Page 19 - Bulletin 19 2015

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Art critic and artist Adrian Stokes (1902 – 1972), who developed his own theory of carving

versus modelling after examining the works of the early Renaissance, wrote extensively
about the nature of stone and its ability to reflect light, be the source of ideas, and he

poetically refers to stone as congealed time. The major thrust of his life's work was the
exaltation of stone as a material for buildings and sculptors.

When evaluating the courtyard of the Ducal Palace in Urbino, designed by Luciano Laurana,

he says, “who else has felt stones as so distinct yet together making mass”.(Fig. 1.24)

In his book The Stones of Rimini, (which was in many ways inspired by Ruskin's Stones of

Venice) he writes, “Everywhere the slower carving processes are superseded. Manufacture,

modelling, has superseded its fellow.....Synthetic materials take the place of age-old products
in which fantasy is deposited. (Fig. 1.25)

....today stone is no longer the desirable building material. What is more, modern building
materials are essentially plastic. These materials have little emblem of their own....The

creations of Le Corbusier and others show that building will no longer serve as the mother
art of stone, no longer as the source at which carving or spatial conception renews its

strength. Architecture in that sense of the word.....will cease to exist. [Quite some prediction]

Building becomes a plastic activity pure and simple: whereas, in the past, building with
stone.....has not been a moulding of shape with stone, so much as an order imposed on blocks

from which there results an exaltation of the spatial character of stone.......(Fig. 1.26)

Mountains and pebbles still exist: but so far as stone loses its use as a constructive material,

it also loses power over the imagination.” A. Stokes, The Stones of Rimini, 1934.

I will turn now to look at Stokes's forerunner, John Ruskin who was supremely influential in
many different areas and not least of all when it comes to understanding the modern origins

of conservation.

Heritage Questions and the origins of Conservation

John Ruskin (1819 – 1900), was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art

patron, draughtsman, water-colourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. In all of
his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. (Figs. 1.27 -