The Elements of Drawing, in Three Letters to Beginners

by John Ruskin

Pages: 141

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About this book

In the winter of 1856 John Ruskin wrote three letters meant to teach drawing to a student working alone, with no master at his elbow. The book first appeared in 1857, and this edition reprints it as it stood in 1859.

The letters move from first practice with the pencil, through sketching from nature, to colour and composition, and two appendices add illustrative notes and things to be studied. Ruskin puts patient, delicate seeing ahead of quick dexterity, and says he would rather teach drawing so that pupils learn to love Nature than the other way round. He is specific about trees, whose foliage should feel soft and transparent, and about water, whose reflections must be drawn with care before the ripples are added.

He writes for readers of about twelve or fourteen and older, which makes it a handy window onto how a Victorian critic thought art should be learned.

About the author

John Ruskin

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era and an influential social thinker whose ideas on art, labor, and society shaped movements from the Pre-Raphaelites to the welfare state.