John Ruskin (1819–1900), Rocks in Unrest
, Watercolor, point of brush, scratching out, over pencil, Thaw Collection
Ruskin learned to draw by copying the works of Samuel Prout and David Roberts and studying under Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding. Turner, however, would prove the greatest influence. Ruskin built a sizeable collection of Turner's early watercolors. The first volume of Ruskin's Modern Painters resulted from his reading a negative review of Turner's work. This drawing is a copy of the lower part of the Turner watercolor The Pass at Faido, St. Gotthard, which Ruskin commissioned. His own drawing of a detail of the Turner work is reproduced as plate 81 in the final volume of Modern Painters.