Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T01:52:38.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

JOHN RUSKIN: CLIMBING AND THE VULNERABLE EYE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Ann C. Colley
Ann C. Colley*
Affiliation:
SUNY College at Buffalo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Most readers either overlook or dismiss John Ruskin's climbs in the Alps as being insignificant compared to his avid interest in geology and mountain form. However, I want to suggest that Ruskin's climbing – his physical and kinetic relationship to the mountains – is essential to his understanding of them. His numerous and repeated ascents in the lower Alps were not always easy: in fact, they were often tough and sometimes dangerous. Through a few select examples, in the first part of the essay, I establish just how difficult many of these scrambles were so that I may proceed, in the body of the paper, to talk about how these strenuous experiences influenced his way of seeing the mountain landscape he admired, and how, in turn, they helped shape his concept of imperfect vision.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 43 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Adult Health Advisor 2005.4: “Eye Flashes and Floaters.” University of Michigan Health System. 25 April 2008. <http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/aha/aha_flashflo_oph.htm.>>Google Scholar
Bain, Alexander. The Senses and the Intellect. Ed. Robinson, Daniel N.. Vol. 4. Washington, D. C.: University Publications of America, 1977.Google Scholar
Birchall, Heather. “Contrasting Visions: Ruskin – The Daguerreotype and the Photograph.” Living Pictures: The Journal of the Popular and Projected Image before 1914. 2.1: 2–20.Google Scholar
Bradley, John Lewis, ed. Ruskin's Letters from Venice 1851–1852. Westport: Greenwood, 1978.Google Scholar
Burd, Van Akin, ed. The Ruskin Family Letters: The Correspondence of John James Ruskin, His Wife, and Their Son, John 1801–1843. 2 vols. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1973.Google Scholar
Crary, Jonathan. “Modernizing Vision.” Vision and Visuality. Ed. Foster, Hal. Seattle: Bay, 1988. 29–48.Google Scholar
Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991.Google Scholar
Dearden, James S. “General Physical Appearance.” John Ruskin: A Life in Pictures. Sheffield: Academic, 1999. 4–11Google Scholar
Evans, Joan. John Ruskin. New York: Oxford UP, 1954.Google Scholar
Eye Advisor 2007.2: Flashes and Floaters. 25 April 2008. http://www.fairview.org/healthlibrary/content/ea_flashflo_oph.htm.Google Scholar
Fellows, Jay. The Failing Distance: The Autobiographical Impulse in John Ruskin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1975.Google Scholar
Hayman, John, ed. John Ruskin: Letters from the Continent 1858. Toronto: U. of Toronto P, 1982.Google Scholar
Helsinger, Elizabeth. Ruskin and the Art of the Beholder. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Hunt, John Dixon. The Wider Sea: A Life of John Ruskin. New York: Viking, 1982.Google Scholar
James, Sir William. The Order of Release: The Story of John Ruskin, Effie Gray and John Everett Millais Told for the First Time in Their Unpublished Letters. London: John Murray, 1947.Google Scholar
Rabb, Jane M. “John Ruskin.” Literature and Photography: Interactions 1840–1990. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1995. 110–15.Google Scholar
Richardson, Mary. Diaries of Mary Richardson. Typescript of Diaries. T 48 (1833), T 49 (1840–41). Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster.Google Scholar
Richardson, May, and Ruskin, John. “A Tour to the Lakes in Cumberland.” Photocopy. Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, John D. The Darkening Glass: A Portrait of Ruskin's Genius. New York: Columbia UP, 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruskin, John. The Diaries of John Ruskin. Ed. Evans, Joan and Whitehouse, John Howard. Vols. 1–3. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1956.Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. Ms Letters to Mother. Ruskin Library. University of Lancaster.Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. Praeterita: The Autobiography of John Ruskin. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. The Stones of Venice. Ed. Links, J. G.. New York: Da Capo, 1960.Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. The Works of John Ruskin. Ed. Cook, E. T. and Wedderburn, Alexander. Library Edition. Vols. 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 15, 20, 26, 36, 37. London: George Allen, 1903.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Harold I., ed. Ruskin in Italy: Letters to his Parents 1845. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1972.Google Scholar
Smith, Lindsay. Victorian Photography, Painting and Poetry: The Enigma of Visibility in Ruskin, Morris and Pre-Raphaelites. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Sowka, Joseph W., and Kabat, Alan G.. “How to Make Sense of Flashes and Floaters.” Review of Optometry. 15 June 2000: 67–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SummitPost—Buet (Mont). 25 April 2008. <http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/151207/buet-mont.html>..>Google Scholar
Wildman, Stephen. “Ruskin, Switzerland and the Alps: A Loan Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings from the Ruskin Foundation.” Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster.Google Scholar