The Stones of Venice

In the final section of the book, Ruskin puts forth his critique of the Renaissance, which he sees as the last period of significance in Venetian art and architecture. Significantly, styles deriving from the Renaissance interpretation of Greco-Roman classicism continued to be popular in England in Ruskin’s day, making it timely for him to argue against this style in favor of the Gothic style. Ruskin’s critique of the Renaissance style forms the main element of his attempt at Revising the Standard Narrative of Art History, as he wishes to break with the usual praise of the Renaissance era in favor of its Gothic, medieval forerunner.

Ruskin’s attack on the Renaissance has both aesthetic and moral elements. He argues that Renaissance artists, excited at their rediscovery of perspective and other technical skills, emphasized perfection of technique at all costs. The result was that Renaissance work tended to lack soul and individuality, prizing form over content and often being merely a lifeless copy of art from the remote past instead of producing Architecture as Reflecting Nature and Creation. Ruskin nuances and tempers his critique by stating that the very greatest Renaissance geniuses, like Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, were able to transcend these limitations and that there is an “infinite gradation” of quality in the art of the period (230). Nevertheless, Ruskin sees the Renaissance as having needlessly discarded the considerable achievements of the Gothic era.

Ruskin sees this rejection of the immediate past as being related to a moral failing of Renaissance artists—namely, pride. This speaks to Ruskin’s interest in Art and Society’s Moral Health. Ruskin argues that Renaissance artists’ excessive pride in their own accomplishments led to the downfall of European societies, particularly Venice. This decadent stage is reflected in the final period of the Renaissance, which Ruskin calls the “Grotesque” and which is referred to today as the Mannerist period—a style which, in Ruskin’s interpretation, took the Renaissance obsession with form and technique to an absurd extreme and evidences a decay in reverence and religious feeling. Ruskin’s criticism of the Renaissance flies in the face of received wisdom and the commonly-held views of the artistic community of his day, which saw the Renaissance as a period of greatness and excellence. Ruskin’s strong beliefs in art and architecture’s moral purpose thus lead him to critique the Renaissance’s more secular, worldly ethos as an unwelcome break from the overt religiosity of the Gothic era.

In the Conclusion, Ruskin states what this development means for the future of architecture. Architects have essentially two choices: Either they can model their buildings on some form of Greco-Roman classicism—as reflected by Renaissance and 18th-century neoclassicism—or they can return to the medieval Gothic style that was all too hastily discarded by the early modern world. Ruskin sees Gothic as more appropriate for a Christian society and as particularly well-suited to England and other northern European countries since the style is already well represented there in surviving churches. Ruskin believes that the Gothic style is a source of true originality and invention, expressing qualities of life and vitality better than any classical-derived architecture could.

One might argue that it did not occur to Ruskin that a modern imitation of Gothic style risks the same problem of servile copying of the past that he ascribes to Renaissance art. In any case, the Gothic revival—already underway when Ruskin wrote the book, although it received a strong additional impetus from his writings—produced many greatly-admired buildings which have endured to the present day. Thus, in many ways, Ruskin’s architectural prophecy came true.