Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters

As contemporary critics have shown, John Ruskin’s lifelong interest in geology not only provided him with a unique understanding of the mountain as a painting subject but also allowed him to develop an idiosyncratic theory of perception where movement and salience prevail – a theory he then applied...

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Main Author: Laurence Roussillon-Constanty
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut de Géographie Alpine 2016-09-01
Series:Revue de Géographie Alpine
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/rga/3407
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author Laurence Roussillon-Constanty
author_facet Laurence Roussillon-Constanty
author_sort Laurence Roussillon-Constanty
collection DOAJ
description As contemporary critics have shown, John Ruskin’s lifelong interest in geology not only provided him with a unique understanding of the mountain as a painting subject but also allowed him to develop an idiosyncratic theory of perception where movement and salience prevail – a theory he then applied to his often memorable prose. At first sight, salience is one feature of landscape that one can easily visually apprehend but much less easily account for in prose writing. However, recent research in linguistics may offer a new model for investigations and the means to identify recurrent patterns serving to highlight the transaction from the visual to the verbal and better qualify the writer’s “word painting”. More specifically, Frédéric Landragin’s investigations on the relation between linguistic and visual salience may allow us to explore Ruskin’s prose further and see how the visual salience he noted in painting carries over in his own writing. Applying the salience model to Ruskin’s prose might therefore prove a new way to uncover some of the more elusive and distinctive features of his writing.
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spelling doaj-art-de19a6e788924cf0a69dd28f97e389352025-01-10T15:53:38ZengInstitut de Géographie AlpineRevue de Géographie Alpine0035-11211760-74262016-09-01104210.4000/rga.3407Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern PaintersLaurence Roussillon-ConstantyAs contemporary critics have shown, John Ruskin’s lifelong interest in geology not only provided him with a unique understanding of the mountain as a painting subject but also allowed him to develop an idiosyncratic theory of perception where movement and salience prevail – a theory he then applied to his often memorable prose. At first sight, salience is one feature of landscape that one can easily visually apprehend but much less easily account for in prose writing. However, recent research in linguistics may offer a new model for investigations and the means to identify recurrent patterns serving to highlight the transaction from the visual to the verbal and better qualify the writer’s “word painting”. More specifically, Frédéric Landragin’s investigations on the relation between linguistic and visual salience may allow us to explore Ruskin’s prose further and see how the visual salience he noted in painting carries over in his own writing. Applying the salience model to Ruskin’s prose might therefore prove a new way to uncover some of the more elusive and distinctive features of his writing.https://journals.openedition.org/rga/3407AlpsRuskinModern PaintersLandraginsalience
spellingShingle Laurence Roussillon-Constanty
Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters
Revue de Géographie Alpine
Alps
Ruskin
Modern Painters
Landragin
salience
title Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters
title_full Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters
title_fullStr Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters
title_full_unstemmed Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters
title_short Of Ruskinian Topography: Visible and Legible Salience in Modern Painters
title_sort of ruskinian topography visible and legible salience in modern painters
topic Alps
Ruskin
Modern Painters
Landragin
salience
url https://journals.openedition.org/rga/3407
work_keys_str_mv AT laurenceroussillonconstanty ofruskiniantopographyvisibleandlegiblesalienceinmodernpainters