Brantwood

Took a stroll over to Brantwood today, on the shore of Coniston. (Must try to walk more slowly and actually notice the scenery.) It was closer than I thought - only about 4 miles, so I was there well before lunch time. Undeterred I availed myself of the excellent "Jumping Jenny" restaurant and sat outside, overlooking the lake. Had great food, coffee with a free refill, and a Kindle to read. Brightly coloured little birds appeared occasionally to beg for crumbs. Decided it was possibly the most pleasant lunch I've ever had alone. (Remembered to give thanks though.)

Brantwood was for many years the home of John Ruskin. There was a video presentation of his life and ideas, which was a bit hagiographic I thought. Apparently he invented the minimum wage, state education and healthcare, environmentalism, and Christian Socialism. And studied geology, meteorology, architecture, ornithology and pretty much everything else. His day job of course was just drawing, painting, writing and championing artists like Turner and the PreRaphs, even when they were unpopular. He thought art should get back to representing nature as it really is rather than relying on inherited painterly techniques. He hated the way Victorian England was being covered by the dark smog of unrestrained industrialisation, and the capitalism that drove it. Don't think he liked technology very much.
Not sure he'd appreciate me sitting in his "Painters' Glade" reading "High-Tech Worship" on a Kindle. (More on that tomorrow.)

I find Ruskin a fascinating chap, and would like to read some more of his work. Perhaps his Stones of Venice or Modern Painters - for some reason there's Volume III of a 1901 edition here at Fellfield.

Today's Trivia: BBC3 did a series on the PreRaphs recently, and the chap who played Ruskin then turned up playing the title character in Rev on BBC2.

Location:Brantwood