Venice’s History - “The Quarry”
John Ruskin delves into Venice’s disguised antiquity: “It would be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city: a history which, in spite of the labor of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable outline,—barred with brightness and shade, like the far away edge of her own ocean, where the surf and the sand-bank are mingled with the sky.” In “The Quarry” utilizes Venetian architecture to explicate the city’s landmarks. John Ruskin’s concession regarding the ‘vagueness and disputability’ of Venice’s history gathers that his assertions are not unqualified certainties concerning the city’s advancement; thus, they may be subject to repudiations. Venice’s superlative art is chief in its oddity; hence, expounding the political and religious aspects behind the artwork underwrites to the reconstruction of Venice’s enigmatic history.
‘Architectural Virtue’ - “The Virtues of Architecture”
The partitions of ‘ architectural virtue’ incorporate: “That it act well, and do the things it was intended to do in the best way; That it speak well, and say the things it was intended to say in the best words and That it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it has to do or say.” Ruskin personifies architecture by delineating tenets that it should merit for it to be apposite. The capability to act, communicate and gaze (which are habitually attributed to humans) gather that architecture should be an entreaty to ultimate human ideals.
