concentration on external form and morphology:

The natural tendency of accurate science is to make the possessor

eminently see, the things connected with his special pieces of kn
accurate science must be sternly limited, his sight of nature ge
ingly .... And I was quite sure that if I examined the mountain anato
should go wrong in like manner, touching the external aspects. The
all geological books, and set myself, as far as I could, to see the
thoughtless, and untheorising manner; but to see them, if it might

Ruskin's approach to landscape was thus to be phenomenologic

himself of a priori notions and theory in order to see, or experie
phenomena and to develop an understanding from that direct or
landscape rather than to explain it scientifically. The concern wit
observing, with an engagement of self and landscape, became a central feature of
Ruskin's geography.
Though rejecting pure empiricism, Ruskin retained the early scientific eye for
accurate observation. In the Preface to the second edition of "Modern Painters" he
claimed that he would "endeavour to investigate and arrange the facts of natu
scientific accuracy."20 His sketches and watercolors demonstrate this concern and
have caused some to accuse him of being a draftsman rather than an artist in his
drawing of nature. That this is far from true, though understandable, becomes
apparent when we consider his theory of association.21
The third great influence on Ruskin's geographical imagination was his religion.

"4"Modern Painters," Vol. III, 1856 (The Works, Vol. 5, p. 365).

"5 On empiricism in early nineteenth-century English landscape painting see Ronald Rees: John
Constable and the Art of Geography, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 66, 1976, No. i. pp. 59-72, reference on p. 61.
16J. Ruskin: Notes on the Shape and Structure of Some Parts of the Alps, with Reference to Denuda-
tion, Geol. Mag., Vol. 2, i865, No. 8, pp. 49-54 and No. I 1, pp. 193-196 (The Works, Vol. 26, pp. 21-34). For
a summary of the debate over catastrophic and uniformitarian theories concerning mountain geology see
Robert E. Dickinson and Osbert J. R. Howarth: The Making of Geography (Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1935), PP. 163-167.
7 "Modern Painters," Vol. IV, 1856, Appendix 2 (The Works, Vol. 6, pp. 475-481).
18 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. 6, p. 475). Sauer had similar thoughts on the geographer as a nonspecialist.
See C. 0. Sauer: The Education of a Geographer, in Land and Life [see footnote 2 above], pp. 389-404,
reference on pp. 393-396.
19 A phenomenological approach to landscape and place in geography has been widely discussed. See,
for example, Edward Relph: An Enquiry into the Relations between Phenomenology and Geography,
Canadian Geogr., Vol. 14, 1970, No. 3, pp. 193-201; and D. C. Mercer andJ. M. Powell: Phenomenology and
Related Non-positivistic Viewpoints in the Social Sciences (Dept. of Geography, Monash Univ., Mel-
bourne, Vic., Australia, 1972).
20 Preface to the second edition of "Modern Painters," Vol. I, 1844 (The Works, Vol. 3, p. 48).
21 Ruskin's education as a sketcher and painter naturally influenced his ideas of beauty in landscape
See P. Walton: The Drawings of John Ruskin (Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1972), for a discussion of h
early artistic education. By this time it is probably fair to say that the main features of Ruskin's
geographical "imagination" were already formed.
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 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
46

The overwhelming power of his mother, a fanatical Scottish Pr

faith, on Ruskin's whole life has frequently been stressed.22
out that one of the typical characteristics of Evangelism at tha
ical approach to biblical exegesis.23 The Bible contained not o
also a hidden meaning that the faithful had a duty to interpret
faith that the Bible was a continuous account of God's revelation of himself to
mankind." Hewison shows how Ruskin transposed this pattern of thinking to h
approach to landscape. Landscapes contained a deep symbolic meaning, and clos
attention to their literal truth expressed in form would also reveal, to the man of fait
a symbolic truth about God and the goodness of his creation.24 George Landow h
called this a "theocentric aesthetic,"52 and it underlies Ruskin's understanding
beauty in landscape and art. All beauty is "either the record of conscience, written in
things external, or it is a symbolizing of Divine attributes in matter, or it is the felic
of living things, or the perfect fulfilment of their duties and functions. In all cases it
something Divine, either the approving voice of God, the glorious symbol of Him, th
evidence of His kind presence, or the obedience to His will by Him induced an
supported. "s2
Out of the stimulation of romantic thought that was enhanced by early trav
through mountain scenery, a scientific self-training in accurate observation that wa
encouraged by his art teachers, and a religious experience that stressed the symbolic
interpretation of things, Ruskin's geographical imagination and his approach
landscape were formed. His first publication may be read as a work of cultur
geography, and we may observe how from this early beginning Ruskin developed his
love of landscape into a coherent geographical theory-a theory that is remarka
similar to one advocated by later geographers.

RUSKIN'S CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

Ruskin's first publications, a series of articles written from 1837 to 1838 fo

Loudon's Architectural Magazine while he was an Oxford undergraduate, were lat
collected into a book titled "The Poetry of Architecture."27 The subtitle is clea
evidence of a geographical content: "The Architecture of the Nations of Europ
considered in Association with Natural Scenery and National Character." Ruski
had intended to examine the range of architectural forms in the landscapes of wester
Europe, from vernacular buildings to the high art of Architecture, but the full schem
of the work was never realized. In the book he dealt only with "the cottage" and "the
villa." The scheme that Ruskin had proposed was arguably worked out under othe
titles in the whole of his work before he turned explicitly to problems of politic
economy. Ruskin himself recognized this and stated in a later reference to the chosen
subtitle: "I could not have put in fewer, or more inclusive words, the definition
what half my future life was to be spent in discoursing of. "28 Ruskin's intention was

22James, op. cit. [see footnote 9 above]; and Hewison, op. cit. [see footnote io above], p. 24. Rusk
described his mother and her influence on him in his autobiography.
28 Hewison, op. cit. [see footnote io above], pp. 26-27.
24 Ibid., p. 27.
25 Landow, op. cit. [see footnote 10 above], p. 28.
26"Modern Painters," Vol. II, 1846 (The Works, Vol. 4, p. 210).
27 The articles were written under the pseudonym of Kata Phusis (According to Nature) and were fir
published in book form in 1873.
28"Praeterita," Vol. I, 1875 (The Works, Vol. 35, p. 224).

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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 47

to trace in the distinctive characters of the architecture of nations, not only i

tion to the situation and climate in which it has arisen, but its strong similarit
connection with, the prevailing turn of mind by which the nation who first em
is distinguished.29

The essays in "The Poetry of Architecture" deal with the landscapes

northern France, Switzerland and northern Italy-the countries that
traveled as a youth. The guiding theme is the notion that a harmony
creations with the natural landscape is achieved through a recognition of th
and styles of building that are aesthetically suited to the predominant natu
and forms of the environment. Such a recognition can only come from
humble, unselfconscious realization by man of his place in God's ordai
nature.

Ruskin divided natural landscapes into four categories based on a

dominant color tone and topography. The woody or green country
woodland and a pastoral economy, was found under temperate cl
regions where an undisturbed landownership had maintained large
is to be seen in no other country, perhaps, so well as in England. In ot
find extensive masses of black forest, but not the mixture of sunny g
foliage, and dewy sward, which we meet with in the richer park
land."30 What Ruskin seemed to have had in mind was the Wealden district of Kent
and Sussex near his south London home, the Chilterns, and perhaps what we w
now describe as bocage. Distances of vision were fairly short so that the domi
color was a fresh green. Such a landscape, Ruskin said, excited emotions of reverenc
for its antiquity and a melancholy inspired by "the decay of the patriarchal trunks
Any building in such countryside must reflect these aspects and feelings inherent
the natural landscape. The roof, for example, should be set at an obtuse angle (for t
calculation of which Ruskin provided a simple geometrical formula), and the buildin
must be long and low so as to be partially obscured by the trunks of the trees.
warm color of wood as a constructional material best harmonized with the environs.
The cultivated or blue country was rich champaign land, devoted primarily to
arable cultivation. Long views over cropland gave blue distances with a rich fore-
ground of variegated colors that change rapidly with the seasons. Such change and a
dense population produced a variety of forms, and therefore a similar variety was
permissible in building types, so long as tone and character were cheerful. Of the
cottage, "neatness will not spoil it: the angle of its roof may be acute, its windows
sparkling, and its roses red and abundant; but it must not be ornamented nor
fantastic, it must be evidently built for the uses of common life."32 Much of England,
particularly the Welsh marches (he cited the Malverns), and northern Italy once
belonged to this category.
The wild or grey country Ruskin identified as wide, unenclosed, treeless undula-
tions of land. Best characterized by the Isle de France, such a landscape demanded

29 "The Poetry of Architecture," 1873 (The Works, Vol. I, p. 5). Walton (op. cit. [see footnote 21 above],
pp. 33-35) comments on the strong influence of Wordsworth's Guide Through the District of the Lakes (1835) on
Ruskin's writing.
0 "The Poetry of Architecture," 1873 (The Works, Vol. i, p. 67).
31 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. i, p. 69). Ruskin's debt to eighteenth-century aesthetic theory of emotional
association is clear here, as elsewhere in his early work.
2 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. 1, p. 71).

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48 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

size and massiveness in building to complement the scale of

color was necessary for the structure to blend into the darkne
distances.
The hill or brown country, Ruskin's final class of landscape, demanded a far mo
sensitive approach in building than the others because of the low density of p
lation and the variety of topographical character in mountain and high hill district
Such an observation, no doubt, was more expressive of Ruskin's own preferences th
of any other criteria, but he noted that in mountain scenery the actual setting of
building assumed a paramount importance. The demands that this class of lands
placed upon the builder were spelled out through a comparison of the Swiss cot
and that of the English Lake District (Figs. i and 2).
Ruskin found the Swiss cottage, which he described in detail differentiat
between the upper summer residence or "chalet" and the lower winter residence th
he considered the cottage proper, poorly designed to harmonize with its landsc
The reasons for his criticism were the use of wood as a material and the appa
weakness of the cottage in the context of a powerful mountain environment. It loo
as if it might be swept away by the next spring thaw or rock fall. The criticism was
aesthetic one, and Ruskin acknowledged in his description of the construction
the cottage that it perfectly fitted its function; it did not, however, appear to
contrast he found the Westmoreland cottage of the English Pennines (Fig. 2)
suited functionally to its environment and pleasing aesthetically. The hill or br
country had a prevailing sense of solitude and loneliness. This was enhanced, accord
ing to Ruskin, by an occasional isolated cottage set against the mountains; but such
building should not be too conspicuous. Its material, color and tone should be that o
the surrounding scenery:
Every thing about it should be natural, and should appear as if the influences and force
which were in operation around it had been too strong to be resisted, and had rendered
all efforts of art to check their power, or conceal the evidence of their action, entirely
unavailing.33

The Swiss cottage failed in that it did not bow to the forces of nature; it was too
conspicuous. The Lakeland cottage, built of stone, succeeded. Ruskin summarized
the geology of the hill areas of Cumberland and Westmoreland and the topography
that resulted from frost and fluvial action. The available stones for building provided
the obvious constructional material:

These stones, thus shaped to his hand, are the most convenient building materials th
peasant can obtain. He lays his foundation and strengthens his angles with larg
masses, filling up the intervals with pieces of a more moderate size; and using here an
there a little cement to bind the whole together, and to keep the wind from getti
through the interstices; but never enough to fill them altogether up, or to render the fa
of the wall smooth.
The door is flanked and roofed by three large oblong sheets of grey rock, whose form
seems not to be considered of the slightest consequence.34
Despite the apparent crudeness of the Lakeland cottage, of which Ruskin prov
detailed description, it was preferable to the Swiss cottage. The reasons for Ruski
preference lay in the moral character of the two peoples (nations in Ruskin's term

3s Ibid. (The Works, Vol. I, p. 44).

34 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. i, pp. 45-46).

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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 49

in-

.i

ii

5-f

FIG. i-Cottage near Altorf, 1835; "Every canton has its own window. That
wood-work at the bottom, is, perhaps, one of the richest" ("The Poetry of Arch
Vol. i, pp. 35 and 34]).

who built them. The English cottage represented a humble a

resolution of man in his alteration of nature to use the materials and followed the
forms inherent in the local environment-"the material which Nature furnishes,
any given country, and the form which she suggests, will always render the building
the most beautiful, because the most appropriate."35
3b Ibid. (The Works, Vol. I, p. 47). For a later extension of this argument see "Modern Painters," Vol
IV, 1856 (The Works, Vol. 6, pp. 128-161).

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 - ; r -- ,- .z

.. >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FIG. 2-Type of English Mountain Cottage, near Malham; "It has no appear
violence of surrounding agencies, which, it may be seen, will be partly dep
49]).

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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 51

The argument so far may appear deterministic in an environmental se

not entirely so. The full force of Ruskin's argument is that whether or
follow the forms suggested by nature is a function of "national ch
curious concept seems frequently chauvinistic in the book; for exa
commented unfavorably on the mixed ethnicity of the Swiss and t
common language or religion.36 But Ruskin used the phrase as almos
to culture in the sense of a shared set of values and attitudes:

Man, the peasant, is a being of more marked national character, than man, the
educated and refined. For nationality is founded, in a great degree, on prejudices and
feelings inculcated and aroused in youth, which grow inveterate in the mind as long as
its views are confined to the place of its birth; its ideas moulded by the customs of its
country, and its conversation limited to a circle composed of individuals of habits and
feelings like its own.37

National character assumed something of the nature of genre de vie-an expression o

group's collective experience of its world-and became intimately associated w
place, and, in a peasant culture, centered particularly around religious beliefs.
Swiss, with their variety of language, religion, and custom were, according to Rusk
incapable of a true national character, and this was reflected in the lack of harmony
between vernacular building and landscape. The inference is clearly weak
expresses a limited understanding of culture, but the roots of a concept of local
culture close to that of the later French School of geography are discernible. T
similarity becomes clearer in later, more mature works in which Ruskin abandoned
the concept of national character and focused on cultural groups in a narrower sense.
Man, nature, and place are, however, the dominating themes of "The Poetry of
Architecture," making it perhaps Ruskin's most obviously geographical work. It i
unfortunate that he did not extend the essays, as he had intended, to a consideration
of buildings in groups and to urban landscape, but the foundations of a cultural
geography are seen in his first work of scholarship.

RUSKIN's THEORY OF LANDSCAPE

Ruskin's theory of landscape was largely formulated and developed during th

writing of "Modern Painters."38 The work, which began as a defense of the landscape
paintings of J. M. W. Turner, developed and changed over the course of writing the
five volumes.39 A coherent scheme may be traced from the five key ideas that Ruski
claimed for art in volume one: the ideas of Power, of Imitation, of Truth, of Beauty,
and of Relation. For the purposes of interpreting "Modern Painters" as a geograph
cal theory of landscape I condense this five-fold schema to a two-part approach
distinguish between the observation of form in landscape and the "association" o
forms symbolically and to produce "orders" of landscape.

36"The Poetry of Architecture," 1873 (The Works, Vol. i, p. 40).

37 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. i, pp. 74-75). See Walton, op. cit. [see footnote 21 above], p. 33. Although ne
does not use the term "national character," Wilbur Zelinsky's discussion of American cultural character
istics and their expression in the American landscape is essentially woven around the concept, "the cultu
personality and behavior of American man." Wilbur Zelinsky: The Cultural Geography of the Uni
States (Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973), p. 5.
38 Ronald Rees (op. cit. [see footnote 15 above] p. 59) describes "Modern Painters" as offering "a cour
in physical geography for landscape painters." It is far more than merely physical geography but
concerned with the "art of geography" and the relationship between imagination and empiricism.
39 Landow, op. cit. [see footnote lo above] p. 23.

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52 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

ideality of granite and slate. .. and it is in the utmost and mo

acter, order, and use, that all ideality of art consists" ("Mode
4, p. 173]). (Photograph courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, O

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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 53

11- V:: A' Ili

FIG. 4-Market Place, Abbeville, 1868; "I am nearly convinced that, when on
there is very little difficulty in drawing what we see" ("The Elements of Draw
[The Works, Vol. 15, p. 13]). (Photograph courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, O

OBSERVATION OF FORM IN LANDSCAPE

Ruskin's concern, with accurate observation has already bee

perceptual ability and his powers of description were consciou
drawing and painting and through adopting prose models fro
ties in the use of language. Ruskin's sketches and watercolors
for detail in landscape: rock formations, the branches of trees, t
and architectural decoration (Figs. 3 and 4). In 1894 he published
his experience in teaching at the School of Drawing at Oxford
the value of measured and accurate drawing of the forms in
I am nearly convinced that, when once we see keenly enough,
difficulty in drawing what we see; but, even supposing that this diffi
believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing
teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love.Nature, than te
Nature that they may learn to draw.41

Landscape is best understood by a drawing of its constit

theoretical presupposition. Ruskin directed much of his criticism
ers at their inaccurate representation of forms. Detailed sepa
topography-geology, rock structure, vegetation, clouds, an

40 "The Elements of Drawing and Perspective," 1894 (The Works, Vol. 15

41 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. 15, p. 13).

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54 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

artifacts, and their analysis through drawing lead us to se

each element has its unique form, which reflects "that form t
of the species has a tendency to arrive," but which none fully
This is the meaning of a rather confusing discussion contain
second edition of "Modern Painters,"43 in which Ruskin attack
landscape painter should paint "ideal" landscapes by general
In this sense, idealism suggests the presupposition of form
nature deriving from ideas in the human mind, initially divor
landscape and subsequently imposed on them. Claude Lorr
particularly culpable in this regard. Such an approach Rus
absurd," an excuse for indolence. The ideal form might onl
observation of unique examples in nature.
Therefore the task of the painter, in his pursuit of ideal form
knowledge, so far as may be in his power, of the peculiar virtues,
of every species of being, down even to the stone, for there is
according to their kind, an ideality of granite and slate and m
utmost and most exalted exhibition of such individual character, o
ideality of art consists. The more cautious he is in assigning the ri
its favourite trunk, and the right kind of weed to its necessary
definite and characteristic leaf, blossom, seed, fracture, colour, a
everything, the more truly ideal his work becomes.44

It is through concentration of observation on the unique that w

character. Ruskin left us exquisite studies of form in landscape and a record of his
own experience in its perception through concentration. During one of his trips to
Italy he sat down by a roadside to sketch an aspen tree:
Languidly, but not idly, I began to draw it; and as I drew, the languor passed away: the
beautiful lines insisted on being traced,-without weariness. More and more beautiful
they became, as each rose out of the rest, and took its place in the air. With wonder
increasing every instant, I saw that they "composed" themselves, by finer laws than any
known of men. At last, the tree was there, and everything that I had thought before
about trees, nowhere.
But that all the trees of the wood . .. should be beautiful-more than Gothic tracery,
more than Greek vase-imagery, more than the daintiest embroiderers of the East could
embroider, or the artfullest painters of the West could limn,-this was indeed an end to
all former thoughts with me, an insight into a new silvan world.45

For Ruskin, the discovery of truth in landscape was comparable with that experience
and knowledge that other writers have referred to as "essence" or "inscape."46
The medium for expression and study of form in landscape used by Ruskin was
literary as well as pictorial. His prose can be tortuous, but it can also reach dizzy
heights of descriptive power. It was always conscipusly constructed. At different time

42 Preface to the second edition of "Modern Painters," Vol. I, 1844 (The Works, Vol. 3, p. 27).
43 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. 3, pp. 6-52).
4"Modern Painters," Vol. II, 1846 (The Works, Vol. 4, pp. 173-174). In a later footnote to this passage
Ruskin claimed that "I never really meant 'all' ideality of art consisted in specific distinctions," but that th
passage was intended as a criticism of the kind of pictorial idealism seen in Claude and his school.
4"Praeterita," Vol. II, 1885 (The Works, Vol. 35, pp. 314-315).
46 Relph, Place and Placelessness [see footnote 2 above], pp. 42-43. Clark (op. cit. [see footnote 8 above
p. 351) has drawn attention to the parallel between Ruskin's approach to seeing "truth" in landscape and
Gerard Manley Hopkins' concept of "inscape."

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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 55

Ruskin modeled his prose on such stylists as Carlyle and Hooker, and his mastery of
the English language made it a vehicle for accurate expression of Ruskin's perception

..

I
..

FIG. 5-Debris Curvature; "The hand of God, leading the wrath of the torrent to minister to the life of
mankind, guides also its grim surges by the laws of their delight; and bridles the bounding rocks, and
appeases the flying foam, till they lie down in the same lines that lead forth the fibres of the down on a
cygnet's breast" ("Modern Painters," Vol. IV, 1856, [The Works, Vol. 6, opposite p. 345, and pp. 345-46]).

of truth in landscape form-as where he discussed the inadequacy of Claude's

mountain landscapes:

No mountain was ever raised to the level of perpetual snow, without an infinite
multiplicity of form. Its foundation is built of a hundred minor mountains, and, from
these, great buttresses run in converging ridges to the central peak. There is no
exception to this rule; no mountain I5,ooo feet high is ever raised without such prepara-
tion and variety of outwork. Consequently, in distant effect, when chains of such peaks
are visible at once, the multiplicity of form is absolutely oceanic.47

ASSOCIATION OF FORM iN LANDSCAPE

Association that follows from accurate observation and description of

ent forms of landscape was the second part of Ruskin's geographical the
tion was used in two senses, the association of ideal forms observab
elements and revelatory of God's goodness, and a more general
individual elements that produced the unique landscape-a geograph
ogy.
Ruskin was fascinated by the apparent occurrence of certain lines and shapes
elemental to one part of the natural world in a quite different part. For example, in an
illustration from volume four of "Modern Painters" Ruskin demonstrated the similar-
ity of form between the wing of a bird and the curvature of a scree slope (Fig. 5). He

"4 "Modern Painters," Vol. I, 1844 (The Works, Vol. 3, p. 438).

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 FIG. 6--The Vine, Free and in Service; "From the vine-leaves of that archivolt,
though there is no direct imitation of nature in them, ... we may yet receive the same
kind of pleasure which we have in seeing true vine-leaves and wreathed branches
traced upon golden light; . . I believe the man who designed and the man who
delighted in that archivolt to have been wise, happy, and holy" ("The Stones of
Venice," Vol. II, 1853, [The Works, Vol. io, opposite p. 115, and p. 1171)
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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION
57

demonstrated the truth of these forms through their homolo

them with what they revealed of the mastery of God's han
perfection of form for function. Examples of such associatio
related to the point stressed already by Ruskin in "The Poetry of
man too must follow these forms in his work of transforming, a
landscape. The superiority claimed by Ruskin for medieval a
Renaissance art resulted precisely from this argument. Gothic
followed those pure lines and forms because the free builder
humbly recognized his duty to follow nature and God (Fig. 6).
sance art was arrogant in its geometry, placing faith in man and
nature and the revelation of God. It was an architecture of sla
Association had a second and more geographical sense. Indivi
landscape, first separated out for observation and description, we
to derive orders of landscape-"we separate to obtain a more p
unity of each order of landscape came from an understandin
between geology, climate, and physical process:
The level marshes and rich meadows of the tertiary, the rounde
pastures of the chalk, the square-built cliffs and cloven dells of the l
soaring peaks and ridgy precipices of the primaries, have nothing
them, nothing which is not distinctive and incommunicable. Their v
different, their clouds are different, their humours of storm and suns
their flowers, animals, and forests are different. By each order o
orders, I repeat, are infinite in number, corresponding not only to t
rock, but to the particular circumstances of the rock's deposition or af
to the incalculable varieties of climate, aspect, and human interferen
landscape, I say, peculiar lessons are intended to be taught.49

These lessons were the lessons of truth and divine revelation,

which man must follow.
To summarize Ruskin's theory, landscape is first to be accurately observ
described in terms of its constituent forms. Each element of its morpholog
characteristic form that is a reflection of a perfect or ideal form in which is re
the goodness and mastery of God, and which is frequently observable in
elements of the natural world. These distinct forms are then combined in partic
situations of climate, aspect, and human agency to generate orders of lands

HUMAN AGENCY IN LANDSCAPE

So far I have concentrated largely on the physical landscape, with only occasional
reference to man and to human agency. Ruskin's attitude to man's place in nature
has already been mentioned in discussing "The Poetry of Architecture." The subject
was a difficult one for him. Yet he struggled with it and finally emerged with a
concern for society rather than nature-a concern that occupied the second part of his
life. In his discussion of landscape the place of man was ambiguous. At times Ruskin
appeared to reject human agency in the landscape as always destructive, insisting on
"an earnest, faithful and loving study of nature as she is, rejecting with abhorrence all
that man has done to alter and modify her." Yet the concern devoted to architecture

48 Preface to the second edition of "Modern Painters", Vol. I, 1844 (The Works, Vol. 3, p. 37).
49 Ibid. (The Works, Vol. 3, p. 39).

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58 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

and the works of man in adorning the natural world outweig

its urgency, this statement. In the "Seven Lamps of Archite
in valuing human occupance for adding to the beauty an
When he considered a view over the Ain Valley in the Ju
more strictly to arrive at the sources of its impressions" to
North American wilderness:

The flowers in an instant lost their light, the river its music; the hills became opp
sively desolate .... Those ever springing flowers and ever flowing streams had b
dyed by the deep colours of human endurance, valour, and virtue; and the crests of
sable hills that rose against the evening sky received a deeper worship, because their
shadows fell eastward over the iron walls of Joux, and the four-square keep of Gra
son.60

Human endurance, the recognition of man's place in the order of nature as an

aspect of his place in a beneficent creation, was Ruskin's resolution to the problem of
human artifacts in the natural landscape. Harmony between cultural and natural
forms in the landscape would be achieved only by free men who were aware of their
humanity and of God's immanence and who were allowed by their social and political
system to express that truth and love in their art. Man's work harmonized with
nature's if he acted with authenticity.61
Ruskin expressed this idea in what is perhaps his finest piece of large-scale
geographical description.
The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into
a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never yet seen
any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in
physical character which exists between Northern and Southern countries. We know
the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would
enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and
olives on the Appenines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated
mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between
the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as
they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above
the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an
irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an
angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here
and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but
for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid
like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them,
with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens,
and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange, and
plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks,
and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass further
towards the north, until we see the orient colours change gradually into a vast belt of
rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark

0' "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," 1849 (The Works, Vol. 8, pp. 223-224). In volume three of
"Modern Painters" Ruskin displays an almost Shakespearean humanism: "Therefore it is that all the
power of nature depends on subjection to the human soul. Man is the sun of the world; more than the re
sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light and heat worth gauge or measure. Where he is, are the
tropics; where he is not, the ice-world." (The Works, Vol. 5, p. 262).
51 Relph (Place and Placelessness [see footnote 2 above], pp. 78-82) discusses the idea of authenticit
with respect to place.
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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION 59

forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of t

the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain cloud and flaky
the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands: and then, farthe
the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor
broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splint
and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm, and c
and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of
from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bit
barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, death
against us out of the polar twilight. And, having once traverse
gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, le
to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life; the mult
brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands o
striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and bird
and scarlet. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of colou
motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and
the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, t
with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of parad
and then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the
bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but rejo
by man of his own rest in the statutes of the lands that gave him birt
with reverence as he sets side by side the burning gems, and smooths
the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise in
but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when, with rough s
stroke, he smites an uncouth animation out of the rocks which he h
the moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened air the pile
rugged wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayw
sea; creatures of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish
winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds that shade them.52

JOHN RUSKIN AND LATER GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT

I am unaware of any specific reference by Ruskin to geography

was primarily interested in landscape as a subject for art and as a
uplift and education. A brief comparison, however, of his concep
those of Carl Sauer and modern phenomenological geographers
spirit and word. Ruskin advocated the rejection of an eclectic app
who attempted to compose ideal landscapes by imposing ideas
advised the artist to see the forms of landscape as revealed in
claimed that geography springs from a naYve awareness of actual scenes, and that
landscape is the unit concept of geography because of a common curiosity about the
real variations of the earth's surface.53
For both writers the unique is the fountainhead of landscape study, yet nei
wished to remain at the level of pure description. Ruskin studied the unique in ord
to see the ideal of which it is a reflection, but without a priori notions as to the n
of the ideal-"that generalization then is right, true, and noble, which is based on t

52"The Stones of Venice," Vol. II, 1853 (The Works, Vol. 10, pp. 185-188).
63 Sauer, The Morphology of Landscape [see footnote 2 above], p. 316. Donald Davie (Landsca
Poetic Focus, Southern Rev., New Series, Vol. 4, 1968, No. 3, pp. 685-691, reference on p. 688) commen
Sauer's essays as "exceptionally instructive for poets and students of twentieth-century poetry" bec
they demonstrate how geography may serve as a poetic focus and as a check upon the poet's manipu
of the historical record.

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60 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relation

Sauer too rejected a priori theory for landscape and claim
method was "a purely evidential system, without prepossess
ing of its evidence, and presupposes a minimum of assu
reality of structural organization,"55 so that "the geogra
ization derived from the observation of individual scenes."5
of separating component parts of the structure of land
individually, and of synthesizing them to produce generic o
to be what both writers proposed. It would not be amiss to
landscape as chorology.57
This method demands close attention to the facts of lands
by slow and careful perambulation through it, and to it
discussing the training of a geographer, Sauer echoed a
Ruskin: "There is, I am confident, such a thing as the 'morp
ous and critical attention to form and pattern.... We wo
understanding of elements of form and of their relation in
training and development of the morphologic eye that R
attention in "Modern Painters."
For both Ruskin and Sauer the key elements of the landscape's morpho
the same. According to Sauer, the forms of natural landscape produced by "g
tic, climatic, and vegetational factors" operated to form "a unit of organ
organic quality.... The harmony of climate and landscape, insufficiently
by the schools of physiography, has become the keystone of geographic mor
the physical sense."59 Such a unit corresponds to Ruskin's order of landsc
was a function primarily of the same factors. Concept and method were thu
for an understanding of the natural landscape.
Man's place and works in the landscape were also significant for both writ
neither accepted environmental determinism. Man's work blended into t
scene, according to Ruskin, only when he submitted voluntarily to the great
nature because they revealed the divine purpose. That man is free not to
constantly implicit in Ruskin's criticism of discordance between man's ar

54 Preface to the Second Edition of "Modern Painters," Vol. 1, 1844 (Vol. 3, p. 38).
55 Sauer, The Morphology of Landscape [see footnote 2 above], p. 327.
56lbid., p. 322.
57 The Oxford English l)ictionary (O.E.D.) defines chorology as "the scientific study of the
extent or limits of anything," suggesting the notion of spatial science. Richard Hartshorne (T
Geography: A Critical Survey of Current Thought in the Light of the Past [Association
Geographers, Lancaster, Pa., i961i, pp. 78 and 56) followed this meaning when he contras
sh.ps .. . based on areal position," or chorology, to "historical sequence," or chronology.
earlier referred to Carl Ritter's notion of the "formation of the multiplicity of features into
character of an area" as chorology. This meaning is closer to that given by the O.E.D. for "c
"The art of practice of describing, or delineating on a map or chart, particular regions or dist
the sense in which chorology has generally been applied in landscape geography and in whic
here.

58 Sauer, The Education of a Geographer [see footnote 18 above], pp. 392-393. Rees (op. cit.
15 above], pp. 6i2 and 70) mentions the parallel between Constable and Sauer, claiming that
possessed the "morphologic eye." George Perkins Marsh, Sir Francis Younghusband, and Si
Wooldridge stressed the importance of seeing to the heart of landscape. George Perkins Mar
Nature (edited by David Lowenthal; Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965), p. io;
Younghusband: Natural Beauty and Geographical Science, (Geogr. Journ., Vol. 56, 1920, pp. 1
on p. 8; and Sidney William Wooldridge: Address at the Annual Meeting of the Field St
(Field Studies Council; Retrospect and Prospect, n.d., 4 pp.), p. 3.
59 Sauer, The Mlorphology of landscape [see footnote 2 above], pp. 337, 326, and 336.
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 RUSKIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION

landscape. Harmony was achieved by free, humble, and au

being in the world.60 For Carl Sauer the cultural landscape aros
of culture in the natural landscape: "The cultural landscape
natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent,
medium, the cultural landscape the result."61 Sauer was no
morality of human agency, but the agency of man in landscape
major theme in Sauer as well as in Ruskin. The moral ques
however, is one that has recently been taken up by geograp
If Ruskin and Sauer came to a strikingly similar position c
method in landscape study, we might argue that either Sauer w
to little more than literary landscape art, or that Ruskin was r
to topographical draftsmanship. Both approaches have indee
other writers in their respective disciplines,62 but such a claim
Sauer's geography is scientific; it aims to describe and exp
producing the unity and harmony of which we are all naYvely
limits of science, however, and claims that an aspect of the
beyond the grasp of scientific method.63 Geographers cont
notably Vaughan Cornish in England and Ewald Banse in G
develop a geography aimed directly at this dimension of landscape.64 Ruskin's aim
was moral and artistic, yet he recognized that such an approach would veer into a
dangerous idealism without the rigor of scientific observation.
The moral imperative that Ruskin saw in landscape was expressed in the Evangel-
ical terms of a particular form of Christianity. But this imperative has a more
universal significance that geographers have increasingly touched upon in the past
few years. Yi-Fu Tuan has stressed the value of "topophilia," that sense of unity with
the beauty and transcendental power of landscape.65 Relph has taken the argument
further: place is a profound human experience that can only be fully realized by a
wholehearted commitment to and caring for our world. To be in place, at one with the
landscape, is basic to our ordering of experience in the world. Human agency in
building landscapes out of nature creates "a place made visible, tangible, and
sensible." In order to create and maintain harmonious and significant places and
landscapes man must act with "authenticity," that is, "a complete awareness and
acceptance of responsibility for your own existence. "66

60 "The Stones of Venice," Vol. II, 1853 (The Works, Vol. io, pp. 190 ff).
61 Sauer, The Morphology of Landscape [see footnote 2 above], p. 343.
62 Richard Hartshorne's discussion of "landscape" as a concept in geography, focusing to some exten
on Sauer, makes this criticism. Hartshorne, op. cit. [see footnote 57 above], pp. 149-174. Walton (op. cit
[see footnote 21 above]) refuted the suggestion that Ruskin was merely a draftsman.
63 "A good deal of the meaning of area lies beyond scientific regimentation. The best geography has
never disregarded the esthetic qualities of landscape, to which we know no approach other than the
subjective ... Having observed widely and charted diligently, there yet remains a quality of understanding
at a higher plane that may not be reduced to formal process." Sauer, The Morphology of Landscape [see
footnote 2 above], pp. 344-345.
64 Vaughan Cornish: Harmonies of Scenery: An Outline of Aesthetic Geography, Geography, Vol. 14,
1928, pp. 275-283 and 382-394. See also Andrew Goudie: Vaughan Cornish: Geographer (with a bibliogra-
phy of his published works), Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr., No. 55. 1972, pp. i-16. Ewald Banse's aesthetic
geography, developed in the 1920'S, is discussed in Eric Fischer, Robert D. Campbell, and Eldon S. Miller:
A Question of Place: The Development of Geographical Thought (Dept. of Geography, The George Wash-
ington Univ., Washington, D.C., 1969), pp. 167-174.
66 Yi-Fu Tuan: Topophilia, or Sudden Encounter with the Landscape, Landscape, Vol. i i, 1961, pp. 29-
32; and Tuan, Topophilia [see footnote i above].
66 Relph. Place and Placelessness [see footnote 2 above], pp. 23 and 78. On p. 63 Relph quoted Ruskin in
support of his argument on authenticity.
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62 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

Relph sees two of the purposes of a phenomenological geography

the nature of the place experience and to wage a conscious
authenticity of place and the "forces of placelessness," that result f
mode of human experience. "What is required is an approach an
concepts that respond to the unity of 'place, person, and act' an
rather than the division between specific and general features of pl
Such an approach and set of concepts are found in Ruskin's lan
His concern was precisely with man's truth to himself and to G
nature. His approach was phenomenological, but it was adopted
was coined and the philosophical position laid out by German thi
tion was geographical, but his concern was for man and the na
existence. In many ways Ruskin went beyond the position of m
phenomenologists. During the second part of his career when he
scape, architecture, and art to the study of political economy, he at
a clearer understanding of the relationship, implied in "The Poetry
between social structure and the limits that it imposed on men's fr
express truth. Authenticity depends on both individual committme
of the social order. This is perhaps Ruskin's most importan
geographers would do well to examine the later work of John R
landscape study, if we are to relate the truth of what phenomenolo
our need for significant places with what radical geographers have,
tion of the spatial implications of the prevailing social relatio
demonstrated about our ability to create such places.

67 Ibid., p. 44.

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