Budding Sycamore (c. 1876): Art, History and Details

Budding Sycamore (c. 1876) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John Ruskin (British, 1819–1900).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The most influential art critic in Britain during the 19th century, John Ruskin was also an amateur artist for whom drawing was the cornerstone of artistic practice. Since his early youth, a keen perception of the world and obsessive desire to capture nature in all of its details found expression in his drawings. In this study of a leafing sycamore in early spring, Ruskin combined exquisite detail with atmospheric rendering of space, leaving the edges of the drawing unresolved. This sheet exemplifies his belief that drawn fragments, if sensitively observed, were capable of suggesting the profound mysteries of the natural world.

Object facts

• Title: Budding Sycamore
• Date: c. 1876
• Creator attribution: John Ruskin (British, 1819–1900)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black and gray wash, gouache, and graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 34.8 x 44.8 cm (13 11/16 x 17 5/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1989.14

A detail from the museum

This drawing was used as an illustration in John Ruskin's manual on drawing, Rudimentary Studies.

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cook, Edward Tyas and Alexander Wedderburn. The Works of John Ruskin. London: George Allen, 1906.
• Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review: Selections 1989." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 2 (1990): 38-78.
• Artemis 88-89: Consolidated Audited Annual Report. Annual General Meeting (January 26, 1990).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.