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sonnetson's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
Ruskin's rationalism is quite annoying at times, and ultimately his attempt to present objective metrics for the quality of architecture fail as they get convoluted. Similarly, his historicizing is not as valuable as he thinks it is. However, between these points, when he is subjective, his insight is divine. Excellent points about the nature of art and the artist when he lets himself freely speak rather than trying to constrain himself to the realms of the 'scientific.'
alrautio's review against another edition
5.0
"Understand this clearly: you can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to cut one; to strike a curved line, and to carve it; and to copy and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated tool. (...) If you make a man of the working creatures, you cannot make a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, all his dullness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know the height of it only, when we see the clouds settling upon him. And, whether those clouds be bright or dark, there will be transfiguration behind and within them."
Beautiful. <3
Beautiful. <3
kwananntan's review
4.0
A fun read, but I think Ruskin might have narrowed down the idea of Gothic to... such a specific criteria that it's a wonder that any buildings can be considered Gothic haha... also he seems kinda classist ngl
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