schools; in the others, as well as in the work as a whole, we have a
body of principles which should govern high art-work, as well as new
ideas as to what should constitute the equipment of the painter, and
that not only as regards the technique of his art, but in the effect to
be produced on the onlooker in viewing the skilled work of one who,
above all accomplishments, should be lovingly and intimately in contact
with nature.

From the study of painting Mr. Ruskin passed for a time to that of
architecture. In this department we have from his pen "The Seven Lamps
of Architecture" (1849) and "The Stones of Venice" (1851-53). In these
two complementary works their author sets forth as in an impressive
sermon the new and admonitory lesson that architecture is the exponent
of the national characteristics of a people,--the higher and nobler sort
exemplifying the religious life and moral virtue in a nation, the
debased variety, on the other hand, expressing the ignoble qualities of
national vice and shame. The text of "The Stones" is Venice, and the
design of the volumes, in the author's words, is to show that the Gothic
architecture of Venice "had arisen out of, and indicated, a state of
pure domestic faith and national virtue;" while its renaissance
architecture "had arisen out of and indicated a state of concealed
national infidelity and domestic corruption." The earlier work, "The
Seven Lamps,"--the Lamp of Sacrifice, of Truth, Power, Beauty, Life,
Memory, Obedience,--looks upon architecture "as the revealing medium or
lamp through which flame a people's passions,--the embodiment of their
polity, life, history, and religious faith in temple and palace, mart
and home." Akin to these two eloquent works, in which their author
thoughtfully sets forth the civic virtues and moral tone, as well as the
debased characteristics, by which architecture is produced at certain
eras in a people's life, is the earlier volume on "The Poetry of