''The Stones of Venice'' is a three-volume treatise on

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

art and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

by English art historian

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

, first published from 1851 to 1853. ''The Stones of Venice'' examines Venetian architecture in detail, describing for example over eighty churches. Ruskin discusses architecture of Venice's

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

periods, and provides a general history of the city.

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 ''The Seven Lamps of Architecture'' is an extended essay, first published in May 1849 and written by the English art critic and theorist John Ruskin. The 'lamps' of the title are Ruskin's principles of architecture, which he later enlarged upon i ...

''. 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 (by 1849 he had acquired his own camera so that he could take

daguerreotype Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre a ...

s).

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 editions of the book have been published, including one edited by J. G. Links published in the USA in 1960.John Ruskin, ''The Stones of Venice'', ed. by J. G. Links, 1960. .

Notes

External links

''The Stones of Venice'' (Introductions) at Project GutenbergVolume 1
at Archive.org
Volume 2
at Archive.org
Volume 3
at Archive.org * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stones Of Venice, The Books about Venice Architectural treatises 1851 non-fiction books Art history books Books by John Ruskin Venice in art