Moreover, the influence of the journey is immediately apparent in the work he did on his return. Ladies and Death (fig. 58), a pen-and-ink drawing of 1860, paraphrases one of the frescoes then attributed to Orcagna that he had seen in the Campo Santo at Pisa. For Ruskin these paintings were supreme examples of "ideal grotesques," his slightly confusing phrase for imaginary conceptions replete with moral signifi- cance. They were also models of how such flights of fancy should be based on a thorough understanding of "facts," and an illustration of the classical tradition, Orcagna being an artist who could "taste the finer characters of Greek art" and who would have "understood the Theseus in an instant." 22 Childe Roland (cat. no. 14), a pen drawing executed the fol- lowing year, is open to similar interpretation. True, its link with Italy is more tenuous, but, like Buondelmontes Wedding, it was probably commissioned by Ruskin. Evidence of close study of nature is provided by the luxuriant sunflowers, and the subject, given Ruskin’s admiration for Browning, falls into the approved category of the "meditations of great men."
A drawing that deals with the transience of life and beauty. The figures are recognizable as the four MacDonald sisters and Jane Morris. There are indications in this work of 1859, of a number of subjects that arise in his later work, the group of seated maidens as they re-occur on the Priestly piano anticipate The Hours c. 1868 and 1870-83, the maiden with her head resting on her friend's lap is a motif that occurs in a number of drawings in the early 1870s, and musicians can be seen frequently throughout his oeuvre. It is significant that in the language of flowers. Sunflowers represent false riches (Henry Phillips - Floral Emblems 1825) and are here an early appearance of the artist's favourite flower, which he used symbolically a number of times in subsequent works. At this date they would have appealed carrying this message, to his religious high church sentiments, later they took on an additional aesthetic quality.
