andyfox
12-10-2003, 01:35 AM
. . . was something John Ruskin wasn't. The famous 19th century English art critic once called a work by Whistler that displeased him a "pot of paint" and Whistler himself a "coxcomb." Whistler sued and won, sort of. He was awarded a farthing.
Here's what Ruskin thought about the western world's architecture of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries:
"The whole mass of architecture founded on Greek and Roman models, which we have been in the habit of building for the last three centuries, is utterly devoid of all life, virtue, honorableness, or power of doing good. It is base, unnatrual, unfruitful, unenjoyable, and impious. Pagan in origin, proud and unholy in its revival, paralyzed in old age, yet making a prey, in its dotage, of all the good and living things that were sprining around it in their youth, an architecture invented, it seems, to make plagiarists of its architects, slaves of its workmen, and sybarites of its inhabitants: an architecture in which intellect is idle, invention impossible, but in which all luxury is gratified, and all insolence fortified; the first thing we have to do is to cast it out, and shake the dust of it from our feet forever."
Talk about speaking your mind! Ruskin inherited money, so he didn't have to work and could say what he wanted to. The above is from [i]The Stones of Venice in which Ruskin said he had made every effort to conceal his personal feelings throughout the book! I've been wending my way through an abridged edition (the unabridged is close to half a million words) in anticipation of a possible visit to Venice next year. What a writer. Virginia Woolf said, about his writing, that "we find ourselves marvelling at the words, as if all the fountains of the English language had been set playing in the sunlight for our pleasure."
One of the greatest books ever written is Ruskin's Unto This Last, which Ghandi said transformed his life.
Who among us now comes close to being a Ruskin?
Here's what Ruskin thought about the western world's architecture of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries:
"The whole mass of architecture founded on Greek and Roman models, which we have been in the habit of building for the last three centuries, is utterly devoid of all life, virtue, honorableness, or power of doing good. It is base, unnatrual, unfruitful, unenjoyable, and impious. Pagan in origin, proud and unholy in its revival, paralyzed in old age, yet making a prey, in its dotage, of all the good and living things that were sprining around it in their youth, an architecture invented, it seems, to make plagiarists of its architects, slaves of its workmen, and sybarites of its inhabitants: an architecture in which intellect is idle, invention impossible, but in which all luxury is gratified, and all insolence fortified; the first thing we have to do is to cast it out, and shake the dust of it from our feet forever."
Talk about speaking your mind! Ruskin inherited money, so he didn't have to work and could say what he wanted to. The above is from [i]The Stones of Venice in which Ruskin said he had made every effort to conceal his personal feelings throughout the book! I've been wending my way through an abridged edition (the unabridged is close to half a million words) in anticipation of a possible visit to Venice next year. What a writer. Virginia Woolf said, about his writing, that "we find ourselves marvelling at the words, as if all the fountains of the English language had been set playing in the sunlight for our pleasure."
One of the greatest books ever written is Ruskin's Unto This Last, which Ghandi said transformed his life.
Who among us now comes close to being a Ruskin?