Cascade de la Folie, Chamonix
By John Ruskin
1849
Accession number: 1905P2
Pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour on paper.
Width: 373 mm
Height: 461 mm
Information
Ruskin's finest watercolours are of the subjects that most fired his imagination and stirred his soul - the architecture of the middle ages, the infinite variety of animal and plant, and the sublime grandeur of mountains, especially the Alps, which had also inspired his artistic idol Turner.He visited Chamonix in 1833, 1835, 1840 and 1844, by which time he looked on this part of the Swiss Alps as 'my own valley'. Of many successive visits, the longest was in the summer of 1849 when he walked and drew incessantly. A letter of 10 July 1849 describes the scene which Ruskin depicts in this, one of his most celebrated watercolours: 'the glacier was seen against the sky through the most fantastic pines, and the grand rocks falling to the source, nodding forwards (like a wave about to break) and the great cascade bounding from its narrow way.'
- Purchased through the Public Picture Gallery Fund, 1905.
- © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
Makers
| Association | Artist | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Artist | John Ruskin | - |
Exhibitions
| Catalogue No. | Venue | Date(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruskin Watercolours and Drawings | |||
| 26 | Arts Council Touring Exhibition | 1954 - 1954 | |
| English Watercolours for Switzerland | |||
| 99 | British Council | 1955 - 1956 | |
| Peintures et Aquarelles Anglaises 1700-1900 du Musée de Birmingham | |||
| 105 | Musée de Lyon | 1966-10-23 - 1966-11-20 | |
| British Royal Family Exhibition | |||
| 134 | Seibu Department Store, Tokyo | 1967-10-06 - 1967-10-18 | |
| Zwei Jahrhunderte der Englische Malerei | |||
| 231 | Haus Der Kunst, Munich | 1979-11-21 - 1980-01-27 | |
| Drawings and Watercolours by John Ruskin | |||
| 26 | Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester | 1982-03-05 - 1982-05-03 | |
| British Watercolours from Birmingham | |||
| 94 | Tokyo Station Gallery | 1991-06-01 - 1991-07-07 | |
| 94 | Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu | 1991-07-12 - 1991-08-18 | |
| 94 | Daimaru Museum, Umeda (Osaka) | 1991-08-21 - 1991-09-02 | |
| 94 | Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kofu | 1991-09-07 - 1991-10-20 | |
| 94 | Bankside Gallery, London (Royal Watercolour Society) | 1991-01-22 - 1992-03-01 | |
| 94 | Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery | 1992 - 1992 | |
| Le Sentiment de la Montagne | |||
| 137 | Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France | 1998-03-01 - 1998-06-01 | |
| 137 | Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy | 1998-07-01 - 1998-10-15 | |
| Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites | |||
| 142 | Tate, London | 2000-03-09 - 2000-05-28 | |
| Artists, Explorers, Travellers: Landscape Painting around 1800 | |||
| - | Hamburger Kunsthalle | 2002-10-26 - 2003-02-23 | |
| Victorian Watercolours | |||
| - | Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery | 2005-12-20 - 2006-04-23 | |
| Orte der Sehnsucht. Mit Künstlern auf Reisen | |||
| 310.1 | Landesmuseum fur Kunst & Kulturgeschichte, Munster, Germany | 2008-09-28 - 2009-01-11 | |
Literature
| Author(s) | Date(s) | Publisher | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works of John Ruskin, V, Modern Painters III | |||
| Alexander Wedderburn, E T Cook | 1904 | George Allen, London | repr. pl. B facing p. XX |
| Works of Ruskin, XXXVIII, Catalogue of Drawings | |||
| Alexander Wedderburn, E T Cook | 1912 | George Allen, London | p. 241, no. 416 |
| Apollo | |||
| Fran Evans | December 1957 | - | p.144, repr. fig. XIX |
| British Royal Family Exhibition | |||
| 1967 | Seibu Department Store, Tokyo | repr. no. 134 | |
| The Drawings of John Ruskin | |||
| Paul H Walton | 1972 | Clarendon Press, Oxford | p. 77, repr. pl. 55 |
| Drawings and Watercolours by John Ruskin | |||
| 1982 | Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester | p. 13, pl. 17 | |
| John Ruskin: The Early Years 1819-1859 | |||
| Timothy Hilton | 1985 | Yale University Press, New Haven and London | p.135, pl.15 |
| Fifty Watercolours from Birmingham | |||
| Stephen Wildman | 1987 | Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery | p. 213; repr. p. 113 |
| British Watercolours from Birmingham: 150 Outstanding Works from the Permanent Collection of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery | |||
| Stephen Wildman | 1992 | Bankside Art Gallery, London and Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery | - |
| Le Sentiment de la Montagne | |||
| 1998 | Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble, France | repr. p. 219 | |
| Painting of the Romantic Era | |||
| Norbert Wolf | 1999 | Taschen, London and Cologne | p. 83; repr. p. 83 |
| Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites | |||
| Ian Warrell, Robert Hewison, Stephen Wildman | 2000 | Tate Gallery Publishing, London | p. 161, repr. p.160 |
| Orte der Sehnsucht. Mit Künstlern auf Reisen | |||
| 2008 | Landesmuseum fur Kunst & Kulturgeschichte, Munster, Germany | p. 357, repr. p. 157 | |
Provenance
| Arthur Severn; sold at Sir J. Simon's sale, 1904; presented by Public Picture Gallery Fund, 1905. |
Associated places
| Name | Type |
|---|---|
| Chamonix, France | Depicted |
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