Osservazione e comprensione dal rudere al paesaggio Unità morfologica e verità estetica negli scritti di John Ruskin

The paper proposes a reflection on the theoretical activity of John Ruskin towards the ruins and to analyze if these ideas find a legacy and a connection today in the criticism of the current conservation and architectural policies. For this purpose, the text will analyze the ideas of the English critic related to ruins, studying how his approach was not of an aesthetic nature, but rather ethical. From this, his hostility to restoration will be better understood, as actions of mystification not of protection, and it will be possible to underline his attention to conservation of cultural heritage with a more authentic approach. Finally, the paper will analyze some contemporary researches and activities attributable to the thoughts of Ruskin, to reiterate the relevance of the theories of the English critic even in different contexts and arts.

La corrispondenza epistolare come rete di conoscenza, dibattito e azione Le riflessioni sulle arti e sulla tutela di Philip Webb, Giacomo Boni e John Ruskin

Taking as reference point the figure of John Ruskin, we intend to explore in this paper the relationship between two interesting personalities of the European artistic world at the end of the 19thcentury, Philip Webb and Giacomo Boni. Through the correspondence of these scholars held in Italian and British Archives, we consider here disparate topics in order of the political heritage, literary and art-historical debates in the modern Europe. In particular the epistolary reports and archival documentation, relating to the inspections upon monuments carried out by Boni throughout the Italian territory, reveal a sympathetic reception of the Ruskinian theories and indications concerning restoration, albeit with an application ‘tempered’ by the need to realize concrete and effective solutions respecting and safeguarding the monument.

Ruskin’s Islamic Orient and the Formation of a European Ideal

The Ruskinian mien towards the non-European, and in particular, the Islamic ‘other’, may at first seem definitive. This position being made evident from Ruskin’s descriptions of the lugubrious nature of Islam’s sacred scripture, its peoples, arts and ​weltanschauung​. This paper argues, contrary to this ​bien pensant view, that Ruskin’s oeuvre intimates an ongoing, lasting and unfinished discussion with the Islamic Orient, from the earliest drafts of The ​Stones of Venice to later discourses on morality, history and religion. Whilst the sympathies for the refinement and delicacy of Islamic art and its influences upon the Venetian Gothic are well documented in the literature, the manner in which Ruskin’s engagement with Islam (both positive and negative) more generally have yet to be fully explored. This paper endeavours to ​warp and weft the strands of these ideas into a sustained discussion of Ruskin’s ideals in his oeuvre.

The Stones of Venice: Lady Augusta Gregory and John Ruskin

John Ruskin’s diaries, letters, lectures and published works are testimonies to his life-long interest in Venetian art and architecture. Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park, County Galway, Ireland, was amongst those Victorian genteel women who were influenced by Ruskin’s account of the political and artistic history of Venice, following in Ruskin’s footsteps during her visits to Sir Henry Austen Henry and Lady Enid Layard at Ca’ Capello on the Grand Canal. This article follows Lady Gregory’s footsteps around the maritime city, where she was often found sketching architectural details of churches and palaces. By doing so, it reveals the extent of the influence of Ruskin’s Italian travels on the formation of Lady Gregory’s aesthetic sensibilities during the 1880s and 1890s, before she founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin with the Irish dramatist John Millington Synge and the Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats in 1904. As part of the discussion, it reveals the true subject matter in one of Lady Gregory’s Venetian sketches for the first time, one that is now held in Dublin at the National Library of Ireland.