Geoscience Reference
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is revealed in the fact that in 1870 he was in Sicily as the oicial
draughtsman on a government-sponsored expedition to observe
the solar eclipse of 22 December 1870. For the expedition he
made a series of detailed drawings of the sun's corona, and wrote
observations of the current eruptive activity that were published
in
Nature
the following year:
John Ruskin,
Etna from Taormina
,
1874, watercolour
and gouache.
There has been a sad falling off in the appearance of Etna.
The grand wreath of steam that used to roll out of the crater
at such stately leisure . . . suddenly ceased about three days
ago, and left nothing more than a tiny wisp of smoke rather
suggestive of a cottage chimney than a volcano . . . I have
watched the volcano at all hours of the day for a week past,
in the hopes of getting a correct outline of it for pictorial
purposes. The clouds only cleared off completely yesterday.40
Brett shows Etna as the most distant landscape element in
a painting that moves from cultivated orchards, to the peaceful
