Main Ideas contained in the Prose Piece Three Schools of European Architecture :
John Ruskin was an art critic which was demonstrated by the publicans of “Modern Painters”. The study of these volume brings out Ruskin’s attitude towards art and its relation to mortality. His masterpiece “Unto this last” is a probe into the true nature of wealth which consists in “The producing of as many as possible full breathed, bright-eyed and happy-hearted human creature”. Three Schools of European Architecture is a part of a lecture where Ruskin holds the view that all architecture is the expression of natural life and characters.
Ruskin says that the Christian faith was the religion of comfort. Its great doctrine is the remission of sins the result of this doctrine, in art is the continual contemplation of sin and desire and imaginary purification from them. In fact, purification from sins can happen only by ending them. By paying off a certain amount no one can get rid of sins from life. It was the cult of absolutions that ended medieval faith. Thus, the Architecture of the period reflects the mixed sentiment, melancholy, and aspiration. After that followed the religion of pleasure in which all European get itself to luxury which was sure to end in death.
Ruskin is a master of diction and he handles it with perfect ease. He has produced style in humans with his needs. The passage gives insight into the principle and philosophy of architecture. Ruskin’s style follows the tradition of poetic prose of Thomas De Quincey.
