Self-portrait by John Ruskin

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Self-portrait in Blue Neckcloth

John Ruskin

1873

Watercolor

Source: Spates (see below)

Peirpont Morgan Library, New York

“It is almost universally agreed that Self-Portrait in Blue Neckcloth, 1873 is not only the most striking and accomplished picture Ruskin ever made of himself, but the most honest, a portrait of a soul divided, with one side of his face imaging a face full of light and purpose, while the other side shows a countenance almost monstrous, a half-visage peering out of a terrifying dark, a dark which terrifies the artist himself. Specifically: Ruskin has rendered the right side of his face (the left side in the portrait) in warm flesh tones, its soft-blue, intentioned eye staring straight ahead, its forehead only slightly lined, the hair and sideburns full and robust, the mouth set and determined, the trademark neckcloth perfectly arranged and brilliantly blue. [Continued below]

“This is the public face of one of the most celebrated authors of the age. But, if we look closely, we see some disturbing things lurking in the bright: the bushy eyebrow obscures, a bit more than slightly, a bit more than naturally, the purposed eye, and the area below the eye look like it has been filled with tears, tears which have been shed because of things seen which the eye never wanted to see, tears which, clearly having overflowed their pool, have drained into and discolored an area near the mouth and chin: portents.

“The other side startles in contrast — startles most immediately in its darkness, a darkness that deepens as the face fades away from us. Where only one line creases Ruskin’s forehead on the light side, here he has quadrupled that number, gouging them deeper into the flesh — the first, immediately above the eye, seems almost stitched, as if it could only be kept from erupting by incredible effort; the second gouge, at strange angle to those above it, is lined in red, giving the impression of an open wound; together, the lines suggest a mind besieged by worry. Carrying the wounded effect further, a half dozen, black, vertical furrows (none of which appear on the face’s light side) have been inserted: two extend above the eyebrow, crisscrossing the first of the worry lines, and all slice downward toward the chin, as if created by scratches of incredible force; making this side even more disquieting is its eye; unsettlingly unfocused, it seems to imply that, behind it, there lives, ready to pounce, a fearful beast; the healthy hair and sideburns of the face’s bright side, are executed here as almost black, flat, and insubstantial; the mouth, painted with a ghostly gouache, scumbles into confusion, as though whatever it had said or might say was of dubious value; the blue neckcloth, stained by drippings from the mouth’s gouache (effects of all the ill-chosen words), shrinks and disappears into the gloom: the private face of the man we have been discussing — a portrait of melancholy resident and abiding, of a life already failed without hope of redemption, a portrait painted a half decade before Ruskin would go insane for the first time, a portrait of tortured, mourning soul that knows perfectly well what horrors lie ahead” — James L. Spates, p.40.

Bibliography

Spates, James L. "Ruskin's Dark Night of the Soul: A Reconsideraion of His Mental Illness and the Imnportance of Accurate Diagnosis for Interpreting his Life Story." Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies New Series 18 Spring 2009): 19-58.

Ruskin, John. Works, "The Library Edition." eds. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. 39 vols. London: George Allen, 1903-1912.

Last modified 19 June 2007