JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)
The Dent d'Oche (2,221 m - 7,287 ft)
France (Haute-Savoie)
In The Dent d'Oche range, on the south side of Lac Leman from Vevey, 1846, watercolour and ink The Ruskin Library - Lancaster University
The mountain
The Dent d'Oche (2,221 m- 7,287 ft) is a mountain in the Haute-Savoie region of France, in the Chablais massif, near the Swiss-French border, that rises to 2,221 m (7,287 ft) in altitude. It towers above Evian, Thonon, and Lake Geneva. It offers a view of the French and Swiss Alps and the Swiss prealps. It is the northernmost summit above 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in France. Oche means "good pasture". Whereever one is between Léman and High Chablais, le "bec", as the Dent d'Oche is called by the locals, cuts a fine figure in the sky, as a sharp canine, a rocky and grassy face, or as a vertical rock.About 100 m (330 ft) below the summit is a refuge of the French Alpine Club, the refuge de la Dent d'Oche. In summer, the refuge and the summit can be reached by a hike that is doable without special equipment, but significantly more difficult than the usual routes to nearby peaks such as Cornettes de Bise and Le Grammont. Reaching the refuge involves some short climbing sections for which chains are provided. The hike from the refuge up to the summit involves some unsecured sections along a cliff, where a misstep would be fatal.
There is an alternative hiking route to the summit, from the east, that is even more delicate.
Finally, the north face route, with a rise of 350 m (1,150 ft), is one of the most difficult climbs of the Chablais Alps. Certain sections require extensive technical skill. The first ascent of the north face was achieved by Joseph Ravanel, his siblings Arthur and Camille and François Jacquier on 6 June 1925.
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The painter
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century, and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
About mountains he painted quite a lot of times, Ruskin wrote: "They are the great cathedrals of the earth, with their portals of rock, the mosaics of clouds, the choirs of torrents, and the altars of snow, sometimes with purple sparkling stars." and "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery."
Source:
The Ruskin Library - Lancaster University
