Mountain Landscape

1829–1834

First publications: poetry and nature articles

Ruskin's first printed poem, “On Skiddaw and Derwent Water”, appears in August 1829, and by 1834 three short articles in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History already show a close, “scientific” observer of nature, especially of its geology.

1830–1833

Family tours: the Lake District and the Continent

His father's business trips grow into family tours: the Lake District in 1830, which his first long poem, “Iteriad”, recounts, and in 1833 Strasbourg, Schaffhausen, Milan, Genoa and Turin; the family had already visited France and Belgium in 1825. Ruskin develops a lifelong love of the Alps.

1832

A 13th-birthday gift: “Italy” with Turner's illustrations

For his thirteenth birthday Ruskin is given Samuel Rogers's poem “Italy” (1830) and is especially taken with Turner's illustrations to it. Much of his own drawing in the 1830s imitates Turner and Samuel Prout, and his skills are refined under Charles Runciman, Copley Fielding and J. D. Harding.

1834–1900 · Virkested

Great Britain

1835

First visit to Venice

On one of the family tours Ruskin visits Venice for the first time — that “Paradise of cities” that would provide the subject and symbolism of much of his later work.

1836

An essay defending Turner that Turner did not want published

An attack by the Rev. John Eagles in Blackwood's Magazine on Turner's pictures prompts Ruskin to write a long essay in the painter's defence. His father sends the piece to Turner, who does not wish it to be published, and it stays out of print for the rest of Ruskin's life.