The Stones of Venice: Volume I. The Foundations

by John Ruskin

More than 150 years after its first publication in 1851–53, this monumental work by a great Victorian writer, critic, and artist remains among the most influential books on art and architecture ever written. In The Stones of Venice, a survey of the principal buildings in the "Paradise of Cities," John Ruskin developed an aesthetic and intellectual argument that lingers at the heart of the debate over the meaning of architecture and craftsmanship.
This work applies the general principles enunciated in Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture to Venetian architecture. The first volume, The Foundations, presents a short history of the city and discusses architecture's functional and ornamental aspects. Volume II, The Sea-Stories, examines the Byzantine era and the brilliant architectural developments of Venice's Gothic period. The third volume, The Fall, consists of a trenchant examination of the Venetian spiritual and architectural decline during the Renaissance.
Ruskin believed that an understanding of architecture (and painting, and nature) requires a well-informed respect for history and truth. Readers will find no better guide to the spiritual content and aesthetic pleasures of architecture than this eminent teacher and scholar. Featuring all of Ruskin's original drawings, this is the only unabridged edition of The Stones of Venice currently available.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ebooks, Architecture, 19th Century, Art

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1886

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

[Patrick Fay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first volume of The Stones of Venice prepares the reader for an exploration of the architecture and history of Venice by giving an overview of basic architecture and the various styles and influences (Arab, Greek, Roman and Northern European) that combined most perfectly in Venice. The explanations of the origins and functions of so many features of buildings I had previously seen as purely decorative is fascinating and clearly understandable to non-architects such as myself. It has changed the way I look at buildings every day and given me a whole new appreciation for the ones I like and the ability to say clearly why I don't like others.

I picked up the book because it seems to be referenced in every history of Venice I have read, but I am already very happy with it even though I am only now (at the end of Vol. I) ready to start reading about Venice itself.

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a great deal through Ruskin's method in visually taking apart a building or structure, separating beauty and power, loads and supports. The way he embraced Lombard architectural methods and traditions as well as Islamic ones in appreciating the Stones of Venice was liberating in a curious way when coming from such a Catholic Victorian art prude.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first of Ruskin’s three volumes on the architecture of Venice, this is a basic introduction to architecture in stone and brick with particular reference to Mediaeval architecture (the so-called Gothic style). The first half (after an introduction which is basically an attack on the Renaissance and the Catholic Church) describes the constructional principles, beginning at the base and going up through shafts, the wall, the cornice and the roof, then dealing with arches and apertures (doors and windows). The second half describes principles of ornamentation in the same order.

Ruskin has the merit of being one of the first critics to appreciate the art and architecture of the Middle Ages; in that respect he is the antipode of Vasari, my first reading in my art history project, who repudiates the entire period from the end of the Roman Empire to Cimabue and Giotto. On the other hand, he is one of those people who is temperamentally incapable of acknowledging more than one way as “right”, so he can only praise the Gothic style by repudiating the Renaissance and all later architecture and art (before Turner, of course.) For him, Cimabue and Giotto are not the beginning of the Renaissance but the final gasp of the Middle Ages before the Decline.

Ruskin is obnoxiously Christian and fanatically Protestant; again, there is only one way. He devotes part of his introductory chapter to a screed against Parliament for having recently allowed some civil rights to Catholics in England; he asks what would happen if that were applied to Ireland, and laments that the government lacks the moral courage to deport the majority of the population of Ireland (he doesn’t say where to) and replace them by “hard-working Protestants”. Throughout the book he brings in arguments from religion at the most unlikely places, and clearly as in the second volume of Modern Painters he bases his aesthetic preferences on religious considerations. He sees the Church of the Middle Ages as a composition of Protestant tendencies (responsible for what is good in Gothic art) and Papist tendencies (responsible for whatever is rigid or formalistic), and dates the decline of art to the separation of the two at the Reformation, when the Papists (or as he also calls them, the “Heathen Popes”) came to dominate art at the Renaissance.

Leaving aside the Renaissance and Catholic-bashing, and some of the value judgements, the book seems to be a good introduction to the principles of Gothic architecture, at least in its Italian incarnation, to the extent that I can judge (I have only read one other book on Gothic art, and that was about fifty years ago.) I learned a lot from it.

[Richard Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE STONES OF VENICE. Edited by JAN MORRIS.

Astonishing --eccentric -- even outrageous opinions exquisitely expressed in every chapter of this classic love letter to ancient and tragic Venice. 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 quirky, 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 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. And perhaps you should.
Get the JAN MORRIS edition, which is not without its amusing moments. Ruskin, remember, the quintessential Victorian dilettante -- and total virgin -- had spent 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.

[Lanko · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 50%

I love Venice. I binge-read two big History books on it and almost started a third, but decided to not overdose myself with it.

Then I got this one, as it sounded pretty intriguing: instead of a modern historian rescuing clues and documents, we had a 19th century writer in Venice pretty much writing a diary, though only focusing on architecture.

And unless you really love architecture, this one will be a tough pill to swallow, because just being fascinated with Venice won't be enough.

Basically Ruskin goes into great detail into describing stones, arcs, forms, colors and etc of buildings. He also loves to rant about the Renaissance. It was actually very interesting to see a critical view on the era/movement and its flaws that today seems almost sanctified. Too bad most of the time Ruskin sounds too angry, bitter and condescending about it.

When he isn't monotonously describing structures or ranting about the Renaissance, he can actually turn some pretty great and snarky sentences. Unfortunately that was too rare of an occurrence.

To think there will be 500 pages of this - that took me more than two months to read about 200 pages, skimming a lot - and that this is actually Part I and that there are two more full volumes of this simply made me give up.

[EJ Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the first volume in this famous trilogy, John Ruskin offers an extremely in-depth, if also extremely subjective, assessment of early Venetian architecture both individually and how it related to larger trends in Western art and architecture. With a critical approach typical of the Victorian Period, one will receive an excessive amount of postulating, hyperbole, and florid prose, but the result is still an extremely important and gorgeously written example of exceptional writing on architecture.

[Lisa E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The unabridged version of book 1 of the Stones of Venice is rather like eating your vegetables. Useful, informative, detailed, but it’s a slow read. Hopefully worth putting in the effort here as a (long) preface to the next two books.