The first mention of the flower known as gentian in John Ruskin’s writings dates back to 1835. In a letter written in the form of a poem while he was touring in Switzerland, he describes not the flower itself but its colour, the ‘sapphire-like’ of ‘the gentian blue’ (Works, 2:431). He was only sixteen years old and already this Alpine flower was drawing his attention for the subtlety of its hues.

Throughout his life he continued to cherish the gentian, especially its colour and texture. In Modern Painters, a series of five volumes written between 1843 and 1860 throughout which he displays a meticulous attention to his environment so characteristic of his writings, the blue of the gentian is referred to repeatedly, as well as in this letter written in 1884 to his friend Kate Greenaway in which he identifies the ‘Alpine Gentian’ as one of his favourite flowers (W, 37:480). 

Cook & Wedderburn (ed) 1903John BrettPre-Raphaelite BrotherhoodJ. Brett's watercolourwatercolourFlower Study - Gentian

In the last volume of Modern Painters, Ruskin explains flowers should be looked at closely and carefully for a proper rendering of colour and details (W, 8:119). He himself set an example with his botanical drawings, also offering advice to painters as to how they should take on representing the colourful beauty of flowers. He was for instance an artistic mentor and patron for John Brett, a pre-Raphaelite painter known for his meticulously detailed accounts of nature. In 1862, Brett painted a watercolour representing a beautiful gentian in the most vibrant blue, in which one can recognize Ruskin’s influence.  

In his 1854 lecture on the ‘General Principles of Colour’, Ruskin dismisses the theory of the primary colours, which appears too simplistic to grasp the complexity of the phenomenon: 

'Look, too, at the beautiful little sky-blue flowers of the gentian. Did Nature give that eight of blue, five of red, and a touch of yellow? No such thing'. (W, 12:605). 

Similarly, in the third volume of Modern Painters (1856), Ruskin speaks out against ‘certain philosophers’ who claim that the colour of the gentian or the sky is only blue when you look at it. For him, the chromatic potency of the object transcends the sight of the observer because it is a divine creation and goes beyond the mere sensation of its witness (W, 5:202). 

Ruskin associates this flower with the blue of the sky on numerous occasions, encouraging painters to try and grasp the delicacy of its hue and texture. Only Dante could come close to the ineffable tint, with words, when evoking a colour ‘less than that of roses, but more than that of violets’ (W, 5:283). Elsewhere drawing on his own poetic talents, he offers us ‘the gentian’s peace of pale, ineffable azure, as if strange stars had been made for earth out of the blue light of heaven’ (W, 13:117). 

Drawing away from the rationality of botanical knowledge, Ruskin therefore promoted a romantic and sacred approach to colour that we find also in the intense hue Brett translates from nature in his own version of Ruskin’s flower.