St. Mark’s Rest: the History of Venice Written For The Help Of The Few Travellers Who Still Care For Her Monuments

John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides (such as this one) and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. Excerpt from the book: Great nations Write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good fortune and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its children’: but its art, only by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race