Con un prefacio de Marcel Proust John Ruskin (1819-1900) fue durante sesenta años una de las grandes figuras de referencia del pensamiento europeo. Su nostalgia por el pasado y su postura estética, moral y religiosa antimoderna dieron lugar a obras como Las Siete Lamparas de la Arquitectura o Las Piedras de Venecia. En esta línea se inserta La Biblia de Amiens (1880-1885), el libro en el que Ruskin eligió la catedral de Amiens como piedra de toque de su particular ajuste de cuentas con la sociedad industrial. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) fue durante un tiempo un ferviente admirador de Ruskin y ello le llevó a traducir al francés La Biblia de Amiens, acompañando su traducción (publicada en 1904) de numerosas notas y un extenso prólogo que, como todas las páginas proustianas, cobra enseguida vida propia más allá del tema inmediato que lo había motivado, convirtiéndose en una de las más interesantes reflexiones estéticas del Proust anterior a la Recherche. La presente edición reúne la obra original de Ruskin y el texto de Proust, y se acompaña de un estudio introductorio de Juan Calatrava, profesor de Historia de la Arquitectura de la Universidad de Granada.
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.
Autant la préface de Proust peut paraître parfois un peu complexe, autant elle reste assez intéressante, autant le texte de Ruskin m’a parfois rendu confus sur le rapport entre ses propos et la cathédrale d’Amiens (dont j’en ai mieux saisi le sens par le petit appendice à la fin du livre).
De plus on ressent bien l’époque de son écriture puisque les faits historiques sont parfois présentés comme moins important qu’une légende ou d’un passage de la Bible…..