Our Earthly Existence Must Lead Somewhere
by Ric Kasini Kadour
8”x10”; collage; 2017
Ruskin’s Vineyard Walk at Lucca was exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society in 1901, the year after Ruskin’s death. He made the watercolor in September 1874 while upset about the deteriorating health of his love interest, Rose La Touche. Christopher Newall notes, “This extraordinary and powerful drawing has a dynamic quality instilled by the sense of claustrophobic enclosure between a stone wall and a bank, and evokes the walker’s longing for the crest of the path and the view of open countryside and sunlit air that will be achieved.” Like Ambrosius Bosschaert, Osias Beert the Elder (Flemish, 1580 – 1624) depicts blooms at their peak from different seasons as a symbol of the transitory nature of man’s earthly existence.