The Nature of Gothic - Architecture
'Gaze upon the old cathedral front', writes Ruskin, 'examine once more those ugly goblins, and stern statues ... but do not mock at them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every workman who struck the stone'. The Nature of Gothic first appeared as a chapter of Volume II of The Stones of Venice (1853) but was soon available separately. The British Arts and Crafts Movement viewed this chapter as its sacred text. William Morris printed an edition of the chapter and described it as 'one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century'.
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