The Valley of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, ca. 1866, Watercolor, gouache, and brown ink over graphite, sheet: 7 5/8 x 10 in. (19. 4 x 25. 4 cm), Drawings, John Ruskin (British, London 1819?1900 Brantwood, Cumbria), When the celebrated Victorian critic and amateur painter John Ruskin first saw the Alps in 1833, he responded to them as images of sublime beauty, records of divine creation, and scientific geology. In this mountain landscape, the product of a later journey, Ruskin chose a melancholy spot where the low sunlit trees on the left contrast starkly with the steep, shaded rows of pines that line the right