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Full Moon
7 Mar 2023
Jack B
Bedell
Ruskin and
The Walls of Lucerne
Only one swath of light, stretched
from just inside the wall
across the near tower, held
any interest for him.
Its harsh white brought to life
small patches of vines and
crawlers he could tender
with the thinnest of strokes
and washed the tower’s walls
clean against the sky’s indigo
frown. Beyond this easy contrast,
the rest of the scene shrugged
against his canvas, all color
and smear. What bored him
in the near at hand—windows,
balconies, the beginnings of stairs
leading nowhere—did not even
deserve the waste of paint.
Behind the poem...
From the first time I saw John Ruskin’s The Walls of Lucerne, I felt it was a perfect representation of human consciousness as the artist understood it. Ruskin structures the piece around a central band of light filled with focus, clarity and pristine detail. Outside of this focus, he builds a landscape of increasingly blurred, half-formed shapes and colors, trailing off into bare canvas. I wouldn’t blame anyone for seeing this – or any of Ruskin’s works – as unfinished. But I’d counter that its completeness is less valuable than its accuracy, always.