INTRODUCTION lvii

What has been spoken of as the Gothic Revival was, however, it should be remembered, not merely a crusade to advocate a particular style of architecture, it was part of a movement directed towards enlisting better enthusiasm in the pursuit of the art, and attracting to it greater public interest and support. From this point of view Ruskin’s aid was, as already has been pointed out (Vol. VIII., p. xli.), of the highest value. It is worth noting that in 1852 was held the first architectural exhibition, and two years later was founded the Architectural Museum. Ruskin calls attention to the Museum in the preface to the second edition of The Seven Lamps (Vol. VIII. p. 13); he presented to it a large collection of casts, taken in France and at Venice; and in November 1854 he delivered a course of lectures there.¹ A report of these is reprinted in Vol. XII.

It may be doubted, however, whether the influence of The Stones of Venice was not greater in the social than in the artistic sphere. We have seen how already in The Seven Lamps Ruskin had been drawn from the artistic side of his subject to consider questions relating to the organisation of labour. The test of good ornament, he had found, was this-was it done from the heart? was the workman happy while he was about it? Then, he had seen something of the revolutionary movement in France; he was writing, too, at a time when the Chartist movement at home, and the echo from the crash of tumbling thrones abroad, were filling men’s minds with uncertain fears and a sense of disquietude. Ruskin seems to have seen some special danger in the enrolment of large bodies of navvies on the then busy work of railway construction. Was it an occupation which conduced to the happy life of the workman? Would not social stability, no less than the cause of art, be better advanced by the organisation of labour in arts and crafts as in the older days? Thus far had Ruskin tentatively come in The Seven Lamps.² Then, at Venice, his thoughts were again turned to a point at which his artistic analysis, his social interests, and his historical inquiries all seemed to converge. As he considered the essentials of Gothic architecture, he became more and more convinced that its virtue was found in the free play of individual fancy; that the highest achievements had only been possible when the artist was a craftsman and the craftsman an artist. “The chief purpose,” he wrote in after times to Count Zorzi, in the letter already quoted, “with which, twenty years ago, I undertook my task of the history of Venetian architecture, was to show the dependence of its beauty on the happiness and fancy of the workman, and to show

¹ See above, p. xlv.

² See Vol. VIII. pp. xliv., 218, 264.

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