Part 1 (1/2)

Lectures on Architecture and Painting

by John Ruskin

PREFACE

The following Lectures are printed, as far as possible, just as they were delivered Here and there a sentence which seees which had not been previously written, have been, of course imperfectly, supplied fro of any substantial importance which was said in the lecture-roonification; with the exception only of a few sentences struck out from the notice of the works of Turner, in consequence of the is by which they were illustrated, except at a cost which would have too much raised the price of the volume Some elucidatory remarks have, however, been added at the close of the second and fourth Lectures, which I hope ed to os by which the Lectures on Architecture were illustrated have been carefully reduced, and well transferred to wood by Mr Thurston Thoiven in the course of the notices of schools of painting could not be so transferred, having been drawn in color; and I have therefore merely had a few lines, absolutely necessary to s

I forgot, in preparing the second Lecture for the press, to quote a passage from Lord Lindsay's ”Christian Art,” illustrative of what is said in that lecture (-- 52), respecting the energy of thethe circumstances under which the Ca also as noticing the universality of talent which was required of architects; and which, as I have asserted in the Addenda (-- 60), always ought to be required of theret the oine a better preface to an essay on civil architecture than this simple statement

”In 1332, Giotto was chosen to erect it (the Caround, avowedly, of the _universality_ of his talents, with the appointment of Capo Maestro, or chief Architect (chief Master I should rather write), of the Cathedral and its dependencies, a yearly salary of one hundred gold florins, and the privilege of citizenshi+p, under the special understanding that he was not to quit Florence His designs being approved of, the republic passed a decree in the spring of 1334, that the Caht, and excellence of workmanshi+p whatever in that time had been achieved by the Greeks and Roreatness

The first stone was laid, accordingly, with great po, and the work prosecuted with vigor, and with such costliness and utter disregard of expense, that a citizen of Verona, looking on, exclaith too far, that the united resources of two great monarchs would be insufficient to conoria resented by confining hi hih the public treasury, to teach him that the Florentines could build their whole city of marble, and not one poor steeple only, were they so inclined”

I see that ”The Builder,” vol xi page 690, has been endeavoring to inspire the citizens of Leeds with so their town-hall The pride would be well, but I sincerely trust that the tower in question n there proposed I am sorry to have to write a special criticism, but it , are in this age abused without mercy by nameless critics; and it would be unjust to the public, if those who have given their nae to enter a protest against the execution of designs which appear to them unworthy

DENMARK HILL, _16th April 1854_

LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

LECTURE I

ARCHITECTURE

_Delivered November 1, 1853_

1 I thinkperh on the subject of architecture, for it is one which, they cannot but feel, interests theh is the one which presents ; and which, on the other hand, sustains most injury in the erection of a commonplace or unworthy one

You are all proud of your city; surely you must feel it a duty in soive yourselves a _right_ to be proud of it That you were born under the shadow of its two fantastic mountains,--that you live where frolittering Firth, are no rightful subjects of pride You did not raise the mountains, nor shape the shores; and the historical houses of your Canongate, and the broad battleh your ancestors Before you boast of your city, before even you venture to call it _yours_, ought you not scrupulously to weigh the exact share you have had in adding to it or adorning it, to calculate seriously the influence upon its aspect which the work of your own hands has exercised? I do not say that, even when you regard your city in this scrupulous and testing spirit, you have not considerable ground for exultation As far as I am acquainted with modern architecture, I am aware of no streets which, in sihtness of effect, equal those of the Nen of Edinburgh But yet I am well persuaded that as you traverse those streets, your feelings of pleasure and pride in them are much complicated with those which are excited entirely by the surrounding scenery As you walk up or down George Street, for instance, do you not look eagerly for every opening to the north and south, which lets in the luster of the Firth of Forth, or the rugged outline of the Castle Rock? Take away the sea-waves, and the dark basalt, and I fear you would find little to interest you in George Street by itself Now I reh, which, instead of the valley that you have now filled by lines of railroad, has a broad and rushi+ng river of blue water sweeping through the heart of it; which, for the dark and solitary rock that bears your castle, has an amphitheater of cliffs crested with cypresses and olive; which, for the two es of the Pentlands, has a chain of blue hlands; and which, for your far-away Ben Ledi and Ben More, has the great central chain of the St Gothard Alps: and yet, as you go out of the gates, and walk in the suburban streets of that city--I mean Verona--the eye never seeks to rest on that external scenery, however gorgeous; it does not look for the gaps between the houses, as you do here; it reat Alpine battleround for other battlements, built by the hand of man There is no necessity felt to dwell on the blue river or the burning hills The heart and eye have enough to do in the streets of the city itself; they are contented there; nay, they soe and solitary, to dith a deeper interest on the palace walls that cast their shade upon the streets, and the crowd of towers that rise out of that shadow into the depth of the sky

[Illustration: Plate I (Fig 1, Fig 3, Fig 5)]

2 _That_ is a city to be proud of, indeed; and it is this kind of architectural dignity which you should aih or rebuild in it For remember, you must either help your scenery or destroy it; whatever you do has an effect of one kind or the other; it is never indifferent But, above all, remember that it is chiefly by private, not by public, effort that your city must be adorned It does not s you possess, if they are not supported by, and in harmony with, the private houses of the town Neither the e, or a new hospital, or a new institution, for a city It is the Canongate, and the Princes Street, and the High Street that are Edinburgh It is in your own private houses that the real h must consist; and, what is more, it must be by your own personal interest that the style of the architecture which rises around you uided Do not think that you can have good architectureliberally for a large building once in forty years that you can call up architects and inspiration It is only by active and sympathetic attention to the domestic and every-day hich is done for each of you, that you can educate either yourselves to the feeling, or your builders to the doing, of what is truly great

3 Well, but, you will answer, you cannot feel interested in architecture: you do not care about it, and _cannot_ care about it I know you cannot About such architecture as is built nowadays, no mortal ever did or could care You do not feel interested in _hearing_ the saain;--why do you suppose you can feel interested in _seeing_ the sa even the best and most beautiful in the world? Now, you all know the kind of hich you usually build in Edinburgh: here is an exale stone, laid across from side to side, with bold square-cut jambs--in fact, the simplest form it is possible to build It is by no orous, and has a certain dignity in its utter refusal of orna How many s precisely of this forh? I have not counted the this very Queen Street, in which your Hall is; and on the one side of that street, there are of these s, absolutely siether devoid of any relief by decoration, six hundred and seventy-eight[1] And your decorations are just as monotonous as your simplicities How many Corinthian and Doric columns do you think there are in your banks, and post-offices, institutions, and I know not what else, one exactly like another?--and yet you expect to be interested! Nay, but, you will answer ain, we see sunrises and sunsets, and violets and roses, over and over again, and we do not tire of _them_ What! did you ever see one sunrise like another? does not God vary His clouds for you every h in the disappearing and appearing of the great orb above the rolling of the world, to interest all of us, one would think, for as many tied for us daily You see violets and roses often, and are not tired of them True! but you did not often see two roses alike, or, if you did, you took care not to put theay should be uninteresting; and yet you think you can put 150,000 square s side by side in the same streets, and still be interested by theain, for the single hour you are going to let me talk to you, would you listen toover and over again for three centuries, and expect to be interested by their architecture; with a farther disadvantage on the side of the builder, as compared with the speaker, that my wasted words would cost you but little, but his wasted stones have cost you no s York Place, and Picardy Place, but not counting any hich has2)]

4 ”Well, but,” you still think within yourselves, ”it is not _right_ that architecture should be interesting It is a very grand thing, this architecture, but essentially unentertaining It is its duty to be dull, it is ”

Believein art, are interesting and attractive when they are done There is no law of right which consecrates dullness The proof of a thing's being right is, that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us I do not say that it has influence over all, but it has over a large class, one kind of art being fit for one class, and another for another; and there is no goodness in art which is independent of the power of pleasing Yet, do not lect of the best art, or delight in the worst, just as lect nature, and feed upon what is artificial and base; but I _, if people will attend to it; that there is no law against its pleasing; but, on the contrary, so either in the spectator or the art, when it ceases to please Now, therefore, if you feel that your present school of architecture is unattractive to you, I say there is so, either in the architecture or in you; and I trust you will not think Iis _not_ in you, but in the architecture Look at this for a --aof an English doo You will not tellat this; or that you could not, by any possibility, become interested in the art which produced it; or that, if everyin your streets were of soe in their ornaments, you would pass up and down the street with as much indifference as nohen your s are of _this_ for_ 1)

Can you for an instant suppose that the architect was a greater or wiser man who built this, than he who built that? or that in the arrangement of these dull and monotonous stones there is more wit and sense than you can penetrate? Believe s best, if you only saw the in you is your temper, not your taste; your patient and trustful teranted, and subscribes to public edifices from which it derives no enjoyed this illustration from Mr

Hudson Turner's adland]

5 ”Well, but what are we to do?” you will say to me; ”we cannot ht