The Stones of Venice (book)

Views on art and society

As well as being an art historian, Ruskin was a social reformer. He set out to prove how Venetian architecture exemplified the principles he discussed in his earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture. In the chapter "The Nature of Gothic" (from volume 2), Ruskin gives his views on how society should be organised.

We want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his brother; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers and miserable workers. Now it is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity.

Research and publication

Ruskin had visited Venice before, but he made two visits to Venice with his wife Effie specially to research the book. The first visit was in the winter of 1849-50. The first volume of The Stones of Venice appeared in 1851 and Ruskin spent another winter in Venice researching the next two volumes. His research methods included sketching and photography. Ruskin was initially enthusiastic about photography and by 1849 he had acquired his own camera to take daguerreotypes, a type of photography which was relatively widespread in the 1840s and 1850s.

In 19th-century editions The Stones of Venice was mainly illustrated with engravings, presumably because of the limitations of printing technology at that time. However, in the 21st century it has been reprinted with original sketches.

Publication history

First editions

• The Stones of Venice. Volume the First. The Foundations, 1851, Smith, Elder & Co., London
• The Stones of Venice. Volume the Second. The Sea-stories, 1853, Smith, Elder & Co., London
• The Stones of Venice. Volume the Third. The Fall, 1853, Smith, Elder & Co., London

Shortened editions

Various shortened versions of the book have been published. Ruskin himself produced an adaptation of volume two “For Use of Travellers While Staying in Venice and Verona”, specifically designed as a practical guide for travellers. Two abridgements are by writers notable for their own guide books to Venice:

• Links: The Stones of Venice. Ruskin, John. J.G. Links, ed. Originally published by Collins in 1960, this version is now available in Penguin Classics and other editions, see
• Morris: The Stones of Venice (Introduced by Jan Morris)
  • Mount Kisco, New York: Moyer Bell Limited, 1989.
  • Folio Society edition, 2001. Both editors tended to keep the descriptive elements of the book rather than the philosophical context, but Morris was more faithful to the intellectual underpinning of Ruskin´s text.

Reception

Ruskin´s praise of Gothic architecture had a strong influence in the United Kingdom. An example which is often cited is that of the commissioning of the Wool Exchange in Bradford. Ruskin visited Bradford and told its citizens that they had not understood his message about the relation of architecture to society, but they still chose a Venetian Gothic design. William Morris, on the other hand, adopted Ruskin’s call for a return to traditional craftsmanship and ethical production.

Ruskin had a strong influence on the French novelist Marcel Proust. His In Search of Lost Time has the narrator arrive in Venice with notebooks “to take notes for a work I was doing on Ruskin,” explicitly acknowledging the English critic’s influence. However, Proust has an introspective approach to Venetian architecture, and is less interested in its historical and technical aspects than Ruskin.

Notes

References

1. His introduction to the second edition (1855) characterises ''The Seven Lamps of Architecture'' not as a "complete exponent" of his matured views but "rather as an introduction to the more considered and careful statements of those views given in ''The Stones of Venice'', and in my Lectures delivered at Edinburgh."
2. Cook and Wedderburn 10.201.
3. Reynolds, Nigel. (2006). "Mystery photographs part of Ruskin collection".
4. "Uncompromising Truth".
5. "The Stones of Venice".
6. "Traffic (from 'The Crown of Wild Olive')".