The Stones of Venice

Ruskin treats the Ducal Palace as the keystone not only of the architecture of Venice but of that of the Western world as a whole. Venice itself appears in Ruskin’s narrative as a microcosm or meeting-ground of the major ancient and medieval cultures, with its art an amalgam of all of these influences. For Ruskin, Venice is thus a cornerstone of world civilization while also reflecting the movements of Western art and history in its architecture.

Roman (from Italy) and Byzantine (from Greece) influences formed the backbone of the original art of Venice. The Lombards, a Germanic tribe that conquered much of northern Italy, added their architectural style to the mix, as did the Arabs through their contact with the Byzantine world during the Middle Ages. Finally, when Gothic architecture developed in northern Europe in the High Middle Ages, it eventually traveled to Venice and formed a major element in the buildings of the city’s mature artistic period.

Trade was one of the main ways by which Venice absorbed and combined these disparate cultural influences. Strategically situated on the Adriatic Sea and at the crossroads of Western, Eastern, Southern and Central Europe, Venice was able to establish contacts with a wide variety of peoples and cultures. The city’s political stability for much of its history also attracted admiration and created an openness to other cultures and influences. The Crusades brought Venice into further contact with the Near Eastern world, while the travels of the Venetian-born explorer Marco Polo made Europe aware of China and the Far East.

Ruskin implies that Venice at its height reflected in its architecture both the historical and geographical breadth of Western and Near Eastern civilization, with a Greco-Roman basis enriched by contacts with northern European and Arabic culture and art. He regards its embrace of the Gothic as its cultural high point, an era in which Venice rose as a power while also projecting a devout Christian image in its art and architecture. As a microcosm of the wider world and larger cultural and artistic trends, analyzing Venice gives Ruskin the opportunity for sharing his views on wider aspects of Western culture as well.

Throughout The Stones of Venice, Ruskin attempts to overturn one very common way of viewing Western art and architectural history. From the Renaissance onward, a “standard narrative” held that the Middle Ages were a backward and “barbarous” era and that the Renaissance (“rebirth”) rescued Western art and culture, representing a leap forward. In the 19th century, the Romantic movement questioned this view. Taking a second look at the medieval period, Romantic artists and writers found it rich in values that were neglected by the modern age (See: Background). Ruskin explicitly argues against the idea that “Gothic, Romanesque, or Byzantine forms” are “barbarous” and insists that, on the contrary, they are “most noble and beautiful” (235).

To take one example of art in St. Mark’s Basilica, Ruskin argues that medieval frescoes teach religious and moral truths just as effectively as reading the Bible and that they, in fact, served as the main form of instruction in an era before most of the population was literate (154-55). As Ruskin proclaims, “So far am I from considering them barbarous, that I believe of all works of religious art whatsoever, these, and such as these, have been the most effective” (155, emphasis added). Since Ruskin believes in art and Architecture as Reflecting Nature and Creation, and since for Ruskin what is most natural and truthful aligns with what is Christian, the sincere piety and simplicity of the medieval frescoes are worthy of praise. For Ruskin, nothing that is technically accomplished but spiritually lacking could ever hope to surpass such devoutly Christian works.

Ruskin, however, does not simply defend styles of art that were commonly disparaged; he turns the standard narrative completely around, arguing that it was the Middle Ages that represented the highest artistic achievement, not the Renaissance. Furthermore, he claims the Renaissance was not only inferior to its Medieval forebear, but a corrupting influence on culture. This was principally because of Renaissance artists’ unquestioning adherence to the forms and standards of classical Greco-Roman art and the questionable aesthetic and moral results the Renaissance produced. This claim forms the core of Ruskin’s argument for bringing back the forms and spirit of Gothic architecture in Victorian London: As a Christian and northern nation, he asserts, a Gothic revival will be more suitable for England than the continuation of the Renaissance’s Greco-Roman tradition.

Ruskin’s reversal of the received narrative of art history proved powerful for generations of readers, leading to a wholesale reappraisal of the Middle Ages and other periods and cultures that were outside of the mainstream of artistic development since the Western Renaissance. In this way, The Stones of Venice made an important contribution to the Gothic revival of the 19th century and beyond.