VENEZIA – From JOHN RUSKIN
pencil and watercolor
13 x 10,5 cm
2026
A watercolour painted quickly in Venice, in front of the Ponte dei Pugni, from a sketch by John Ruskin.
Ruskin, as can be clearly seen, was also on a gondola and therefore his viewpoint was very low, much lower than the view usually enjoyed by those walking on the fondamenta.
I often use this drawing in my drawn art history lessons for this reason. The point of view is important. Observers in the past were different from us, and if it is true that space is produced by the observer, Venice is a place that allows us to reflect on this concept.
Like Ruskin, whom we imagine sitting in a gondola with a sketchbook and the minimum tools needed to paint his watercolours, or using only a pencil in three colours: a bluish grey, blue for the sky (created using the wet-on-wet technique) and a few touches of orange-ochre.