A Sea of Ice Covers Me
by Ric Kasini Kadour
8”x10”; collage; 2017
A still life by Jan Brueghel the Younger (Flemish, 1601–1678) explodes behind Ruskin’s study of Mer de Glace in Chamonix (1849). Nineteenth-century artists and writers were in awe of the sublime French glacier. The Courtauld Institute of Art, which owns a different watercolor by Ruskin of this location notes, “Observing the glacier in close proximity, Ruskin evokes the roughness of the terrain, contrasting the jagged peaks of ice and gaping blue crevasses with the rocky brown slopes and boulders. The view accords with contemporary notions of the Sublime, experienced as feelings of awe and fear. Yet at the same time the artist reveals a sound knowledge of mountain structure – the ideal combination of imagination and truth strongly advocated by Ruskin.”