A Watercolour by John Ruskin — September 2023

At the end of 2022, the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray acquired a watercolour by John Ruskin, Rain on the Sands at Seascale, which now enriches the collections of the Musée Marcel Proust – Maison de Tante Léonie in Illiers-Combray. The entry of this late work by the great Victorian critic and thinker into the museum's collections fills a gap: while Ruskin's influence on the author of the Recherche rests primarily on his writings, the drawings and watercolours of the British master are inseparable from his written work and helped shape Proust's way of looking at art, architecture and the visible world.

Before undertaking the writing of the Recherche, Proust had devoted several years to the study of Ruskin, whom he discovered in the autumn of 1899 and passages of whom he knew "by heart." He set out to translate two works by this extraordinary thinker: The Bible of Amiens, an essay on Amiens Cathedral, and Sesame and Lilies, two lectures on reading. This brochure brings together four studies offering a closer look at this watercolour and helping to gauge Proust's debt to the man he called "the Master."

Overview

Rain on the Sands at Seascale is a watercolour probably executed by John Ruskin in June 1889 during a stay for convalescence in the small seaside town of Seascale, in the county of Cumbria, on the north-west coast of England. Its attribution to Ruskin has been confirmed by Stephen Wildman, professor emeritus at Lancaster University and a specialist in the artist's graphic work.

The work belongs to Ruskin's late style, characterised by a loose handling and a subjective approach. Broad chromatic passages of grey and blue give rhythm to the view of an indeterminate shore, where deep blue waves roll beneath a rain cloud. No human presence appears in it. This watercolour ranks among Ruskin's very last graphic works: from the autumn of 1889 onward, the artist would be unable to write or draw.

The work had been offered for sale by the Galerie Paul Prouté in Paris. It was acquired at the end of 2022 by the Société thanks to the generosity of its patrons and members — in particular Claire and Bruno Saillant — with the support of the Conseil départemental d'Eure-et-Loir.

Authors and Contributors

Jérôme Bastianelli, president of the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray, writes the introduction. He retraces the circumstances of the acquisition and recalls the place of Ruskin's drawings in the formation of Proust's way of seeing.

Emily Eells, professor emerita at the University of Paris Nanterre, analyses the watercolour, situating it within John Ruskin's graphic body of work — technique, style, symbolic significance.

Stephen Wildman, professor emeritus of art history and former director of the Ruskin Library and Research Centre at Lancaster University, describes the context in which the watercolour was created and confirmed the work's attribution.

Frédérique Campbell, French translator of the work of John Ruskin, offers a biography of the artist — art critic, champion of Turner, defender of heritage, draughtsman and watercolourist.

Cynthia Gamble, author of Voix entrelacées de Proust et de Ruskin (Classiques Garnier, 2021) and co-author of Ruskin, Proust et la Normandie (Classiques Garnier, 2022), traces the predominant influence Ruskin exerted on Marcel Proust and the part it played in the genesis of the Recherche.

Contents

• Introduction, by Jérôme Bastianelli
• John Ruskin's Watercolour in the Société's Collection, by Emily Eells
• One of John Ruskin's Last Paintings, by Stephen Wildman
• A Brief Biography of John Ruskin, by Frédérique Campbell
• Marcel Proust, Disciple of John Ruskin, by Cynthia Gamble

Bibliographic Information

• Format: paperback
• ISBN: 978-2-492318-22-1
• Price: 6 €
• Publisher: Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray
• Legal deposit: September 2023