The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Pkwbos tf: livirr. ream, tAe First.—The Fonweta,

By.:initx helium Author of ”Tbie Barn Lampe
Arehiteetsry " " Maass fainters," &e. With
Iputtratitsst by tie Author. Loudon Smith, Elder, and
it., ISSI. St
Mr. Ruskin, by his " Modern Painters" and the
tiles en lumps Architt !ure," plated himself at the
head of English criticism of art. The faults of those
works have indinetly added to the witness which has
hen ls.rnar to the Item ut this writer ;
for although them are /11111alg —o34llre manifest than
action* and alt hough they base been exposed over
and over again by advent• criticism, they have nut
dimmed use lustre of a name which now im-
mediate!v •aggreAs to every hearer of it an
almost lioulaUt,s power of perceiving abeauty
anti of conveying its perceptions by the noblest
language to the minds of others ; these errors have
rather shown themselves to be the errors of haste,
which must almost inevitably appear in the teach-
ings. of a num mho knows iamb inure than he can
hope to have time to utter, and who feels that the
matter to he propounded is of vastly more impart
than the moan. r prtsponuding it. True it is that
Mr. Ruskin 's manner is equal in splendour to that
of any other prose writer Living; but its splendour us
well as its slight and nuntitis.t deletts. is the result
of his haste and to impress his knowledge
upon the hearts of other nun.
the ...Stones of Venice" will greatly and justly
1111• AIM Mr. ltuskin's fame. Under this await un-
practical sounding tide we have probably. the must
practical work which has ever lien written upon
arthitecture. We do not speak unadvisedly. We
have made a rather extensise acquaintance with the
worthiest archilmtural literature of Englund. France,
antrGennutiy! but ton cull to mind no work of a sig-
nificant* equal to that of the work beton. us. I%e
have; mud many hooks more "hurried "--that is to
buy more abundant in the IA petition of stale mutter
—than the ...Stones of Venice;" many more carefully
written, and file fiom faults, us well of judgmebt
as of style ; 1111111‘ • illip'llll/11S and minute in analy-
ais of mini ir ',fiats and isolated elements ofthe art ; but
never beb.re have we been delighted and surprised
with such a torrent of inigiuiil und profound, yet
lucid thought, as that wherewith we have been hur-
ried along, from pow to page, and from chapter to
chapter, of Mr. Ruskin's new volume.
of that a Inch forms the hulk and most valuable
portion or this work as. tali give our residers no ade•
quart idea, plates being required and given at every
step or Mr. ltuskin's argument. We must content
ours( Item with making a few remarks, and with
giving a few specimens of, the matter of the intro-
ductory chapters, which are confintd to general
prinriph s.
Mr. Ruskin maintains, with a tome of persuasion,
illustration, and argument. which few will be able
to resist. that the hitherto almost unheard-of Vene-
tian Gothic is the hest architecture, and that the
style which we at invent adopt in England for must
of oar secular buddingn, namely the Italian einque-
mato, is the worst architecture in the world. Against
this architecture of the rrmoOtenner, which has now
Iw an employed almost exclusively all over the civilised
world Air nose than three centuries, Mr. Ruskin is
m ter weary of inveighing. Ile speaks of its rise,
progress, and influent* in these foreible terms:

C.. 1111. Ah. 1117E111 RI:.

An. the tholdes in exii•tilice. ooitlicrn or northern, were
corrupted at .$11C•. The German and French loot them-'
r Ito a iu every 1,114141, of isltTJVUltilatt• ; the Englidl Gothic
w moaned, iu its noianity, by a strait-waiNteout Of per-
p• tolieular linos; the Italian ettlorewed on the mail, land'
1,1100 the nicaningleri ornionentati 0000 of the Centrum of Voisin
••••1 the Cathedral of Como .tilt sometimes ignornntly
• :•lled Italian liothic), and at Vi "ice Tutu the inOpial MU-
ta•i"n of the Porta della Carta and wild crochets Of St.
Mark's. corruption of all architecture, eapecially et-,
• leshrtical, riirresponded with and marked the state of re-
lotion over alt hump'—the peculiar degradation of the
Itroinani.t taiperstition, and of 'oolitic ni••ridity in Wane
0,111'111;r; which linought oliout the Iteforinuti 0000

the popuey AMA' two aretit diciaiuna of
ailaeratarie.- protcstanta in to rniany and Erwlantl, ra
tow.iliata in France “1111 It.ily ; the usw naluiritw the puri-
tii ation of relitriuti. the 1.1111. r it ileatruction. The prw
tratant kept the relit/not, but twat aide the herisie. of
Itonte. and with thi-n, her azta, by which laat rejection he
ituurail hi. tow charm. 1.. r, enraged hi. intellect in rernaing
1.. gain it on. of it+ notili cat milt,. nuiterially 1111111-
1ii..1114 It may be a wriou. ilue.tion how far
tin p plaint' of tlic Itefunuatiiin has tarn a conailluenta. of
thia

kept the arts and east aside the riligion.
Thi• ritionalt•tie art i• the art roinuionly called Re-
saisiiiuter, marked hy a vellum to Pagsts iirtente, not to
adopt them anal hallow then, for Christianity, but to rank
itself under thew as au imitator and pupil. • In pointing it
is beao,kd by lanai° Rossano and Nicol° l'utisdn ; ut archi-
tecture by Nos."? and Palladio.
. .

Instant..l. gradation followed in every dinvtion ; a final
of folly sail lieporri.y. >lt thologica ill-understood at first,
then pertert. it into beible tem:dines, take the place or the
reprenotatots of Christian auby, et., which had heroine
blasphemous per the tivatment of men like the earacei.
beds without power, satyr. without rusticity. nymphs
wothout insionnee, wen a ithout humanity, gather into
1411ot groups upon the poluted cent as., and weenie air. eta-
boo. I neumber the streets with pre posti•n.us marble. Lower
sail lower declines the I. e.I 1.1 .41.u5t31 totellie t ; the base
taebool of lands. ape gradually tour's the place of historical
'endow, wlio It had sunk into prurient pedantry. 'I he
Alvitan sub'. 'nes 1.1( $lll, ,tor, the confectionary kb:alines
of Claude, the dull manufacture of Gasper and Canaletto,
*oath of the Alps; and int the north, the putient devotion of
liew.ttial lives to di lineation of briekv and fogs, fat cattle
and dark-water. And thus Christianity mil morality,
roomer and intellect. and art, all crumbling together into
otl. • n•rk, ar ar,- hurried 110 to the fall of Italy, the revo-
lution in France, and the eondition of art in Englanil
(..said by her protestantistu trim severer penalty) in the
tine i.f linorizi• 11. • • • . ILai,ed at once into all the
manefgenee of wlsh-h it (reonissaleet architecture) was caps-
hl. 1-, Nichael Antnio, then taken up by men of real intellect
and iunginatu.n, such WI SI%11:011A,i. SIIIIIIOIIOIi, 104C0 JOOCII,
911.1 V, 011, it is iwp.ts.iblc to intimate the extent of its
...in the Kungsan mind ; 111111 that the more, because
fro iiersous an. • st rued with painting, and, of thugs. few,
'anger nunds r regard it with slight attention ; hut all nun
sr contented is ith architecture, and have, at some lintel;
of gleir scriou. business with it. It dues not much
that all individual loses two or three hundred pounds
' uyin,g a hod picture, but it is to he regretted that a na-
-1 shonld line two or three hundred thousand in
T....Hz a rillirti!otts building. Nor is it merely wasted wealth
t-t .listempernl omeeption which we hate to regret in this
,• arehitertare ; hut we shall find in it partly the
st' partly the expr. 4..sion, of certain dominant evils of
roplutication and ignorant classical-
-4 the one destn.ying the bealthfulnow of general *u-
nity, the other rendering our schools sad universities tac-
k n to a large number of men who peas through them.
The merits of the Venetian Gothic arc established
by at num..• of reasoning and illustration which we
comot follow out here: the fundamental principles,
however. ire for the most part repetition. of, or
deductions from. the principles enunciated in the
Seven l.ampo." The great work of approximating,
and. in some regard... identifying the ultimate
mend. of moral, and of art, is taken up again in
:his volume, and is wmught out, we think, in a morel
popular and convincing manner than in the "Seven
[Jamt..." Tie spirit of Mr. Ituskin's work, and also
maw:thing of its purituse, may be gathered front the
pa.sag-, concenting " the virtues of archi-
tecture: