Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-09-11
RUskIN AMONG woRk1NGMEN.

His Method of Teaching Art md the
Study of Nature.
From Good Words.
I cannot hope to describe the delights
of those evenings. Twice week John Rus
kin positively beamed; he devoted himself
to those who gave themselves sincerely to
study. He taught each Of us separately.
studying the capacities of each student.
We drew first a plaster Of Paris ball.
giving the intersecting shadows of a score
OF gaslights; then small plaster cast Of
natural leaf. After that he went to ma
ture; a spray of dried laurel leaves, a
feather, a bit of spar to show. the lines of
cleavage, every kind Of natural structure
He soon encouraged US to try color, warn
Ing us that gaslight altered all the values
but saying that color was too delightful to
be foregone. For one pupil he would put
a cairngorm pebble or fuorspar into a
tumbler of water, and set him to trace
their tangled veins Of crimson and anne
and fungi from Anerley Woods. once. to
fill us with despair of color, he brought a
case Of West Indian birds unstuffed, as
the collector had stored them, all rubies
and emeralds Sometimes it was a If
teenth century Gothic missal when he set
us counting the order of the colored leaves
In each spray Of the MS. At other times
1t was splendid Albert Durer wood-cut
that we might copy a square inch or two
of heritage and identify the columbines
and cyclamens. He talked much to the
class. oiscursively but radiantly. think
1 remember that IN politics and religion he
leaned to order rather than progress. .
l have delightful memory Of an. archi-
tectural evening. principally given to French
Gothic, comparing Amiens Rouen and
Beauvais He reprinted for US a chapter
from the Seven Lamps, with all the Illus
trations-'Notes on Northern Gothic On
another night he introduced. to US Alfred
Rethefs work, especially the weird .Auch
Elm Todtertanz.'
He was hard to please, I remember in
engraving. Etching he thought frivolous.
He told us II we got to like large, cross
Matched. finished prints after Correggio or
Raphael we were lost. unless we forthwith
sold or, better still, burned them. .
But Albert Durer was his favorite master
We copied bits Of the great and smaller
passions. the st. Hubert and the st.
Jerome But of course the pole-star of
his artistic heavens was Turner. One by
one. he brought for us to examine his mar
veis OF water-color art from Denmark Hill
He would point out the subtleties and fe-
licities in their composition, analyzing on
a blackboard their line schemes. some
times he would make us copy minute por-
or the handles of pillow. He would not
allow us to copy Turner in colors saying
that would come years after at present
nothing of these but line
On formal occasions he did not sneak
we'll. His style was over-elaborate and
paradoxical. but on these evenings he
talked divinely; we were carried away nv
the current of his enthusiasm. Often his
subject was poetry. and then he was never
tired Of prais:ng Scott.
Altnough l have reason to think he was
at this time privately suffering he seemed
delighted. with his class. His face would
light up when he saw a piece of honest or
delicate work; it was. perhaps. his greatest
fauit as teacher that he was sometimes
too lavish of his praise.