Historical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology

Leonardo, Vol. 17,No.2, pp. 124-126,1984. Printed in Great Britain. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE ARTS, SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY David R. Topper 0024-094X184 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Ltd. Readers are invited to send information to the section Editor at the Department of History, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9. Canada I shall begin this Historical Perspectives column with reviews of three articles on nineteenth-century artists in which the artists-Ruskin, Cole and Constable-all show the interrelationship between art and the sciences of atmospheric and geological phenomena. The topic of the fourth article reviewed in this section relates science (optics) to art through perspective; here historical, psychological and philosophical issues converge -a confluence of things pertinent to readers of this journal. Readers are also referred to the article by Othmar Tobisch, "Connections Between the Geological Sciences and Visual Art", (Leonardo 16, 280-287 (1983», in which a working artist relates his work to geology. Finally, I have provided an overview of the journals and publications I am using in assembling this section for Leonardo. Readers' comments and suggestions are solicited. Art and the Sciences of Atmospheric and Geological Phenomena D. E. Cosgrove, John Ruskin and the Geographical Imagination, Geographical Review 69, 43 (1979). I sometimes wonder why anyone would tackle Ruskin as a topic of study. The number of books and articles about him alone should discourage most prospective researchers. And if this material were not forbidding enough, there are the 39 volumes by the man himself. Nevertheless, the study continues; indeed Ruskin's works have been so thoroughly studied that someone once asked me if there were any more 'open' topics. Actually there are, and here are two: Ruskin's theory of geology (he was involved in the important early nineteenth-century debate over geological evolution) and Ruskin's theory of perception (within the scientific philosophical context of the time). Both of these topics are touched upon (the latter more so) in this study by Cosgrove of yet another topic-Ruskin's geographical imagination. The author finds three sources ofRuskin's ideas on geography: a romantic love of mountain landscapes, acquired as a child while traveling in the Alps with his family; his study of geology from a scientific viewpoint; and his religious conviction that landscape contained "a symbolic truth about God and the goodness of his creation" (p. 46). Thus, not surprisingly, Ruskin was influenced by the great triad of early nineteenth-century British thought-Romanticism, Science and Religion. In a nutshell, Ruskin put forward an empirical theory of perception. Cosgrove sees this as crucial to Ruskin's theory of geography. "He wished to rid himself of a priori notions and theory in order to see, or experience directly, external phenomena and to develop an understanding from that direct or 'lived' experience of landscape ... " (p. 45). The same vision Ruskin held for art; he admonished artists to draw precisely what appeared visually before them. This attitude, in turn, was coupled with his religious outlook. Like Blake, Ruskin saw the symbolic in the concrete. As Cosgrove shows, this viewpoint led to a theory of geography which has much in common with some of today's leading concepts (without the religious connotation): "The guiding theme is the notion that a harmony of man's 124 creations with the natural landscape is achieved through a recognition of those forms and styles of building that are aesthetically suited to the predominant natural features and forms of the environment. Such a recognition can only come from a free and humble, unselfconscious realization by man of his place in God's ordained order of nature" (p. 47). To be aesthetically pleasing, architecture should functionally fit into its environment; it should "bow to the forces of nature" and not be "too conspicuous" (p. 48). The same empiricism was central to his theory and practice of art. Ruskin's artistic output was primarily drawing-he left numerous studies of architecture, landscapes, plant forms and geological formations. These detailed drawings mirror his empirical theory. As the following splendid quotation from Ruskin reveals, theory indeed was put into practice: "Languidly, but not idly, I began to draw (a tree) ... ; and as...