It may surprise us to-day to know that when Ruskin
wrote of the glories of Venetian architecture, the common "professional
opinion was that St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace were as ugly and
repulsive as they were contrary to rule and order." In a private letter
Gibbon writes of the Square of St. Mark's as "a large square decorated
with the worst architecture I ever saw." The architects of his own time
regarded Ruskin's opinions as dictated by wild caprice, and almost
evincing an unbalanced mind. Probably the core of all this
architectural work is to be found in his chapter "On the Nature of
Gothic," in the main reproduced in this volume. And we find here again
a point of fundamental significance--that his artistic analysis led him
inevitably on to social inquiries. He proved to himself that the main
virtue of Gothic lay in the unrestricted play of the individual
imagination; that the best results were produced when every artist was
a workman and every workman an artist. Twenty years after the
publication of this book, he wrote in a private letter that his main
purpose "was to show the dependence of (architectural) beauty on the
happiness and fancy of the workman, and to show also that no architect
could claim the title to authority of _Magister_ unless he himself
wrought at the head of his men, captain of manual skill, as the best
knight is captain of armies.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202