Room 2 Foundations Landscape... the ruling passion of my life     John Ruskin 1819-1900 View of Bologna circa 1911845-6 © Tate Gallery

The young John Ruskin grew up in a close family environment in which he was the focus of all his parents' energies and hopes. During these years Ruskin was taught at home by his strict, puritanical mother, Margaret (no.12), who hoped to steer him towards a career in the church. The austerity of her regime was balanced by his father's interest in literature and art, which liberated Ruskin's imagination from his daily diet of Bible readings. John James Ruskin had himself learned to draw, and paid for a succession of the best drawing masters to encourage his son's natural skills. Through these lessons the future critic came to appreciate the practice and also the imaginative limitations of drawing from nature. The Ruskins were keen collectors of works exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water Colours. These included the landscapes by Copley Fielding, David Cox, Samuel Prout and James Duffield Harding shown in this room.

Ruskin's early experience of watercolour profoundly influenced his attitude to art and the visual world. Though his aesthetic education was still far from complete, his first critical writings testify to his wide knowledge of the techniques and practitioners of this very British art form.