The Stones of Venice

by John Ruskin

BEAUTIFUL EDITION

The Stones of Venice (Abridged)

City of incomparable beauty, shimmering in the reflected light from a thousand waterways, Venice has been a magnet to artists for many centuries. Unique among them, however, is John Ruskin, for he not only painted wonderful, atmospheric watercolours of the city, but dedicated himself to the study of Venice's architectural styles with awe-inspiring passion and thoroughness. Ruskin was one of the great prose stylists of his age - the greatest, thought Proust, who learned English expressly so as to translate Ruskin's works - and he describes the buildings with vivid clarity and rhetorical eloquence.

Ruskin had a lifelong obsession with Venice. Fearing for the survival of its glorious palaces, churches and civic buildings in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, he embarked on this immense project, publishing his original work in three volumes between 1851 and 1853. For Ruskin the city's Gothic architecture - 'rude and wild, tinged with humour, joyful, spontaneous' - was the pinnacle of human achievement. The Stones of Venice celebrates this achievement with wit, erudition and unquenchable fervour. The text has been selected for this edition by Jan Morris, one of the foremost living authorities on Venice.

‘Among the many strange things that have befallen Venice, she had the good fortune to become the object of passion to a man of splendid genius’
HENRY JAMES

[Source: http://www.foliosociety.com/book/SOV/...]

Genres: Art, Architecture, Nonfiction, History, Travel, Classics, Italy

350 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1853

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher, art historian, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
Ruskin was heavily engaged by the work of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc which he taught to all his pupils including William Morris, notably Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary, which he considered as "the only book of any value on architecture". Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J.M.W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s, he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.

Reviews

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people, capable of quickly sympathizing with any excellence, when once pointed out to them, easily deceive themselves into the supposition that they are judges of art.

I recently went on a short trip to Venice, for which I chose an abridged version of this work to accompany me. Ruskin is an eccentric guide, to say the least. To call him ‘opinionated’ is to risk absurd understatement. For Ruskin uses his survey of Venetian architecture, not merely to instruct, but as evidence for his grand theses of art and society. Few writers could turn descriptions of vaults, capitals, and statues into impassioned social criticism; but Ruskin was no ordinary man.

Ruskin’s primary contention is that gothic art was in every way superior to that of the Renaissance, and this was so because gothic art embodied positive social virtues. The workmen had considerable creative freedom, and did not simply execute the instructions of the master architect; not just nobles and popes, but ordinary citizens and guilds contributed to building projects; and the religious architecture was not done in a special style, but was an elaboration of the normal civic architecture of the town. In short, gothic art was communal, while the art and architecture of the Renaissance and later was individualistic, and suffered accordingly.

It is difficult to even critically engage with this thesis, since it rests on Ruskin’s unconvincing conviction that aesthetic and ethical virtues spring from the same root. Like Tolstoy and Orwell, Ruskin was a man possessed of both keen artistic sensitivity and a burning moral conscience; and like those two Ruskin struggled to reconcile these proclivities. To an extent this issue is troubling for us all. We are disturbed to find that our favorite singer beat his wife, or that our favorite writer is a white supremacist. Can we enjoy the art of such disreputable people? Many opt to boycott the works of artists they deem unacceptable. But Ruskin went further, and asserted that truly immoral people cannot make fine art. In this, Ruskin becomes a proper Platonist, equating beauty and goodness—and throwing truth into the bargain as well—thus cutting the uncomfortable gordian knot.

This position has the intellectual convenience of uniting all the goods on one side. This is very appealing for the social reformer. But this comes with the inconvenience of having to argue palpable absurdities. Ruskin is forced, for example, to make statements such as: “It is very possible that the reader may at first like fig. 14 best. I shall endeavor, in the next chapter, to show why he should not”—vainly trying to argue somebody out of an aesthetic preference. Contrariwise, when great art is made by figures whom history has shown to be immoral, Ruskin must commit the opposite absurdity—opposing his own aesthetic sense to documented fact:

I do not believe, of the majority of the leading Venetians of this period whose portraits have come down to us, that they were deliberately and everlastingly hypocrites. I see no hypocrisy in their countenances. Much capacity of it, much subtlety, much natural and acquired reserve; but no meanness. On the contrary, infinite grandeur, repose, courage, and the peculiar unity and tranquility of expression which come of sinciety or wholeness of heart, and which it would take much demonstration to believe could be any possibility be seen on the countenance of an insincere man.

Few people will be converted to this way of thinking, which submits reality to the whims of Ruskin’s moral and artistic senses. It is, however, refreshing to see a man so passionately convinced of the social importance of art. Ruskin scours to the city of Venice—sketchbook and notepad in one hand, step ladder under the other arm—making detailed studies of statues, capitals, friezes, cornices, and whatever other stone monuments he could find. The original edition of this book includes descriptions of eighty churches. Even in my heavily abridged edition, Ruskin goes through every capital of the Ducal Palace, comparing the representations of the virtues to Giotto’s and to Spenser’s—a tedious yet extraordinary feat. Idle fancy could hardly spur such devotion. He operated with the zeal of a reformer and the conviction of a crusader—ready to show all the world that these stones held the key to social welfare.

Personally I wish there were more people like Ruskin in the world, even if they can be insufferable at times. He wanted to live in a beautiful world, and he wanted that beauty to both reflect and encourage the health of its society. We may be inclined to laugh at Ruskin’s arguments; yet we are willing to pay thousands of dollars to go to these beautiful places and see them for ourselves—which, like Venice, consequently become hollowed out shells of their former selves from the influx of tourism—without stopping to wonder why we don’t spare ourselves the trouble and make our own cities beautiful. While I suspect the rise of urban ugliness is far more complex than Ruskin is apt to think, I agree with him in seeing a moral and social dimension to this aesthetic problem.

In any case, it is a pleasure to read Ruskin if only for his rococo prose, whose sentences twist, curl, and spiral into little infinities. One can see why Proust was a fan (and, indeed, his Narrator’s visit to Venice owes much to the Victorian critic). Ruskin was true to his principles, and strove to unite literary elegance, moral fervor, and insightful argument into every one of his paragraphs—and most of the time he achieves at least two out of three, which is not bad at all. Even if you disagree with Ruskin from first to last, it is scarcely possible to dive in his book and come out the other side without a few of his cobwebs sticking to your coat.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Ok my version is FOUR volumes long NOT 264 pages! Wth

So I perused my book. This is just not for me. It’s very detailed and extremely well written, but I’m just not that into architecture to give it my undivided attention. I read about half of it and just said NO MORE. I’m not giving it a star rating because I think as it stands it’s really four stars, but at my interest level it’s a one and that’s just not fair to its genius.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous ode to Venice by art critic John Ruskin (adored by Marcel Proust). If you love Venice and you love art and culture, this is an essential book. If you have never been to Venice, this and Jan Morris's Venice are perfect ways to prepare your voyage!

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

To enjoy Ruskin one needs, first, a taste for purple prose and, second, sympathy for those willing to fight vigorously for a losing cause. Among other things, Ruskin argued vehemently in his writings against the use of steel for architectural purposes. A contemporary of Gustave Eiffel, Ruskin can be seen as a type of King Canute ordering the tide not to come in. In the Stones of Venice, Ruskin is in top form vehemently presenting an absurd case; that is to say that the buildings of Venice demonstrate the absolute superiority of Gothic to Renaissance architecture.

Armed with his own diagrams and measurements, Ruskin insists that the Gothic buildings of Venice had consistently superior rhythm to those of the Renaissance. He argues that the Gothic architects used forms from nature whereas the Renaissance architects relied on Geometry.

Ruskin devotes a great deal of time to the rich ornamentation of the Gothic buildings. He felt first that the Gothic style of decoration had the great virtue of accommodating the styles and skill levels of the individual workmen. Gothic buildings thus were more democratic and less the expression of individual egocentric architects.

Finally, Ruskin argued that the Gothic style in churches channeled the thoughts of the worshipper to n to God whereas the Renaissance style promoted the glory of the Pope. Ruskin notes that during the Gothic era Venice was at the height of its political power was religious in a Protestant manner. During the Renaissance when the focus of religious architecture shifted from God to the Catholic Church , the Venetians became preoccupied with material wealth and virtue declined. Venice's decline in political and commercial terms began.

Ruskin in inquisitorial fashion accused the Renaissance architects of being guilty of three of three prides: (1) pride of science (2) pride of state and (3) pride of system.

For Ruskin pride of science meant relying on techniques (e.g. the laws of perspective) rather than personal inspiration. "The whole function of the artist in the world is to be a seeing and feeling creature; .. . no science of perspective or of anything else will enable us to draw the simplest natural line accurately unless we see it and feel it." p. 291

Pride of state was pride in one's social and economic position. Ruskin felt that this was manifested by the garish and tasteless tombs of the Renaissance that revealed the "vanishing of religious feeling and heavenly hope'" p. 303.

Pride of system was the "the tendency to formulisation and system. " Neither can any written or observable laws enable us to do any great thing." p. 311 As noted above, Ruskin felt that geometry and the discovery of perspective had a highly pernicious effect on Renaissance architecture. Ruskin even decried the revival of interest during the Renaissance in Vitruvius' "Ten Books of Architecture" (written in the first century BC) because it led to systemisation in architecture.

While Ruskin was clearly an eccentric, anyone reading the "Stones of Venice" will be struck by the intensive effort that Ruskin put into this book. He drew examples of every time of capital and architectural ornament that he encountered in Venice. He painted water colours of the buildings. He measured the distances between every post, pillar, door and window at every site. He catalogued the various floral orders and gable types. He identified the characters and analyzed the themes of very sculpture. Researched and written during his brief years as a married man, one understands how he lacked the energy to consummate his marriage. Reading his text, the reader also suspected that Ruskin lacked the interest to do so.

[Tittirossa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caro Rus, sorvolando sulla tua idiosioncrasia (massì, chiamiamola col suo nome, odio totale) per tutto quello che viene dopo il gotico, e massimamente per quell'orrore architettonico prima ancora che culturale del Rinascimento, ho molto apprezzato le dritte per distinguere gli archi che meritano una qualche attenzione (ogivali, volte acute, decorazioni sobrie, colonnine dritte o tornite non floreali).
I palazzi di Canal Grande saranno da me visti ormai con questo filtro: gotico (buono), no gotico (no buono); nelle gallerie assumerò un'espressione sopraccigliante e malmostosa verso Tiziano e Tintoretto, e grazie al cielo ci sono pochi quadri di quel volgarone di Rubens, per non parlare di Caravaggio.
Erano anni che tentavo di leggerlo, poi - complice Proust che lo ha tradotto in francese e quindi mi sono detta, dai che ce la posso fare anche per capire l'estetica di Marcel - mi ci sono buttata in un weekend veneziano e ne ho macinato le pagine in situ, tentando di trovare i luoghi (attività facilitata da Google maps, che Rus nelle descrizioni toponomastico-logistiche non è granché). Bello eh, ma a metà ho scoperto che Proust l'aveva rinnegato, e quindi, chi sono io per contraddire il mio nume?
Il capitolo sulle punte degli archi* (tondo, tondeggiante, tondeggiante tendente all'acuto, tondeggiante tendente all'acuto smussato, smussato sugli angoli, acuto ma smussato, smussato ma acuto, tondo ma non troppo, bilobato, trilobato, trilobato triforato, trifolato, triturato) lo userò per sempre negli attacchi di insonnia.
*ho il sospetto che Rus non abbia proprio capito che non ci sono due archi uguali in tutta Venezia, e quindi alla fin fine non sia possibile trovare una ontologia e una tassonomia definitive, se non pari al numero degli archi :-)

[Vittorio Ducoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

La mirabile storia di una città oggi assassinata

Recentemente mi è capitato di parlare di Bruges la morta di Georges Rodenbach, e non ho potuto fare a meno di paragonare le atmosfere che l'autore ci offre, relative alla città sul finire del XIX secolo, e l'esperienza di visita odierna in una città diventata una delle mete del turismo internazionale.
Questo stridente contrasto lo si ritrova all'ennesima potenza confrontando la Venezia di oggi con le sublimi descrizioni della città decadente, della sua storia e della sua arte che ci vengono proposte da John Ruskin nella sua opera più famosa, Le pietre di Venezia.
Chi oggi si rechi a Venezia e segua il percorso che dalla stazione di Santa Lucia giunge a San Marco passando per Rialto, seguendo le anacronistiche frecce, quasi commoventi nel loro minimalismo, disegnate sugli antichi muri delle case oppure sui vecchi cartelli a fondo giallo, si trova costantemente immerso in una marea umana che a stento riesce a farsi largo nelle calli invase da negozi della più orrenda paccottiglia, da fast-food e pizzerie che vendono a carissimo prezzo i cibi più scadenti che si possano trovare nel nostro Paese, da finti artisti di strada che cercano di smerciare all'estasiato turista russo o cinese copie di tremende croste pittoriche. Se ci si allontana da questo impetuoso fiume del cattivo gusto, perdendosi nelle calli di Cannaregio o di Dorsoduro, ci si trova di fronte alla città fantasma, che in pochi decenni ha più che dimezzato la sua popolazione e che da anni non esprime più un'iniziativa culturale degna di questo nome, avendo venduto tutta sé stessa nello sforzo inane di diventare l'imitazione più sporca e malconcia della sua imitazione ricostruita a Las Vegas. Un degrado inarrestabile, che neppure lo stesso Ruskin – cantore del declino della potenza veneziana - avrebbe potuto prevedere, figlio dell'insipienza e dell'ingordigia di classi dirigenti (e di una società civile che le ha espresse e le esprime) che piuttosto che immaginare lo sviluppo futuro di una città unica l'hanno lasciata sola, spendendo ingenti risorse pubbliche solo per realizzaregrandi opere inutili o dannose, a patto che garantissero lauti profitti ai soliti noti e magari qualche extra benefit a chi le aveva programmate.
E' quindi con un infinito senso di nostalgia, quasi quella che si prova per una persona cara che si sa perduta per sempre, che ci si addentra nella lettura di Le pietre di Venezia, libro multiforme, capace di restituirci, da un punto di vista ancora oggi estremamente originale, la storia artistica di questa città e di rapportarla all'evoluzione dell'espressione architettonica europea tra medioevo ed età moderna, ma soprattutto di farci sentire il fascino perduto di Venezia, le sue peculiari atmosfere ormai dissoltesi nel nulla pneumatico del tutto compreso. Perché prima di tutto Le pietre di Venezia è un libro scritto in maniera magistrale da un grande letterato romantico, che ci affascina per la sua prosa evocativa non meno che per il suo sforzo analitico e classificatorio.
Il libro ci narra la storia dell'evoluzione dell'architettura a Venezia dalle origini – i primi edifici sacri di Torcello – sino alla decadenza della potenza economica di Venezia nel XVI e XVII secolo, associando strettamente questa evoluzione ai mutamenti dello spirito, del senso etico e morale dei veneziani. Questa concezione tipicamente romantica dell'evoluzione storica è esplicitata sin dal primo capitolo, fondamentale per capire il senso dell'opera, laddove Ruskin afferma che la storia di Venezia può essere scritta indipendentemente dall'evoluzione del funzionamento del Senato e del potere del doge, che non sono né la causa né l'effetto della decadenza del suo potere, ma … è la storia di un popolo estremamente omogeneo, discendente dai Romani, lungamente disciplinato dalle avversità, e costretto, per la sua posizione, a vivere nobilmente o a perire.
Ne deriva una concezione della storia molto originale, che per certi versi oggi potremmo definire ingenua, ma che sicuramente contiene il nucleo di un materialismo romantico di grande suggestione, che ancora oggi ci permette – fatte le opportune integrazioni di metodo analitico – di comprendere molto dell'architettura e dell'arte veneziane alla luce delle sue vicende storiche.
Non è un caso che questo libro (scritto nel 1852) abbia di fatto costituito il punto di partenza per l'opera successiva di Ruskin, più centrata sulla critica agli assetti sociali della Gran Bretagna della seconda metà dell'800 da una prospettiva socialista di matrice cristiana. Che questo libro sia stato scritto da Ruskin, oltre che per il suo amore per Venezia e l'Italia, anche con una certa qual funzione didattica nei confronti della società inglese dell'epoca è chiaro infatti sin dalle prime righe, dove l'autore invita l'Inghilterra a tenere conto della lezione di Venezia se non vuole andare incontro ad una fine meno rimpianta.
Il libro è organizzato per capitoli in senso cronologico, e ci porta dai resti degli insediamenti della Venezia primigenia di Torcello e Murano, attraverso lo splendore bizantino di San Marco e la descrizione dei pochi palazzi che ancora conservano tracce di quello stile, verso la magnificenza dell'architettura gotica, che rappresenta secondo Ruskin l'apice della forza culturale e sociale della città lagunare, sino alla decadenza, che per Ruskin è rappresentata dalla corruzione del rinascimento. Ogni capitolo è costruito basandosi su un'osservazione estremamente accurata, a volte quasi maniacale di materiali e particolari costruttivi, spesso corredati dai bellissimi disegni dell'autore (Ruskin fu anche un eccellente pittore). Proprio dall'osservazione e dalla descrizione dei particolari che egli ritiene più significativi per spiegare l'essenza di uno stile architettonico e quindi di un'epoca della storia veneziana Ruskin trae gli elementi per costruire il suo grande edificio teorico.
Per la nostra sensibilità di italiani la condanna senza appello dell'architettura rinascimentale (ma anche della pittura di Tiziano e di Caravaggio), associata ad una vera e propria esaltazione dell'arte gotica, suona difficile da digerire. Certo essa nasce anche dalla innata diffidenza del nordico, anglicano Ruskin verso una forma di espressione artistica tipicamente italiana e cattolica: tuttavia analizzando il testo nella citata prospettiva di materialismo romantico entro la quale si muove Ruskin ci si rende conto di come questo giudizio, che costituisce il cuore del libro, sia pienamente fondato e coerente.
Ruskin, nel capitolo VII, intitolato La natura del gotico, giustamente celeberrimo, ci dice che la superiorità dello stile gotico è data dal fatto che alla costruzione dei suoi edifici gli artigiani e le maestranze partecipavano con la propria creatività, non vi era uno schema rigidamente predefinito né dei compiti di ciascuno né dell'aspetto finale dell'opera: secondo una logica cristiana si accettava che ognuno contribuisse con ciò che era in grado di dare quanto a competenze, così da esaltare anche le imperfezioni e le incapacità individuali, che erano intrinsecamente connaturate al progetto. Sembra di sentire riecheggiare, in queste righe che evidenziano la democraticità del modello di costruzione gotico, il marxiano da ciascuno secondo le proprie capacità. Al contrario il rinascimento, che recupera gli stilemi ma anche l'organizzazione del lavoro dell'arte classica greca, è l'arte che cerca la perfezione assoluta, nella quale l'artista predefinisce ogni aspetto costruttivo, e quindi condanna gli artigiani e le maestranze ad essere dei semplici esecutori di disegni concepiti da altri. Questa modalità autoritaria e totalmente gerarchizzata di concepire la realizzazione architettonica è un modello che, ci dice Ruskin, nel XIX secolo in Inghilterra è applicato all'insieme dei processi produttivi, che quindi riducono l'uomo, l'operaio, a semplice esecutore di piccole parti dei prodotti, privandolo della possibilità di esprimere le proprie potenzialità creative. Ancora una volta, quanta affinità con il concetto marxiano di alienazione. Ruskin dice esplicitamente che non è possibile pensare ad una produzione artistica propriamente detta che non sia un bene diffuso, alla cui realizzazione tutti contribuiscano e che possa essere fruito da tutti. Per arrivare a ciò è però necessario cambiare profondamente i rapporti sociali, e da qui nasce il suo interesse per il superamento del modo di produzione del tempo.
Il rinascimento, in particolare la sua evoluzione nel corso del XVI secolo segna anche il prevalere della forma rispetto alla sostanza, parallelamente al decadere delle antiche virtù del popolo veneziano, sostituite da una sfrenata sete di piaceri: questo progressivo degrado della coscienza collettiva è splendidamente illustrato nel capitolo La via delle tombe, dove Ruskin, guidandoci tra i monumenti funebri di illustri veneziani, ci mostra come essi divengano sempre più pomposi, sempre più volti a nascondere la morte e sempre più retorici nell'attribuire ai defunti virtù che essi non avevano: persino i simboli della religiosità vengono sostituiti da allegorie di stampo civile, militare e pagano.
Questo bellissimo libro può svolgere anche oggi un'altra utilissima funzione, che è quella di guida sul campo all'architettura veneziana. Le numerosissime e dettagliate descrizioni di chiese, palazzi, monumenti funebri – fra tutte la minuziosa analisi di tutti i capitelli delle colonne di Palazzo Ducale - sono talmente belle che leggendole mi è venuta voglia di portarlo con me le prossime volte che mi recherò a Venezia: leggerne le pagine nei luoghi che descrive e in cui è stato scritto, seguire Ruskin nei suoi minuziosi sguardi aggiungerà senza dubbio altro piacere a quello che ho provato leggendolo a tavolino. Purtroppo osserverò i capitelli di Palazzo Ducale avendo a poche decine di metri una grande nave: povero Ruskin, se sapesse…

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I patiently searched through 8 pages of links and found no dust jack thumbnail for this edition but I did find this amazing Ruskin page: http://www.addall.com/author/2060993-1 If you can find the 1981 hard cover edition edited by Jan Morris you'll be very satisfied. Frankly, the unabridged three volume set was a bit overbearing, even for an art historian. Here is a reprint http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN... and I believe this is another http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwo... If you visit Venice this book is good preparation and an excellent memento for when you get home. The pic is from a Ruskin manuscript for The Stones of Venice at the Morgan Library in NYC.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heavily abridged version of the three volume work by John Ruskin of the same name. Specifically this abridgment was put together by J.G. Links, published in 2003. I have no way of knowing how well he did, but seeing as I didn't (and still don't) want to slog through thousands of pages on the subject, that's a risk I'm willing to take.

That being said, despite the difficulty of the topic and the occasionally annoying tone of the author, I'm excited to read more from Ruskin. I was intrigued by his premise and was prepared to be convinced if he put forth a compelling argument. As far as I can see, he did.

Ruskin's incendiary argument is that the best architecture is Gothic and everything after that declines towards rubbish. I'm quite sure he would continue that assessment to the architecture of 2021.

Ruskin approaches this argument by looking specifically at the buildings of Venice. This is useful because Venice contains structures from multiple eras and even single structures composed of parts from multiple eras. By fixing the place under inquiry in this way it makes comparison between the time periods more possible.

The crux of the issue is morality, and Ruskin comes at it with an interesting insight:

"...the most characteristic sentiment of all that we traced in the working of the Gothic heart, was the frank confession of its own weakness, the principal element in the Renaissance spirit is its firm confidence in its own wisdom."

Hubris is clearly a moral failing and a characteristic failing of modern humans at that. Nemesis is never far behind.

Ruskin explains what he means:

"The first thing that it [the Renaissance] demanded in all work was, that it should be done in a consummate and learned way; and men altogether forgot that it was possible to consummate what was contemptible, and to know what was useless. Imperatively requiring dexterity of touch, they gradually forgot to look for tenderness of feeling; imperatively requiring accuracy of knowledge, they gradually forgot to ask for originality of thought."

The requirement of perfection was the mistake of the Renaissance mind. The search for perfection became the codification of perfection, and ingenuous art became exquisitely executed copy.

Do I sound convinced? Maybe I am. This is a rewarding little book if you can get through the first few chapters, which are required to understand the rest.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, even though sometimes dry, read. Ruskin is a man of Opinion... and I loved it. That time when people could express such strong opinions and still keep friends (and maybe even convince friends) seems so quaint and far gone. Had particular fun with the topic as it mostly centered on architecture of Venice and I could reminisce about a vacation there along the way through the pages. Definitely read this heavily edited, shortened version if you have any interest in the topic. But don't bother reading unless you care about Venice AND architecture - if you do, then the very amusing personality will be a nice addition to the read.

[Al Maki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a one volume abridgement published by the Folio Society of the original three volume work. It is a detailed description of the architecture of Venice. As an approach to viewing Venetian architecture it's very good, detailed and evocative. But there's more. For one thing his style is gorgeous, somewhere on the continuum that runs through Gibbon and Henry James. And just as Gibbon had points to make in his multi volume work on Roman history, Ruskin had a point as well. He saw the Gothic style, the style up until the late 13th century as the high point of Western European architecture and Venice as its jewel. Since that time science and philosophy have degraded architecture as well as other aspects of Western Civilization through a loss of respect for the workers, souls valuable in themselves, and at the same time, a loss of belief in external powers that are greater than man. I can't recapitulate his argument in the space available, but he makes it very well. It seems to me to be part of the nineteenth century critique of the Industrial Revolution, and more broadly of modernity.

The quote below is most of the first sentence describing the entrance to San Marco. It gives a pretty good idea of his style. Although I find it delightful it reminds me of Gateau Saint Honore, a dessert so rich that a slice a year is enough.

"...beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away;-- a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered in a long low pyramid of coloured light; a treasure heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory, -- sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes; and in the midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago."

The Folio edition contains beautiful reproductions of Ruskin's own sketches of the buildings.

[Kathy Kattenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Ruskin's knowledge and understanding of architectural form, function, style, and history is nothing short of astonishing. His detailed definitions of arches, buttresses, walls, ceilings, and architectural ornamentation is lucid even to a total architectural ignoramus such as myself. That technical knowledge is married to a lyrical writing style that is a joy to read--especially when he's writing about the cultural and historical contexts in which these architectural wonders existed.

This edition of the book is abridged from the complete original, which spans three volumes and well over 1,000 pages. Reading it has whetted my appetite for reading the whole thing, although that probably won't happen for a while.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this abridged edition and only wished for pictures of the buildings Ruskin described, in addition to his own drawings. One can still feel the impact Ruskin's book must have had on art historical thought. His mordant put-down of the Renaissance is inspired! And subtly articulated. Reading this book provides a better understanding of how the reappraisal of the Middle Ages and Gothic architecture came about.

[Ruth Paszkiewicz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished! Took a lot more concentration than I expected, but I like Ruskin's style and the accompanying diagrams are very useful.

[Redsteve · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the first chapter I felt that John Ruskin and I were not destined to become fast friends. By page 81 I was consumed with the desire to punch him in the face. I cannot stand to finish this. The pomposity overwhelms me.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literally about the stones of Venice. This book is a work on the architectural properties and history of architecture in Venice, with an eye for establishing the standard. highly informative, but if you're not interested in the philosophy of classic architecture than this book isn't for you.

[Mina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic abridged version of Ruskin's three volume writings on Venice. An unconventional architecture, art, culture, and city guide for the academically inclined pessimist. His deprecating tone is always amusing to read.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless

[Evan Simpkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could it be the greatest book every written about a physical place?

[Vanim]

Even if you have no interest in architecture.... even if you've never been to Venice, Ruskin's passion and prose are compelling.

[Anna Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was ever anyone more eloquent than Ruskin?

[Irina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will have to visit Venice again and compare notes :)

[Negar Ghadimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

All European architecture, bad and good, old and new, is derived from Greece through Rome, and colored and perfected from the East. The history of architecture is nothing but the tracing of the various modes and directions of this derivation.
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We have thus, altogether, three great branches of architectural virtue, and we require of any building.
1. That it act well, and do the things it was intended to do in the best way.
2. That it speak well, and say the things it was intended to say in the best words.
3. That it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it has to do or say.
———————————————————
The great evil of all recent architectural effort has not been that men liked wrong things; but that they either cared nothing about any, or pretended to like what they did not. Do you suppose that any modern architect likes what he builds, or enjoys it? Not in the least. He builds it because he had been told that such and such things are fine, and that he should like them. He pretends to like them, and gives them a false relish of vanity.
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Superimposition, wisely practiced, is of two kinds, directly contrary to each other, of weight on lightness, and of lightness on weight; while the superimposition of weight on weight, or lightness on lightness, is nearly always wrong.
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But with the Venetians it could not be a question for an instant; they were exiles from ancient and beautiful cities, and had been accustomed to build with their ruins, not less in affection than in admiration; they had thus not only grown familiar with the practice of inserting older fragments in modern buildings, but they owed to that practice a great part of the splendor of their city, and whatever charm of association might aid its change from a Refuge into a Home.

[Richard Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing --eccentric -- even outrageous opinions exquisitely expressed in every chapter. Is it true that an immoral people cannot produce great art? How about secular people? Does art perforce suffer when a noble society turns from its founding ideals? Well, in the past twenty years the New York Times has tried to seriously review rap and hiphop "artists". ( Q.E.D. , I think.) Moreover, was Gothic "savage" and truly superior to Renaissance architecture? Despite Ruskin's frequent fancies, one comes away enlightened with his obsessive insights on society, culture, color, faith, labor, decadence and passion for aesthetics, not to mention Venice itself. (Granted St Marks' interior approaches the divine -- but I clearly remember the first time I saw its exterior. It appeared to me a great, soiled, misshapen pile built by a quarrelsome committee. THIS is superior?) Anyway, bring along a notebook with your reading. You'll probably want to take notes. Perhaps you should.
Get the JAN MORRIS edition, which is not without its amusing moments. Ruskin, the quintessential Victorian dilettante had spend years lingering over Europe's finest marble statuary, and was shocked -- SHOCKED -- to discover one night that women had pubic hair. I frequently skip over any type of prologues, but the Morris introduction is well worth reading .... twice. A book to treasure and to own, not to borrow.

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not withstanding the fact that one is dealing with an abridged version of a multi-volume work, John Ruskin's "The Stones of Venice" is by turns one of the most well-written, most informative, and down right persuasive books that I have ever had the pleasure to peruse. Perfect for the beginner first wading into the subject matter of architecture and things Gothic, the book is also fine for one concerned with the aesthetics of reading, for the prose of Ruskin's work is without peer, making for a pleasure filled experience that tantalizes the mind as well as the soul. One is left as amazed at the telling of the book as by the wonderful buildings, both sacred and secular, that are at the core of its message. Doing justice to masterpieces such as Saint Mark's and the Ducal Palace seems out of the reach of ordinary mortals yet Ruskin achieves this feat with grace and beauty. A very good book is indeed here!

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just one of those books I wanted to read out of curiosity. Certainly Ruskin waxes lyrical at some few points and at those times I enjoyed his style and his ideas. The overall concept for the book was apparently revolutionary for its time and I can appreciate that. I found various sections tedious in the extreme but I can imagine that it would be much more interesting if I were floating about Venice with someone pointing out these examples and discussing their importance in revealing not just architectural style and excellence but also the gestalt of Venice at various times in her history.
Because this is a condensation of his three books on Venice I quail at the thought of reading all three in their entirety. You’d have to be passionate about Gothic architecture, I think. But I definitely learned some things and better understand his perspective on what factors lead to the most exquisite art in any form.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This great work extols Gothic and condemns Renaissance architecture as an irreligious and corrupt product of Greek paganism, its centre being Venice.

Ruskin acclaimed the Gothic because it gave free play to the imagination and intelligence of the individual workman. It is imperfect — it is crude and savage — but it is noble because it is free. A modern building is perfect — in its symmetry, uniformity, polish — but it is ignoble because it is slave, the product not of a living and growing human being but of an ‘animated toot’, a machine.

It is here for the first time that Ruskin relates art to social and economic conditions, a subject which became the chief concern of his later years.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

At half a million words I certainly didn't read all of this, instead giving it a cursory look over before studying the nature of the gothic section in detail for my degree. Although Ruskin has been described as the most influential writer of the 19th century, I found this writing verbose and tiresome, everything seemingly long-winded and overwritten. Not that I'm denying the scope of his imagination, the breadth of his knowledge, and his authoritative voice. This exhaustive and exhausting look at Venetian architecture is a case in point: literally monumental, impossible to ignore, and yet a real slog to get to grips with.

[Chris Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually, I don't like abridgments, but based on this product, J G Links has done a masterful job of distilling three volumes into 247 informative, readable and entertaining pages. Ruskin (and Links) has given us a background briefing on the orders of architecture, building design from the footings up, roofing and decoration, using examples from throughout Europe, but especially Venice. He writes lucidly and on point as he guides us through the developments and changes over a 1000 years. Really good read.

[Megan Krone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone please grant me the confidence of a wealthy white man. Of any time period so far. And please grant me his connections too. Ruskin is just so sure of his own opinions... opinions on work that he doesn't do (i.e., art and architecture). The bits that were interesting are blurred by his weird assumptions about the way people live and his black & white ideas of what is "good" in terms of art. I only finished this because I'd read most of it for class and figured I'd finish it to help me with my reading goals.

[Zovi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the wildest sentences I have ever read about architecture are contained in this book. John Ruskin's intellectual and poetic self-confidence was through the roof, pun intended.

But seriously, though this isn't a comedy book and was taken seriously at least by his non-trivial fanbase at the time, it is still amazingly over the top. But it's over the top in a way that is also really endearing, at least to me. Architectural fanaticism is real and this is it. It's hard to not get swept away into his world of wall-veils and bold assertions of good taste.