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INTRODUCTION xliii
architecture. The book is of value alike to the professional architect, and to the intelligent layman who desires to understand the meaning of the monuments in which past generations have embodied their moral history, for the delight, the instruction, and the service of their successors.”1 In the treatment of the several “Lamps,” Ruskin’s book has been equally suggestive. It applied to Architecture the same touchstone of truth and sincerity that he had already employed in Modern Painters. “It shook conventional ideas,” says Mr. Harrison, “to the root, and flung forth a body of new and pregnant ideas.” The book contains much that is disputable; but “the truths were cemented into the foundations, and have stood solid and unshaken for two generations. The law of Truth in Art stands beside Carlyle’s protest against ‘shams’! That a building should look what it is, and be what it is built to serve-no one now dares dispute. That beauty itself comes second to truth, and must be sought in the architecture of Nature herself; ... all this is now the alphabet of sound art.”2 And The Seven Lamps was among the most potent of school-masters in teaching the letters.3
The main significance of the book, and its general influence thus exerted, are independent of particular fashions in architecture, and are not affected by the dogmatisms, paradoxes, assumptions and preferences of the author on particular points. It should however be noticed further that the appearance of The Seven Lamps exercised considerable influence in strengthening the Gothic Revival then in progress.4 To this matter, further reference will be necessary in later volumes; as also to Ruskin’s influence in the preservation of ancient buildings. He himself in looking back felt only a sense of bitter disappointment and vexation. He measured results by his hopes, and saw nothing but failure in them. But great though the process of restoration and destruction has been during the last two generations, even less would have been spared if it had not been for the principles which he laid down in this volume, and for the passionate enthusiasm with which he enforced them.
1 Preface to the American “Brantwood Edition,” 1891, pp. ix.-x.
2 John Ruskin, 1902, pp. 57-59.
3 According to one of Ruskin’s French critics, his architectural books are the most important: “C’est en étudiant l’architecture, qu’il a écrit le plus de livres, trouvé les pages les plus éloquentes, formulé les idées les plus justes. Les volumes qu’il lui a consacrés forment la partie la plus durable de son œuvre par la minutie des recherches, la profondeur des connaissances techniques” (Le Mouvement idéaliste et social dans la Litterature anglaise au XIXe siécle. John Ruskin. By Jacques Bardoux (Paris: 1900), pp. 300-301).
4 For a discussion of the influence of The Seven Lamps and The Stones of Venice on “the battle of the styles,” see an article by Professor Kerr, entitled “Ruskin and Emotional Architecture,” in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, vol. vii. (3rd Series), p. 187.
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
