Description - The Contemporary Reviews of John Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture by Robert Brownell
When The Seven Lamps of Architecture was published in 1849,
in a society where new books on Gothic architecture sold like
novels, it created an immediate sensation. The book was to
found John Ruskin's reputation as Britain's foremost architectural
critic. But there was some perplexity about what he had
meant by what he had written - as well as rumours of hidden
meanings. Some critics likened his writing style to the effects
of incense or even narcotics, warning the weak-minded to
beware lest they were swept away by his passages of `purple
prose'.
There was also fierce establishment suspicion of Ruskin's `revolutionary'
principles. 1848 had been a tumultuous year right
across Europe. Venice was besieged by the Austrian army. The
archbishop of Paris was shot by French rioters. In England the
October 1847 `week of terror' had seen railway shares collapse
and corn speculators bankrupted in the worst financial crisis of
the nineteenth century. By the following year thousands of
middle-class investors had lost everything. The Chartists
marched on London on Ruskin's wedding day, and across the
Irish Sea more than a million people were dying in the Great
Famine. These events cast their shadows across Ruskin's writing,
and its reception.
These forty-five major English-language reviews, gathered for
the first time into one volume by Robert Brownell, document
the initial critical reaction to The Seven Lamps. They give a
fascinating insight into contemporary thought, not only with
regard to architecture, but also to religion, politics and social
issues. This collection of reviews is an essential research tool for
anyone interested in Ruskin, architecture and Victorian society
and culture.
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