ABSTRACT
One of the towering figures of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin was a leading English art and architecture critic, an art benefactor, artist, social theorist, and philanthropist. His span of interest was very wide, and he wrote on natural sciences and political economy, as well as art and architecture. The Stones of Venice is a three-volume discourse on Gothic art and architecture, the first volume being published in 1851, and the second and third in 1853. The Times supportive review of this volume published in October 1853 was extensive and concluded with these remarks. The power of Ruskin’s work and its subsequent influence is evident in William Morris’s introductory comment to a befittingly produced 1892 edition of The Stones of Venice by the Kelmscott Press.
