The Stones Of Venice (book)
For the 2001 Dr Who spin-off, see The Stones of Venice (audio drama)
The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853. Intending to prove how the architecture in Venice exemplified the principles he discussed in his earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin examined the city in detail, describing for example over eighty churches. He discusses architecture of Venice's Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods, and provides a general history of the city as well.
The Stones of Venice aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter "The Nature of Gothic" (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. The book inspired Marcel Proust (the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin) and in 2010 Roger Scruton wrote that the book was, "the greatest description in English of a place made sacred by buildings".
Various shortened editions of the book have been published, including one edited by J.G. Links published in the USA in 1960.
Read more about The Stones Of Venice (book): Publication History, First Editions
Famous quotes containing the words stones and/or venice:
“... if we take the universe of ‘fitting,’ countless coats ‘fit’ backs, and countless boots ‘fit’ feet, on which they are not practically fitted; countless stones ‘fit’ gaps in walls into which no one seeks to fit them actually. In the same way countless opinions ‘fit’ realities, and countless truths are valid, tho no thinker ever thinks them.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Decade after decade, artists came to paint the light of Provincetown, and comparisons were made to the lagoons of Venice and the marshes of Holland, but then the summer ended and most of the painters left, and the long dingy undergarment of the gray New England winter, gray as the spirit of my mood, came down to visit.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)