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Les Pierres de Venise: Études locales pouvant servir de direction aux voyageurs séjournant à Venise et à Vérone

Au mois de septembre 1845, un jeune homme de vingt-six ans arrivait à Venise, portant un carton à dessins sous le bras. Il disparaissait dans l'ombre de Saint-Marc pendant de longues heures. Sa silhouette d'extasié batailleur s'attachait à tous les piliers du Palais ducal, comme un pic-vert à un tronc d'arbre. C'était Ruskin, Pour cet anglican austère et moraliste, Venise fut une révélation. Dans les pierres de Venise, son texte le plus célèbre, qui a enchanté Proust, il décrit les principaux monuments de Venise. Promenade splendide dans la Cité des Doges, Les Pierres de Venise n'est pas seulement un traité d'esthétique passionné, il est plus encore : le merveilleux guide d'une ville.

Les pierres de Venise

Cominciando dagli ultimi è prima di tutto un grido in difesa della giustizia. Alle porte della Seconda Rivoluzione Industriale, di fronte alle masse di lavoratori e operai che si riversano nelle città, John Ruskin si propone di definire cosa sia la ricchezza nella convinzione che esistano virtù morali essenziali al suo raggiungimento e superiori alla tanto acclamata "legge di mercato". Lo fa in quattro saggi scritti nell'estate del 1860, un attacco senza mezzi termini all'economia politica del tempo. Una riflessione che ha segnato talmente il Mahatma Gandhi da fargli ritenere Cominciando dagli ultimi il testo che lo ha "catturato e spinto a cambiare vita". « Compra quando conviene? Va bene, ma cosa rende il mercato conveniente? Il carbone è economico se viene dalle assi del tuo tetto dopo un incendio e i mattoni hanno un buon prezzo nella tua zona dopo un terremoto [.]. Vendere al prezzo più alto? Sì, davvero, ma cosa rende il mercato vantaggioso? Oggi hai venduto il pane a un buon prezzo: l'hai venduto a un moribondo che ti ha dato la sua ultima moneta e che non avrà mai più bisogno di pane? ». Introduzione di Luigino Bruni.

Cominciando dagli ultimi

It may be proved, with much certainty, that God intends no man to live in this world without working: but it seems to me no less evident that He intends every man to be happy in his work. It is written, "in the sweat of thy brow, " but it was never written, "in the breaking of thine heart, " thou shalt eat bread; and I find that, as on the one hand, infinite misery is caused by idle people, who both fail in doing what was appointed for them to do, and set in motion various springs of mischief in matters in which they should have had no concern, so on the other hand, no small misery is caused by over-worked and unhappy people, in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force upon others, of work itself. Were it not so, I believe the fact of their being unhappy is in itself a violation of divine law, and a sign of some kind of folly or sin in their way of life. Now in order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: They must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it-not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of other people for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it. So that in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.

The first thing then that he has to do, if unhappily his parents or masters have not done it for him, is to find out what he is fit for. In which inquiry a man may be very safely guided by his likings, if he be not also guided by his pride. People usually reason in some such fashion as this: "I don't seem quite fit for a head-manager in the firm of - & Co., therefore, in all probability, I am fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer." Whereas, they ought rather to reason thus: "I don't seem quite fit to be head-manager in the firm of - & Co., but I daresay I might do something in a small green-grocery business; I used to be a good judge of peas;" that is to say, always trying lower instead of trying higher, until they find bottom: once well set on the ground, a man may build up by degrees, safely, instead of disturbing every one in his neighborhood by perpetual catastrophes.

The Crown of Wild Olive

The following Lectures are printed, as far as possible, just as they were delivered. Here and there a sentence which seemed obscure has been mended, and the passages which had not been previously written, have been, of course imperfectly, supplied from memory. But I am well assured that nothing of any substantial importance which was said in the lecture-room, is either omitted, or altered in its signification; with the exception only of a few sentences struck out from the notice of the works of Turner, in consequence of the impossibility of engraving the drawings by which they were illustrated, except at a cost which would have too much raised the price of the volume. Some elucidatory remarks have, however, been added at the close of the second and fourth Lectures, which I hope may be of more use than the passages which I was obliged to omit.

Lectures on Architecture and Painting

Some years ago, in conversation with an artist whose works, perhaps, alone, in the present day, unite perfection of drawing with resplendence of color, the writer made some inquiry respecting the general means by which this latter quality was most easily to be attained. The reply was as concise as it was comprehensive-"Know what you have to do, and do it"-comprehensive, not only as regarded the branch of art to which it temporarily applied, but as expressing the great principle of success in every direction of human effort; for I believe that failure is less frequently attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labor, than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done; and therefore, while it is properly a subject of ridicule, and sometimes of blame, that men propose to themselves a perfection of any kind, which reason, temperately consulted, might have shown to be impossible with the means at their command, it is a more dangerous error to permit the consideration of means to interfere with our conception, or, as is not impossible, even hinder our acknowledgment of goodness and perfection in themselves.

The Seven Lamps of Architecture

The decay of the city of Venice is, in many respects, like that of an outwearied and aged human frame; the cause of its decrepitude is indeed at the heart, but the outward appearances of it are first at the extremities. In the centre of the city there are still places where some evidence of vitality remains, and where, with kind closing of the eyes to signs, too manifest even there, of distress and declining fortune, the stranger may succeed in imagining, for a little while, what must have been the aspect of Venice in her prime. But this lingering pulsation has not force enough any more to penetrate into the suburbs and outskirts of the city; the frost of death has there seized upon it irrevocably, and the grasp of mortal disease is marked daily by the increasing breadth of its belt of ruin.

The Stones of Venice, Volume II

Version abrégée en 1881 par John Ruskin (1819-1900) de son essai sur l'architecture vénitienne, à la fois guide subjectif de la ville et traité d'esthétique publié pour la première fois en 1851. Il tente de mettre en lumière à travers l'étude de détails les traces de Dieu, de l'art et des hommes.

Of all the buildings in Venice, later in date than the final additions to the Ducal Palace, the noblest is, beyond all question, that which, having been condemned by its proprietor, not many years ago, to be pulled down and sold for the value of its materials, was rescued by the Austrian government, and appropriated-the government officers having no other use for it-to the business of the Post-Office; though still known to the gondolier by its ancient name, the Casa Grimani. It is composed of three stories of the Corinthian order, at once simple, delicate, and sublime; but on so colossal a scale, that the three-storied palaces on its right and left only reach to the cornice which marks the level of its first floor. Yet it is not at first perceived to be so vast; and it is only when some expedient is employed to hide it from the eye, that by the sudden dwarfing of the whole reach of the Grand Canal, which it commands, we become aware that it is to the majesty of the Casa Grimani that the Rialto itself, and the whole group of neighboring buildings, owe the greater part of their impressiveness.

Les Pierres de Venise: Études locales pouvant servir de direction aux voyageurs séjournant à Venise et à Vérone

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