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OF AESTHETICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY 
OF ARCHITECTURE

PAUL GUYER

Part I of  this essay appeared in Vol. 1, No. 1 of  
Architecture Philosophy. 

In Part I we observed several examples of  
how the one-sided cognitivism of  German Idealist 
aesthetics led to reductionist conceptions of  
architecture and in turn to negative assessments of  
the value of  architecture. In Part II, I now turn to 
one nineteenth-century treatment of  architecture 
that is pluralistic rather than monistic and thus in 
at least some ways points to the possibility of  a 
more satisfying aesthetics of  architecture. I refer 
to the theory of  architecture adumbrated by John 
Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of  Architecture, which 
even though it must be shorn of  some of  the 
Romantic assumptions long ago pointed out by 
Geoffrey Scott,1 nevertheless offers at least a model 
for (what Part I identified as) a synthetizing rather 
than separatist approach to architecture.   

3. A Pluralist Approach to Architecture: Ruskin

The Seven Lamps of  Architecture, first published in 
1849, thus three decades after Schopenhauer’s World 
as Will and Representation and the commencement of  
Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics in Berlin, is notorious 
for its conclusion that there are only four styles 
suitable for contemporary architecture – the Pisan 
Romanseque, the early Gothic of  the Western 
Italian Republics, the Venetian Gothic, and the 

i want to 
suggest that we 

can interpret 
the lamps of 

power and 
beauty as 

ruskin’s versions 
of the beautiful 
and the sublime.

“

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English earliest decorated.2 This is hardly the aspect of  the work that I 
wish to discuss, let alone defend. A fortiori I have no intention to defend 
his even more restrictive remark in the Preface to the second edition of  
the Seven Lamps that “I have now no doubt that the only style proper for 
modern northern work, is the Northern Gothic of  the thirteenth century, 
as exemplified in England, pre-eminently by the cathedrals of  Lincoln and 
Wells,” let alone to defend the even more strident remark of  this Preface 
that “there are only two fine arts possible to the human race, sculpture and 
painting,” so that “What we call architecture is only the association of  these 
in noble masses, or the placing them in fit places.”3 I cannot reconcile this 
last remark in particular with Ruskin’s statement in the original text that 
“perfect sculpture may be made a part of  the severest architecture; but 
this perfection was said at the outset to be dangerous.” Ruskin continues:

[T]he moment the architect allows himself  to dwell on the imitated portions, 
there is a chance of  his losing sight of  the duty of  his ornament, of  its business 
as a part of  the composition, and sacrificing its points of  shade and effect to the 
delight of  delicate carving. And then he is lost. His architecture has become a 
mere framework for the setting of  delicate sculpture, which had better all be taken 
down and put into cabinets. It is well, therefore, that the young architect should 
be taught to think of  imitative ornament as of  the extreme of  grace in language; 
not to be regarded at first, not to be obtained at the cost of  purpose, meaning, 
force, or conciseness, yet, indeed, a perfection -- the least of  all perfections, and yet 
the crowning one of  all…4

Here Ruskin makes it clear that the merits of  sculpture, which might 
certainly include their cognitive significance as imitations, should only be 
part of  the larger complex of  aims in architecture, which, like language, 
can please us through formal properties like conciseness and emotional 
impact or force as well as through its semantic content. A passage like 
this suggests that Ruskin’s fundamental position is that we should take a 
synthesizing rather than separatist approach to architecture, seeing it as 
involving our cognitive powers in play as well as work and engaging our 
emotional and conative powers as well. 

A statement like, “It has been my endeavour to show [...] how every 
form of  noble architecture is in some sort the embodiment of  the Polity, 
Life, History, and Religious Faith of  nations,”5 also suggests that Ruskin 
takes a multivalent approach to the pleasures of  architecture. I do not 
want to take this statement too literally, but to take it as exemplifying the 
attitude that the experience of  architecture is complex, not restricted 



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to a single form of  cognition as the German 
Idealists had just argued, but involving and at best 
fusing a wide range of  human values and sources 
of  pleasure. In particular, I want to suggest that 
Ruskin’s seven “lamps” – sacrifice, truth, power, 
beauty, life, memory, and obedience – can, without 
too much distortion, be associated with the three 
sources of  aesthetic pleasure identified in the 
course of  the eighteenth century – cognition 
as such, the free play of  the mental or cognitive 
powers, and the experience and expression of  
emotion – all three of  which were synthesized in a 
complex account of  aesthetic experience by at least 
a few authors, such as Kames (whose Elements of  
Criticism remained a common textbook in American 
colleges throughout the first half  of  the nineteenth 
century, although I cannot say if  that was true for 
Ruskin’s Oxford in the 1840s). Specifically, I want 
to suggest that we can interpret the lamps of  power 
and beauty as Ruskin’s versions of  the beautiful and 
the sublime, both of  which from a Kantian point 
of  view involve freely playing cognitive powers, the 
former imagination and understanding, the latter 
imagination and theoretical and practical reason; 
that the lamps of  truth but even more those of  
life, memory, and obedience bring out elements 
of  straightforward cognition rather than the free 
play of  cognitive powers in the experience of  
architecture; and that the lamps of  sacrifice but also 
life, memory, and obedience highlight emotional 
dimensions of  the experience of  architecture.6 
Throughout the discussion of  the seven lamps, I 
suggest, Ruskin’s tacit argument is that all of  these 
lamps are sources of  pleasure in the experience of  
architecture, and that there is no reason to restrict 
our experience – or the buildings that produce it 
– to any one or any proper subset of  these lamps.

Ruskin introduces both the lamps of  power 

Ruskin’s tacit 
argument is 

that all these 
lamps are 
sources of 

pleasure in the 
experience of 
architecture, 

and that there 
is no reason to 

restrict our 
experience.

“

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and beauty at the start of  the chapter explicitly devoted to the former, 
stating that 

In [...] reverting to the memories of  those works of  architecture by which we have 
been most pleasurably impressed, it will generally happen that they fall into two 
broad classes: the one characterised by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy, to 
which we recur with a sense of  affectionate admiration; and the other by a severe, 
and, in many cases mysterious, majesty, like that we felt at the presence and 
operation of  some great Spiritual Power.7

Ruskin signals the association of  his two lamps with two basic eighteenth-
century categories in the very act of  stating that his understanding of  
them also goes beyond the simple distinction between the beautiful and 
sublime: 

the difference between these two orders of  building is not merely that which there is 
in nature between the beautiful and the sublime. It is, also, the difference between 
what is derivative and original in man’s work: for whatever is in architecture 
fair or beautiful, is imitated from natural forms; and what is not so derived, but 
depends for its dignity upon arrangement and government received from human 
mind, becomes the expression of  the power of  that mind, and receives a sublimity 
high in proportion to the power expressed.8 

These statements are rich in historical resonances. The initial claim that 
beauty is something delicate to which we respond with affection while 
the sublime is something powerful to which we respond with awe is, of  
course, reminiscent of  the way Edmund Burke distinguished between them 
ninety years before the Seven Lamps.9 The claim that beauty consists in the 
imitation of  natural forms of  course reminds one of  Batteux’s thesis that 
the single principle of  all the arts is imitation, but I think a more proximate 
antecedent for Ruskin would have been Archibald Alison’s Essays on the 
Nature and Principles of  Taste of  1790, reissued in 181110 and thus presumably 
still in circulation when Ruskin was young,11 the thesis of  which is not 
that similarities between works of  nature and works of  art are important 
because they allow the latter to be a means of  cognition of  the former, 
but rather that we enjoy “associations” between art and nature that allow 
the pleasures of  the latter to be carried over in non-rule-governed ways 
to the former; in other words, Alison’s theory of  the associations between 
art and nature is a version of  the Scottish idea of  free play, published 
in the same year as but entirely independently of  Kant’s version of  the 
theory of  free play, according to which the mind freely plays back and 
forth between art and nature. I think that this free, associationist rather 



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than strictly cognitivist interpretation of  artistic and 
architectural beauty is evident in Ruskin’s following 
chapter on beauty when he states that “I do not 
mean to suggest that every happy arrangement of  
line is directly suggested by a natural object; but 
that all beautiful lines are adaptations of  those 
which are commonest in the external creation; that 
in proportion to the richness of  their association, 
the resemblance to natural work, as a type and help, 
must be more closely attempted.”12 Meanwhile, 
Ruskin’s account of  the lamp of  power, namely 
that we enjoy powerful works especially because of  
their suggestion of  the power of  the human mind 
or minds behind their creation, stands in a tradition 
going back to Thomas Reid, who asserted, although 
about beauty, that “it is in the moral and intellectual 
perfections of  mind, and in its active power, that 
beauty originally dwells; and that from this as 
the fountain, all the beauty which we perceive in 
the visible world is derived,”13 and before him to 
Shaftesbury, who held that our pleasure in the 
outward forms of  objects is grounded in “the Forms 
which form, that is, which have Intelligence, Action, 
and Operation.”14 But in this case, too, it seems 
to me, Ruskin is not arguing that we appreciate 
sublime works of  architecture because they give 
us actual knowledge of  the intentions of  the 
human minds that created them, but because they 
suggest the power of  the human mind in a more 
general way. In both the cases of  power and beauty, 
then, it seems to me that Ruskin is arguing that 
we enjoy suggestions and intimations rather than 
determinate cognition, and so these two lamps can 
be associated with the eighteenth-century theory 
that in the beautiful and the sublime we enjoy the 
free play of  our cognitive powers rather than actual 
cognition, perhaps especially with the associationist 
version of  this theory.

in both the 
cases of 

power and 
beauty, then, 

it seems to me 
that ruskin 
is arguning 

that we enjoy 
suggestions 

and intimations 
rather than 
determinate 

cognition.

“

”



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The lamp of  truth, by contrast, would seem to suggest a more 
straightforwardly cognitivist account of  aesthetic pleasure: if  truth is 
adequatio rei et intellectus or correspondence between representation and 
object, we would enjoy a true representation because of  the information 
it gives us about its object. Here, however, we have to proceed with some 
caution, because Ruskin’s suggestion seems to be more that we enjoy 
truthfulness rather than truth in architecture, sincerity rather than information15: 

“That indignation which we profess to feel at deceit absolute, is indeed only 
at deceit malicious. We resent calumny, hypocrisy, and treachery, because 
they harm us, not because they are untrue.”16 Ruskin’s thesis is not that we 
should dislike architecture that misinforms us of  some truth, conversely 
that we should like architecture simply because it correctly informs us, but 
rather that we should dislike architecture that intentionally deceives us, 
above all about its own materials and structure, because we dislike being 
intentionally deceived, and conversely enjoy architecture that deals with 
us honestly, because we like to be dealt with honestly. This is the premise 
of  Ruskin’s thesis that we should condemn architecture that disguises the 
nature of  its materials: not because we need to acquire from architecture 
some information about the nature of  its materials or the natural forces 
that govern them that we do not otherwise have (as Schopenhauer’s 
account might suggest), but simply because we dislike being handled 
dishonestly. And this premise is important because it is what allows for 
the distinction that Ruskin makes between deception and imagination, 
his claim that “a communicated act of  imagination” is “no lie,”17 and the 
allowance he makes that for non-exhibition of  underlying structure in 
what we recognize to be intended as a work of  imagination rather than 
a piece of  information, thus his claim that “The architect is not bound to 
exhibit structure” but that if, in Gothic vaulting, “the intermediate shell 
were made of  wood instead of  stone, and whitewashed to look like the rest, 
– this would, of  course, be direct deceit, and altogether unpardonable.”18 
Ruskin’s distinction between imagination and deception would also allow, 
I think, for some common ground between him and Geoffrey Scott, who 
defended the use of  stucco to mask the underlying brick in Renaissance 
architecture against Ruskin’s preference for the honest display of  stone 
in Gothic architecture on the purely aesthetic ground that it allows for 
pleasing patterns of  line and light that could not otherwise be achieved19: 
if  a building can be understood as intended as a work of  imagination 
rather than a presentation of  fact, then there is room for the enjoyment 
of  decorated rather than displayed structure on Ruskin’s as well as Scott’s 



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account; indeed, here Ruskin’s otherwise outrageous 
suggestion in the Preface to the second edition of  
The Seven Lamps that architecture must ultimately 
exploit the means of  painting or sculpture could be 
used in his defense.

Ruskin’s discussion of  “The Lamp of  Truth” 
also includes his notorious argument that even 
in his own nineteenth century an architecture of  
wood, stone, and masonry is preferable to one of  
iron. He writes that the art of  architecture:

having been, up to the beginning of  the present 
century, practised for the most part in clay, stone, 
or wood, it has resulted that the sense of  proportion 
and the laws of  structure have been based [...] on 
the necessities consequent on the employment of  those 
materials; and that the entire or principle employment 
of  metallic framework would, therefore, be generally 
felt as a departure from the first principles of  the 
art. Abstractedly there appears no reason why iron 
should not be used as well as wood; and the time is 
probably near when a new system of  architectural 
laws will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic 
construction [...] . [But architecture’s] first existence 
and its earliest laws must depend [...] upon the use 
of  materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface 
of  the earth, that is to say, clay, wood, or stone: and 
as I think it cannot but be generally felt that one of  
the chief  dignities of  architecture is its historical use 
[...] it will be felt right to retain [...] the materials and 
principles of  earlier ages.20

On the one hand, this seems like sheer conservatism, 
adequately confounded by, for example, the 
accomplishment of  Mies van der Rohe in works like 
the Illinois Institute of  Technology campus and the 
Seagram Building in finding incomparable elegance 
in the structural forms of  steel (and glass). On the 
other hand, Ruskin’s comments suggest that we find 
a genuinely cognitive pleasure in architecture as a 

if building can 
be understood 

as intended 
as a work of 

imagination 
rather than a 

presentation of 
fact, then there 

is room for the 
enjoyment of 

decorated rather 
than displayed 

structure on 
ruskin’s as 

well as scott’s 
account.

“

”



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form of  history, as giving us insight into the past, and that this should not 
be entirely forgotten in the face of  other sources of  pleasure. This leads 
us to “The Lamp of  Memory,” which can also be understood at least in 
part as an expression of  the cognitive aspect of  architectural experience.21

The lamp of  memory seems like the most straightforward expression 
of  a cognitivist aspect in Ruskin’s conception of  the sources of  architectural 
pleasure. Specifically, Ruskin argues that architecture is a medium for 
knowledge of  the human past. “Architecture is to be regarded by us with 
the most serious thought. We can live without her, and worship without 
her, but we cannot remember without her [...] there are but two strong 
conquerors of  the forgetfulness of  men, Poetry and Architecture.”22 But 
Ruskin’s conception of  the cognitivist function of  architecture as a vehicle 
for memory differs from that of  the German Idealists in several key ways. 
Unlike Hegel, Ruskin does not conceive of  architecture as a – doomed 
– vehicle for metaphysical knowledge, nor, like Schopenhauer does he 
conceive of  it as a – not necessarily doomed – vehicle for knowledge of  the 
fundamental forces of  non-human nature; he conceives of  it specifically 
as a vehicle for knowledge of  human history. And then it should also 
be noted that architecture serves human memory in several ways, partly 
intentionally but also partly unintentionally. Ruskin begins his discussion 
of  the “Lamp of  Memory” with the case of  buildings whose decorations 
are “animated by a metaphorical or historical meaning,”23 buildings whose 
ornamentation is thus intended to carry a message about a people and 
their present and past to the future. But he also argues that buildings are 
witnesses to history in ways that could not have been intended by their 
original builders, that the glory of  a building may be: 

in its Age, and in that deep sense of  voicefulness, of  stern watching, of  mysterious 
sympathy, nay, even of  approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that 
have long been washed by the passing waves of  humanity [...] it is in that golden 
stain of  time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness 
of  architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it 
has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of  men, till its walls 
have been witnesses of  suffering [...] that its existence [...] can be gifted with [...] 
language and life.24

Here Ruskin claims that buildings are witnesses to the human deeds that 
play out within and before them, much of  which of  course cannot have 
been foreseen by the original builders and may even undermine their 
intentions in all sorts of  ways, and that we who come later can read this 



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history in the buildings as they stand, well-preserved 
or ruined or in between, before us. Ruskin also 
notes that can get a sense of  non-human history 
from buildings as well, from the “superinduced 
and accidental beauty [...] of  the rents, or fractures, 
or stains, or vegetation, which assimilate the 
architecture with the work of  Nature, and bestow 
upon it those circumstances of  colour and form 
which are universally beloved by the eye of  man.”25 
Buildings thus yield us knowledge of  the general 
processes and specific events of  both non-human 
and human history.

Now Ruskin’s last remark about the universally 
beloved color and form that are produced by 
natural processes suggests that in actual experience 
the cognitive significance of  architecture cannot 
be separated from what might have been thought 
of  as its purely aesthetic dimension; and since it 
would also be artificial to separate the historical 
significance of  architecture from our emotional 
response to human history, the argument of  
“The Lamp of  Memory” suggests that all three 
aspects of  the experience of  art distinguished 
in eighteenth-century aesthetics are in fact fully 
merged in the experience of  architecture as Ruskin 
conceives it. But before I turn to the emotional 
dimension of  the experience of  architecture, let 
me just mention that there are cognitivist aspects 
to Ruskin’s accounts of  the lamps of  “Life” and 
“Obedience” as well. Ruskin uses his chapter on 
“The Lamp of  Life” to begin the argument that he 
will continue in the famous chapter on “The Nature 
of  Gothic” in The Stones of  Venice that we love the 
evidence of  the creativity of  all involved in the 
creation of  a work of  architecture, the stonecutters 
as well as the master mason or architect, as itself  
the product of  the various lives of  all these people, 
their “accidental carelessnesses of  measurement” 

Ruskin’s 
conception of 

the cognitivist 
function of 

architecture 
as a vehicle for 
memory differs 

from that of 
german idealists 

in several key 
ways.

“

”



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as well as their “proposed departures from symmetrical regularity, and the 
luxuriousness of  perpetually variable fantasy.”26 But there is another, or 
perhaps more general argument here, that “no inconsiderable part of  the 
essential characters of  Beauty depend [...] on the expression of  vital energy 
in organic things, or on the subjection to such energy, of  things naturally 
passive and powerless”; the “vivid expression of  the intellectual life which 
has been concerned”27 in the production of  architecture is one instance of  
this, but so might be the evidence of  organic but non-human life in, say, 
the limestone used in a building. The presupposition of  Ruskin’s argument 
is that of  course we must in some way understand the expression of  life in 
any of  its forms in architecture before we can respond to it in other ways. 
A similar assumption underlies Ruskin’s argument in his final chapter on 
“The Lamp of  Obedience.” His argument here is that architecture can 
be an expression of  freedom, as opposed to mere chaos, only if  it is an 
exercise of  “Restraint” within a style28 – it is in this context that he makes 
the claim earlier mentioned that there are only four styles suitable for 
modern building.29 But of  course to work within a style, even to innovate 
within it and test its limits without exceeding them, the architect has to 
understand the style and its laws; so freedom in design and construction, 
which might be associated with the eighteenth-century idea of  free play, 
also has to be associated with knowledge. The necessity of  connecting 
rather than separating free play and knowledge is also on display in this 
passage, which begins the penultimate section of  the final chapter of  The 
Seven Lamps of  Architecture:

It is almost impossible for us to conceive [...] the sudden dawn of  intelligence and 
fancy, the rapidly increasing sense of  power and facility, and, in its proper sense, 
of  Freedom, which such wholesome restraint would instantly cause throughout 
the whole circle of  the arts. Freed from the agitation and embarrassment of  
that liberty of  choice which is the cause of  half  of  the discomforts of  the world; 
freedom from the accompanying necessity of  studying all past, present, or even 
possible styles; and enabled, by concentration of  individual, and co-operation 
of  multitudinous energy, to penetrate into the uttermost secrets of  the adopted 
style, the architect would find his whole understanding enlarged, his practical 
knowledge certain and ready to hand, and his imagination playful and vigorous 
[...].30

Here knowledge is argued to be a necessary condition of  free play. 
That might mean that knowledge is not a source of  pleasure in its own 
right, but only a means to the pleasure for both architects themselves and 



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the audiences for their work over time that comes 
from the playful and vigorous imagination. But, as 
we have seen, the knowledge of  both history and 
the laws of  non-human as well as human nature 
that we can get from architecture is also, in Ruskin’s 
view, a source of  pleasure in its own right. So there 
is no danger that knowledge will be reduced to a 
mere means for the pleasure that comes from free 
play: both are sources of  architectural pleasure in 
his view.

Finally, I return to Ruskin’s recognition of  
the emotional dimension of  our experience of  
architecture. As I already suggested, it would 
be entirely unnatural to separate our emotional 
response to human deeds and for example 
“suffering” from our cognition of  them, and 
likewise artificial to separate our emotional 
response to manifestations of  human freedom 
from our knowledge of  the laws or style or other 
laws that furnish the constraints within which 
freedom can be meaningfully exercised; so the 
emotional aspect of  the experience of  architecture 
is implicit throughout Ruskin’s treatment of  its 
cognitive dimensions in the lamps of  memory and 
obedience. It would be equally implausible to leave 
out the emotional aspect of  architectural experience 
from “The Lamp of  Power,” Ruskin’s version of  
the sublime: his statement there that,

In the edifices of  Man there should be found reverent 
worship and following, not only of  the spirit which 
rounds the pillars of  the forest, and arches the vault 
of  the avenue [...] but of  that also which reproves 
the pillars of  the earth, and builds up her barren 
precipices into the coldness of  the clouds, and lifts her 
shadowy cones of  mountain purple into the pale arch 
of  the sky; for these, and other glories more than these, 
refuse not to connect themselves, in his thought, with 
the work of  his own hand [...].31

the 
presupposition 

of ruskin’s 
argument is 

that of course 
we must in 
some way 

understand 
the expression 

of life in any 
of its forms in 
architecture 

before we can 
respond to it in 

other ways.

“

”



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makes clear the emotional impact of  the sublime in architecture on the 
author, but on the author only as a representative of  us all: we cannot 
think of  “the works of  God upon the earth” and “the dominion over 
those works which has been vested in man” as “intellectual Lamps of  
Architecture” without also experiencing a profound emotional response.32

But the emotional dimension of  architectural experience has been 
on display since the outset of  Ruskin’s book, beginning with the first 
“Lamp of  Sacrifice.” This refers to the “spirit which offers” especially for 
“devotional and memorial architecture” “precious things, simply because 
they are precious; not as being necessary to the building, but as an offering, 
surrendering, and sacrifice of  what is to ourselves desirable.”33 Through 
using precious materials in our – public rather than merely private – 
buildings, we “exercise self-denial for the sake of  self-discipline”34 – and 
express our need to honor, for Ruskin of  course specifically our need 
to honor God.35 The need to express self-discipline and honor must be 
grounded in our feelings or emotions, not just our desire for pleasure but 
in a wide range of  other, first-order emotions. And in response to works 
of  architecture that express such feelings in their creators similar feelings 
may be and surely often are expressed in subsequent spectators of  those 
works, even those who do not share the beliefs of  the original creators – 
even one who does not share the belief-systems of  their creators cannot 
fail to be stirred by the Chartres or the Suleimanya of  Sinan or the St. 
Matthew Passion of  Bach, although of  course the experience of  such 
a spectator can hardly be identical to that of  the original creator of  the 
work or its originally intended audience. As Ruskin concludes “The Lamp 
of  Sacrifice,” the creators of  such works, “have taken with them to grave 
their powers, their honours, and their errors; but they have left us their 
adoration,”36 that is, their emotion, which we, for all our differences, with 
them and amongst ourselves, cannot but at least to some degree agree 
with.

So Ruskin actually begins his work with an emphasis on the emotional 
dimension of  our experience of  architecture and by implication of  aesthetic 
experience more generally. But we have seen that as his argument unfolds, 
he equally emphasizes the pleasure of  sheer cognition through architecture 
as well as of  the vigorous play of  the human imagination in architecture, 
and further the ways in which all three of  these dimensions of  aesthetic 
experience are not merely intertwined but are also interdependent. So 
I conclude that Ruskin’s Seven Lamps is a paradigmatic expression of  a 



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synthesizing rather than separating approach to 
aesthetic theory in general and architectural theory 
in particular, and that although a century and three-
quarters on, we can hardly feel constrained by his 
particular stylistic dictates, an enduring benchmark 
for the complexity of  aesthetic ambitions we should 
have in architectural practice as well. 

Endnotes

1. Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of  Humanism, 
first edition 1914, second edition 1924 (New York: 
Scribner’s, n.d.), especially Chapter V, “The Ethical 
Fallacy.”

2. John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of  Architecture, 
introduction by Sir Arnold Lunn (London: J.M. 
Dent & Sons, 1907), p. 213.

3. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. xxii. 

4. Ibid, p. 137.

5. Ibid, p. 203.

6. My interpretation of  The Seven Lamps thus 
differs from that offered by Cornelis J. Baljon in 
“Interpreting Ruskin: The Argument of  The Seven 
Lamps of  Architecture and The Stones of  Venice,” 
Journal of  Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55 (1997): 401-
14.  Baljon argues that all seven “lamps” are forms 
of  associations of  ideas, thus that the work stands 
entirely within the tradition of  eighteenth-century 
Scottish “associationism,” represented above all by 
the 1790 work of  Archibald Alison (see p. 403), while 
Ruskin then broadens his approach to architecture in 
The Stones of  Venice.  Without controverting Baljon’s 
claim that Ruskin’s philosophical knowledge was 
(proudly) confined to the British tradition and 
excluded German aesthetics from Kant to Hegel (p. 
401), I would suggest, indeed already have suggested 
in my comments about the work of  Kames, that the 
British or even the Scottish tradition is broader than 



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associationism alone, and that Ruskin’s work is more fruitfully read against 
the background of  the threefold division of  cognition, play, and emotion 
that I have suggested. 
7. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 69.
8. Ibid, p. 70.
9. See Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of  Our Ideas of  
the Sublme and Beautiful (1757, second edition 1759), edited by J.T. Boulton 
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), especially Part One, sections 
VII-XI, XIX.  See also Baljon, p. 403.
10. Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles of  Taste, 2 vols. 
(Edinburgh: Bell & Bradfute, 1811).  See Baljon, p. 403.
11. Baljon goes beyond this weak statement and calls Alison’s work, “a 
particularly rich source of  inspiration,” for Ruskin (p. 403).
12. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 104.
13. Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of  Man (1785), edited by 
Derek R. Brookes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), Essay 
VIII, “Of  Taste,” p. 602. 
14. Shaftesbury, The Moralists, Part III, section II, in Characteristicks, vol. 
II, p. 107.
15. For a general discussion of  this distinction, see Bernard Williams, Truth 
and Truthfulness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
16. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 30.
17. Ibid, p. 33.
18. Ibid, p. 35.
19. See Scott, Architecture of  Humanism, chapter IV, “The Mechanical 
Fallacy,” e.g., pp. 103-7.
20. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, pp. 39-40.  
21. Baljon suggests that Ruskin thought iron architecture lifeless and thus 
should have included his argument against it in “The Lamp of  Life” (p. 
403).  This overlooks Ruskin’s argument for our historical attachment 
to stone rather than iron construction, which would suggest that if  his 
argument against iron architecture should have been included anywhere 
other than in “The Lamp of  Truth,” then it should have been in “The 
Lamp of  Memory.”  But had he done that, Ruskin would have spoken 
too soon: riding now across a great late nineteenth- or early twentieth-
century railroad bridge such as the Hell’s Gate in New York or the Firth of  
Forth bridge in Scotland is certainly an experience redolent with historical 
significance.  
22. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 182.
23. Ibid, p. 182.
24. Ibid, pp. 190-1.



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25. Ibid, p. 197.
26. Ibid, p. 160.
27. Ibid, p. 150.
28. Ibid, p. 205.
29. Ibid, p. 213.
30. Ibid, pp. 213-14.
31. Ibid, p. 71.
32. Ibid, p. 70.
33. Ibid, p. 9.
34. Ibid, p. 10.
35. Ibid, p. 11.
36. Ibid, p. 28.


