John Ruskin
Classic work by the great Victorian expresses his deepest convictions about the nature and role of architecture and its aesthetics. This authoritative edition includes reproductions of the 14 original plates of Ruskin's superb drawings of architectural details from such structures as the Doge's Palace in Venice to the Cathedral of Rouen.
In a unique 1869 take on Greek mythology, the influential Victorian-Edwardian sage considers the myth of the goddess Athena. Ruskin asks us to consider Athena—"in the heavens, the earth, and the heart"—as a vital force in the material world channeled by those leading virtuous lives and also as "the directress of the imagination and will."
This 1869 anthology of Ruskin's oeuvre really does range as wide as its title suggests. Ruskin's gaze encompasses plants, animals, the sky, rivers, the waves of the sea, the sculptors of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance painters, color and form, Shakespeare, Byron, Laurence Sterne, Sir Walter Scott, utopianism, romance, patriotism, education, and "The Holy Comforter" in poetry and prose.