The Seven Lamps of Architecture
London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1855. Second Edition. 8vo, 10 x 6 7/8 inches (250 x 173 mm); half-title, title, xv, (4), 205 pp.; 14 illustrations (drawn by the author); some foxing and offset to plates and blank pages protecting them; Second edition, with a new preface as well as the preface to the first edition. 3/4 red morocco binding by Riviere (binder stamp on first flyleaf), blue marbled paper boards, gilt fillets, raised bands, gilt decorations and titles on spine, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, corners and edges lightly rubbed, front cover professionally reattached.
The Seven Lamps of the title describe seven moral categories that Ruskin considered vital to and inseparable from all architecture: sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life, memory and obedience. All would provide recurring themes in his future work. Seven Lamps promoted the virtues of a secular and Protestant form of Gothic. It was a challenge to the Catholic influence of architect A. W. N. Pugin.
First published in 1849, this second edition contains the 14 illustrations, drawn by the author, which represent the structures and flourishes which Ruskin admired most.
JOHN RUSKIN (1819 – 1900) was an English polymath – a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, political economy, education, museology, geology, botany, ornithology, literature, history, and myth.
Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognized as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability, ethical consumerism, and craft.
Condition: Very good +.
Item number: 1460
Price: $350.00
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