Nfluence N USK N On The NG Z: I JOH R I Drawi BRA IL

THE INFLUENCE OF JOHN R USKIN
ON THE TEACHING OF DRAWING

IN BRAZIL
THE INFLUENCE OF JOHN RUSKIN
ON THE TEACHING OF DRAWING
IN BRAZIL
How His Spatial Way of Thinking
Affects Architecture and Painting
Claudio Silveira Amaral
With a Foreword by
Nilson Ghirardello
The Edwin Mellen Press

LewistonoQueenston-Lampeter
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicatioD Data
Amaral, Claudio Silveira.

The influence of John Ruskin on the teaching of drawing in Brazil : how his
spatial way of thinking affects architecture and painting I Claudio Silveira
Amaral ; with a foreword by Nilson Ghirardello.
p.em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-1573-7 (hardcover)
ISBN-I0: 0-7734-1573-4 (hardcover)
1. Ruskin, John, 1819-1900-Aesthetics. 2. Ruskin, John, 1819-1900-
Influence. 3. Drawing-Study and teaching-Brazil-Rio de Janeiro. 4. Liceu de
Artes e Ofidos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) I. Title.
PRS267.A35A43 2011
741.071'08153-dc23
2011039195
horsserie.
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Front cover: Cultural Hall of Rio de Janiero, Rua La\<Tlldio with Rua Rela~
Photo taken by C. Amaral in 2011
Copyright «::> 2012 Claudio Silveira Amaral
All rights reserved. For information contact
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USA 14092-0450 CANADA LOS lLO
The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.

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Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT i
FOREWORD by Nilson Ghirardello iii
INTRODUCTION 1
JOHN RUSKIN'S IDEAS 15
Nature 15
Painting 21
Ruskinian Architecture 29
The Laws of Architecture 31
Sacrifice 31
The Truth of Architecture 31
The Truth of Structure 31
The Ruskinian Architectural Aesthetic 35
The Truth of Materials 41
The History of Ruskinian Architecture 43
JOHN RUSKIN AND THE TEACHING
OF DRAWING IN BRAZIL 57
The Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro 63
Rui Barbosa and John Ruskin 73
REFERENCES 85
INDEX 91
LIST OF PLATES
1- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street, n° 307.

Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
2- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Visconde de Rio Branco Street,

n° 63. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
3- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street, n 48. Photo

taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
4- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street n° 48. Photo

5- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Senado Street n° 47 to 49.

6- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Uruguaiana Street with

Ouvidor Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
7- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Uruguaina Street with Sete de

Setembro Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
8- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street n° 34. Photo

9- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Republica do Libano Street n°

13. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
10- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Constituiyao Street nO 41.

11- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Visconde do Rio Branco Street
with Invalidos Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
12- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire Street

nO 151. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
13- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street nO 32. Photo

14- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire Street n° 248.

15-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street with Rel~ao

Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
16- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street with Relayao

17-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street n° 36. Photo

18-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street n° 217.

19-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street nO 238.

ABSTRACT
Most historians of Modem Architecture see John

Ruskin as a neo-Gothic who is against industry and whose
writings are isolated from daily life. Here this aspect of
Ruskin's work is seen as part of his logic of composition,
making him an eclectic rather than a neo-Gothic, not anti-
industry, but rather a supporter of cooperative work.
Thus it is possible to locate Ruskin's influence on the very first
industrial project in Brazil, the policy of drawing education by
Rui Barbosa and the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de
Janeiro.
FOREWORD
Translated by John Milton and Adriano Ropero
The study "The lDfiueDce of JOB Rusm OD the

teachiDg of drawmg fiB Brazil: how his spacial way of
tidnmg affects architecture aDd pamtmg," by Claudio
Silveira Amaral, presents a different point of view from that
which most historians of Modem Architecture attribute to John
Ruskin. These historians, considering only his texts on
architecture, see Ruskin as a writer and a neo-Gothlc critic of
art, who supports the return of the Middle Ages feudal
production, going against the contemporary world, and evoking
virtues from a distant past.
Claudio Amaral has a different view, treating Ruskin's
production on architecture as a part of a logic of composition
which includes all the themes Ruskin deals with, such as
Painting, Literature, Geology, Economic Policy, Education,
Labour and Nature. According to Amaral, all these themes
belong to the same logic of Ruskinian perception and
composition.
This logic comes from the concept of True
Composition, created by Ruskin through the observation of
Nature. It's a logic based on a Mutual Help Policy, where
different elements coexist, helping each other, and their forms
adapt to this exchange. This concept was used by Ruskin as
basis of his conception of aesthetics and ethics.
This reading of Ruskin's production allows us to
identitY his influence at the beginning of the process of
iii
industrialization in Brazil, especially in terms of the teaching of
drawing, which supported different activities at the beginning
of Brazilian industrialization. This is an extremely original part
of Amaral's study: the search for the relationship between
Ruskin's aesthetic and the industrial policies of the Old
Republic in Brazil.
One of the clearest examples of Ruskin's influence is
the relationship between the most important schools of arts and
crafts in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, at this time the federal
capital, and the reform of primary teaching, implemented by
Rui Barbosa, which contains a conception of education based
on Ruskin proposals.
Rui Barbosa even quoted Ruskin's name in his
statements and made a well-known speech, in which he calls
Ruskin "the greatest master in the area of arts that 19th century
produced" when defending the teaching of drawing to children
before they started to learn how to write. In the Rio de Janeiro
Liceu de Aries e Oficios, differently to other Brazilian art
schools, where the students just learned how to copy patterns,
and studied descriptive Geometry when learning how to draw,
the students in the Liceu were given total liberty to mix
different drawing styles.
Claudio Amaral emphasizes another point, based on
Ruskin's famous comment: labour should be carried out with
pleasure. Contrasting with the prejudice established by the
difference between Liberal Arts and Mechanical Arts, where
the liberal should think, and the mechanic only carry out
instructions, Ruskin's idea of labour performed with pleasure
joins the ideas of Bethencourt da Silva (the founder of Rio de
Janeiro's Liceu de Aries e Oficios), with those of Rui Barbosa
iv
(intellectual, Brazilian minister and Lieen member), and both of
them with those of Ruskin, using a very similar idea: "a form of
labour in which those who think. also do.-
This uniting of Liberal and Mechanical Arts by
Bethencourt and Barbosa changed the original project of
Lebreton (the head of the French mission in Rio de Janeiro,
who established the Academy of Fine Arts and believed that the
Liceu de Artes e Oficios would qualify the working-class to
mechanically construct what had been planned in the
Academy). This mixture of ideas resulted in the education of
the Rio de Janeiro's Liceu de Artes e Oficios having a social
content beyond the limits of mere drawing technique, in which
only learning notions of geometry was important.
In the Rio de Janeiro Liceu, the students were free to
mix styles and create new forms based on their own
imagination, which was very unusual and innovative in
Brazilian education in this period. Rui Barbosa and
Bethencourt used Ruskin's ideas to oppose the prejudice
against manual labour, believing that the teaching of drawing
could build a modem society based on labour.
If we agree with the historian's analyses of Modem
Architecture or examine Ruskin's texts on architecture in
narrow terms, we will have no idea of John Ruskin's influence
on the industrial process in Brazil, because, according to certain
historians, Ruskin is just a romantic medievalist, a defender of
the return to the production of Middle Ages, and therefore, very
distant from our reality and of no interest to our difficult daily
lives.
v
This is why I see this study as an important contribution
to the historiography of learning in Brazil and the politics of
industrialization at the end of the 19th century.
Prof. Dr. Nilson Ghirardello
Prof. of Architecture and Urbanism of the Course of
Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape ofUNESP.
Vice-Director of Faculty of Architecture, Art and
Communication ofUNESP (State University of Silo Paulo)
vi
INTRODUCTION
The hypothesis of this study is that John Ruskin's main

subject is a certain conception of logic, which provides the
basis for themes such as architecture, painting, economic
policy, and religion. Ruskin's work will be seen as part of a
structure, which is based on a certain logic and is the basis of
all the subjects he deals with. This kind of analysis is very
different from the work of various historians of modem
architecture,l who regard Ruskin's work on architecture in
isolation, not taking into account his philosophical and political
ideas. Here I shall emphasize this internal logic, the basic
structure of all the subjects related to John Ruskin's studies,
and I shall demonstrate that Ruskin's goals were not about
building a theory of nature, painting, economic policy, or even
architecture, but rather that he deals with all these elements
within the same logic of composition.
Keeping in mind this particular point of view, it is
possible to find certain important aspects of his conception of
composition in the 19th century in Brazil, specifically the first
Brazilian project of industrialization, which took place in the
city of Rio de Janeiro during the second half of the century.
The aim of this project of industrialization was to change the
Brazilian way of life, which at that time was concentrated in
rural areas. In order to do this, Rill Barbosa2 developed the
1 FRAMPTON, K.; PEVSNBR. N.; VANLONN, W. H.; GOMBRICH, E.

H. J.; CURTIS, W.; ARGAN, G. C. among o1bers.
1 Born in 1849 Rui Barbosa is known as the best legal expert Brazil has ever
had. In 1877 he was elected congressman; in 1881 he promoted the General
1
Primary Teaching Reform, and the teaching of drawing policy
at Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro stressed the
importance of an education in aesthetics to form a popular
labour market. Rui Barbosa believed that an education in
aesthetics would be the ideal way to change social values,
moving from a society which despised manual labour to one
which would value it.
John Ruskin (1 819-1900}, the English Victorian art
critic, was considered an enthusiast of the Gothic revival style,
more specifically the Venetian Gothic. In 1849, in the Preface
to The Seven Lamps of Architeeture, and again in 1855, he
denied this preference,3 as his ideas were not about a single
new style, but rather a new way of seeing, which went against
any kind of specific style.
Teaching Reform and was one of the most important intellectuals during the
process which, in 1889, changed Brazil from a monarchy to a republic. He
was the Prime Minister in the Republican period and the most important
contributor to the first Brazilian Republican Constitution; afterwards he ran
for President in the first civil elections in Brazil. After losing the election he
travelled to England. He was presidential candidate three more times, but
lost all three elections. In 1907 he took part in The Hague Conference and
achieved worldwide fame, and because of his great success at this event he
is commonly referred as the Eagle of The Hague. He was also very
important in Brazilian history as a senator and diplomat who drew the
borders of Brazil as we know today.
3 "In 1849, in Seven Lamps, Ruskin argued for the rejection of styles and the
pursuit of styles: We want no new style in architecture. ( ...) But we want
some styles. Once a single style bad become universally accepted, its
adaptation would eventually produce a new style suitable for a new world.
Unfortunately, however, Ruskin recommended not one style but a choice of
four: Pisan Romanesque, as in the Baptistry and Cathedral at Pis&, the Early
Gothic of the eastern Italian republics, as at 8m. Croce, Florence; Venetian
Gothic - 8m. Maria dell'Orto, for example. and early English decorated, as
in the north transept at Lincoln Cathedral." (Crook, in Hunt. The Ruskin
Polygon, p. 69)
2
Helsinger,4 Herseys and Hunt6 say that Ruskin had a
visual thought, a spatial way o/thinking. This visual logic is the
opposite of formal logic, which has a linear sequence (leaving
point A and arriving at point B), and a linear chronology.
Spatial logic places the subjects side by side, dealing
simultaneously with present, past and future, changing the
subject, deviating when necessary, having fun with colours,
getting near and far; combining subjects in unusual
combinations, using metaphors to reinforce the established
links.
Ruskin's perception is an act of reflection made by the
observer or reader, and it is never given by the painter or
author, who will merely create the conditions for the reader to
begin his own act of reflection.
Heisinger attributed this theory not to Ruskin, but to
Wordsworth, whose poems are full of colours, sounds and
memories. Wordsworth called this procedure sublime and
aimed at a unity between things that, initially, are not united.
HeIsinger considers this concept of the sublime very
different from Burke's idea of the sublime, which is related to
pleasure, which comes from pain, and which is, according to
Heisinger, negative. Wordsworth's concept of the sublime, like
Ruskin's, is derived from the idea of picturesque. The parts
come together to build a whole, and this whole is made up of
objects, effects, sensations, memories, and colour. Hunt
believes that Ruskin's production must be read as if it were a
whole, like Wordsworth's sublime.
4 Heisinger, Ruskin and the art ofthe beholder, 1982.

5 Hersey, G. Ruskin as an optical thinJcer, In The Ruskin Polygon, 1982.
6 HWlt, 1. The Ruskin Polygon, 1982.
3
When seeing or reading Ruskin's work. on this theory of
the sublime, it is possible to understand his method, which
states that the themes are less important than the method itself.
The themes dealt with by Ruskin are usually thought to have
been little researched, which has resulted in considerable
criticism of his work, but, since the themes are merely the
background to a way of seeing, they are no more than
supporting ideas, thus weakening the criticism. 7 Ruskinian
truths become Ruskin's personal impressions, and this does not
reduce the quality of the method.
Ruskin often mentioned subjects he did not fully
master, because he claimed to have the right to express his
opinion even if he was not a specialist. In addition, his main
subject is not the themes themselves but rather the method
whose logic would be present in all of them.
Ruskin's spatial thought made several different
interpretations possible for his reader: there are those who
regarded his work. as being made up of isolated subjects, and
those who regarded his work. as a unified whole. In this study
Ruskin's work. will be handled as a unity, and its main subject
is structure of composition that can be seen as a form of logic.
According to Ruskin, it seems that learning how to draw
is learning how to see, and learning how to see is feeling a logic
of composition in nature. "Now remember gentlemen that I
have not been trying to teach you to draw, only to see. ,,8
7 Bradley writes about the rage of specialists against Ruskin talking about
what he had not researched. (Bradley, J. Ruskin, the critical heritage, p. 14)
8 Haslam, R.., Looking, drawing and learning with John Ruskin at the
Working Men's College, v. 7, n. 1, p. 75.
4
Ruskin behaves as ifhe were the prophet who heralds in
the truth to his pupils, and in doing so he fails to make use of
rules to teach how to draw. He would say that every student
should build his own path based on real experiences, on his
own particular seeing. The only thing required from this seeing
is that it must be made up of the association of simultaneous
subjects, memories and periods.
Ruskin taught through his written production, and his
teaching of drawing was his theory of perception, which
intended to reform the industrial society of the period. Ruskin
taught in Working Men's Colleges in London and in the Ruskin
School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. Today, the Ruskin
College in Oxford awards professional qualifications to people
who have had limited access to schooling.
The Ruskinian drawing technique combines perception,
education, culture, and social relationships at work, which are
linked by Ruskin's theory of perception.
For Ruskin, teaching how to see had an ethical proposal
coming from the worship of beauty, which is the result of a
relationship between objects, sensations and memories. Beauty
is also the result of social relationships, which in themselves
contain mutual help.
But Ruskin believed that the best form of ethics was
that of the co-operation as seen in the policy of mutual help.
Ruskin attempted to find this in the natural landscape, calling it
beautiful. The various elements are dependent on each other
and need each other to establish a unity in a state of equilibrium
in the natural landscape.
5
Architecture is the best example of Ruskin's ethical
theory. When he visualizes a building, he sees the relations that
mediated the work of its conception and construction as an
aesthetic experience.
Ruskin uses religion to examine architectural creation.
He uses the theory of God as an architect: God, who has built
nature, which is creative and perfect. He recognizes men's
imperfections, and admits that men could be creative, but never
perfect. And as men are imperfect they ought to ask help from
other men. And they can only be creative by associating with
others to work cooperatively through mutual help, respecting
the same ethic that rules nature.
One of the best-known sentences of Ruskin is work
must be done with pleasure, 9 which implies a different
conception of pleasure from the Victorian culture of his time, in
which pleasure was fun after work and is fulfilled through the
act of consumption. Ruskin regards pleasure as belonging to the
world of work, and it must be done with pleasure,
understanding that creative work gives pleasure. Besides
pleasure, work must produce useful products for life, which
means that he is against the production of luxury goods and
objects of destruction.
The Ruskinian theory of perception seeks a certain sort
of beauty. However, this was the result ofa logic expressing an
ethic found in architecture as relations at work. And it was from
9 A sentence that influenced William Morris to write "News from

Nowhere," a novel about an ideal society, where the activity of work is
carried out according the desires and singularity of each individual. The
result of work is, according to Morris, always a work of art, since it is the
result of an activity done with pleasure. (Thompson, E. P. William Morris
Romantic to Revolutionary, p. 802)
6
these associations that Ruskin's architectural theory was
defined by overcoming the differences between liberal and
mechanical arts.
Ruskin positioned himself against any kind of division
of work, saying that work relations must go beyond the
separation between those who think and those who do.
This may be the reason why the mixture of styles
pleased him so much, since this eclecticism expresses the
freedom of several different styles to exist simultaneously or to
be juxtaposed.
These ideas about aesthetics were present not only in
19th century Europe, but also in Brazil. The Liceu de Artes e
Oficios do Rio de Janeiro (LAORJ) was founded by the
architect Joaquim Francisco Bethencourt da Silva in 1856. The
presence of Ruskin's ideas in the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do
Rio de Janeiro came about indirectly, mainly through Rui
Barbosa, who was an honorary partner at the Liceu de Artes.
Rui Barbosa devoted a large part of his life to
education. He proposed the Reforma do Ensino Pri11'lilrio
(Reform of Pri.mary Education), which consisted of the
extension of the teaching methodology of the national teaching
system whose basis was the methodology used in the Liceu de
Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro for the teaching of drawing.
He believed that before learning how to write and read the
pupil should learn how to draw.
The scholars who were interested in the
industrialization project were concerned with what was taking
7
place in Europe, and they were sensitive to Ruskin's critiques
of the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in London. 10
Ruskin attacked not only the bad design of the products
but also how they were produced, criticizing the division of
industrial work, and proposed a new organization of work
based on cooperative tasks, which was the basis of the British
Arts and Crqfis, different to the Brazilian Liceu de Artes e
Oficios do Rio de Janeiro, but with certain aspects in common.
The Liceu de Artes e Oflcios do Rio de Janeiro is not a
result of John Ruskin's thoughts, although its foundation was
influenced by Ruskin. The Liceu was the result of a French
mission, which, when requested by the King of Portugal and
Emperor of Brazil, Dom Jofto VI, came to Rio de Janeiro in
181611 to found two schools, one of Liberal Arts and other of
Mechanical Arts. 12 But in 1826 only the school of liberal arts
10 An exhl'bition of industrialized products from many countries, which took

place in London in 1851, exhl'biting products of the industrial revolution.
Rui Barbosa stated: "The organization, the dimensions of buildings and the
quantity of products were imposing. The quality, from the point of view of
decorative art, was abominable. The more intelligent visitors realized this,
and in England and other countries this resulted in discussions about the
causes of such a clear deficiency." (Oama, R. A Tecnologia e 0 Trabalho no
Hist6ria. p. 144)
IILebreton had a mission to found two schools, one ofhDeral arts and other
of mechanical arts. The first was the one of Fine Arts.
l1'he difference between liberal and mechani<:al arts according to Diderot:
"Once the art is defined, Diderot explains the origin of the division, or
rather, the distn'bution made between hDera1 and mechanical arts. He starts
with the traditional idea that there are some kinds of work more related to
the spirit than to manual abilities, and others are the opposite, more related
to manual skills than to the spirit. The first were called h"berai and the others
mechanical; however, this distribution is considered very rough by the
author, as it is not able to define the nuances that delineate each alt."
(Magnolia, C.S. Posf8cio, Diderot, D. Do interpretQf(Jo da Natureza, p.
172)
8
was established. I3 Later, in 1856,14 the Liceu de Artes e Oficios
do Rio de Janeiro of mechanical arts was founded.
This industrialization policy was established before
Ruskin's influence in Brazil and was part of a broader
movement of the break with the feudal way of production,
present in Europe since the 15th century following the
development of capitalism. According to Gama (1986), this
was the surpassing of the notion of technique by modem
technology.
Gama states that the modem conception of technology
is the production of productive praxis, which involves the
division of the various activities usually carried out by a group.
Modem technology should embrace the social element
of material production, to be related to the world of work. This
is why it was necessary to get rid of the prejudice against
manual work, common since Ancient Greece, where manual
work was undignified and performed by poor people and
slaves.
"In ancient times manual work was a type of
undignified work, and intellectual work was a type of
dignified work. And then a division between liberal arts
(related to intellectual work) and mechanical arts (work
carried out by slaves) in Ancient Greece was
established."lS
13Gama, R. A. tecnologia e 0 Trabalho na Hislor/a, p. 138.

14Some authors, such as Gams, link the ideas of Bethencourt and Lebreton:
"Lebreton's ideas written in the quoted manuscript (by Profesor Mario
Barata), were not fulfilled. He died in Rio de Janeiro in 1819, and only in
1856 did the results ofms ideas begin to appear." (Gama, R. A. Tecnologia e
o Trabalho no Histaria. p.141)
I'Gama, R. A. Teenologio e 0 traba/ho, p. 67.
9
Bethencourt da Silva certainly knew Lebreton's ideas,
which originated at the Bachelier School in Paris, and which
were based on the teaching of drawing, especially in the
mechanical arts. 16
But it would not be right to say that the work of
Bethencourt and Lebreton were responses to the same
circumstances, since Bethencourt was responding to the needs
of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, mainly to the
critiques of the Great Exhibition of 1851. 17
The Brazilian's response, like that of the Europeans,
was to invest in the teaching of drawing. In Europe the
response was to improve the quality of industrial drawing, and
for Bethencourt the teaching of drawing would be a policy to
establish a skilled work force 18 and prepare workers for the job
market
The biggest challenge was to change the perception of
the value of manual work, and to do so it was necessary to
increase the status of the Mechanical Arts. For Bethencourt
society should initially be prepared, and then the factories
should be built
Rui Barbosa read Ruskin's work thoroughly. In his
private library, which today belongs to the Coso de Rui
16Gama, R. A teenolagia e a Trabalho no Histbria, p. 133.

17 Squeft; L. C. 0 Brasil nos letras de um pintor: Manuel de Armijo Porto
Alegre, p 167.
18 The aims of the Liceu de Artes e Ofici08 do Rio de Janeiro were: "to
educate the workers of national industIy and skilled workmen. required so
much by industry for its own and national progress. It was really a school of
applied arts to industry, and the Liceu offered, besides arithmetic, geometry,
physics, chemistry, geography and history, a complete course applicable to
all industrial occupations." (Gama, R. A teenolagia e a trabalho no histbria,
p. 142)
10
Barbosa Foundation, there are eleven books written by Ruskin.
During the speech at Liceu (22 November, 1882), Rui Barbosa
translated two passages of Ruskin, calling him as the best critic
of art of the age. 19 In the project of Reforma do Ensina
Primllrio (Reform of Primary Education), he quoted Ruskin
+"',;
~YV.tce.
20
The Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro did not

make direct use of all Ruskin's ideas. only using certain
aspects, such as the valuing of Mechanical Arts; the association
between the aesthetic and the ethical; and Ruskin's
methodology of the architectural teaching of drawing, ignoring
the rules of classical composition and allowing freedom to the
builder artist21
However, many of Ruskin's ideas were not present in

the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro, even though
Barbosa agreed with them.22 Missing were the conception of
the logic of nature (natural composition) and the conception of
architectural aesthetic was only partially adopted. Nevertheless,
his defense of Mechanical Arts and his eclectic conception of
architecture were used in the industrialization project, whose
basis can be found in the Policy of Teaching of Drawing
(poUtica do Ensina do Desenho).
19 Barbosa. R. 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 31.

20 Barbosa, R. Reforma do &sino Primtirio, p. 252.
21 "Our course did not insist on aesthetic rules, and the students were not
obliged to folk1w the private opinions of the teacher, who gave 1hem total
freedom of expression, worrying only about the technique; and therefore it
can be said 1bat seldom have such interesting results in artistic engraving
been achieved." (Barros, P. 0 Liceu de Artes e Ojlcios e seu Fundalior,
fi331)
This will be discussed in the chapter on Ruskin and Rui Barbosa.
11
The Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro intended
to form a labour markef3 based on aesthetic knowledge. It is
possible to imagine that the friezes on the facades of buildings
in the so-called Co"edor Cultural do Centro Historico do Rio
de Janeiro (Cultural Passage of the Historical Center of Rio de
Janeiro) were :fruits of the teaching of the Liceu de Artes e
Oficios do Rio de Janeiro. The aim of the Sociedade
Propagatiora das Bellas Artes (Society for the Diffusion of
Fine Arts), which maintained the school, was to propagate the
arts throughout the city, with the intention of making Rio de
Janeiro become a work ofart.
It was not possible, however, to prove that Ruskin
directly influenced the design of the facades of the buildings of
the Co"edor Cultural, since such influence could not be found
in the historical documents. Based on the analysis of Rui
Barbosa's quotations and the similarities in the methodology of
teaching in Ruskin and the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de
Janeiro, it is possible to suppose that this influence took place.
Neither is it possible to prove that the students from
Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro were the artists who
designed the facades of the building in the Co"edor Cultural,
though it is known that this was the only school to teach
aesthetic knowledge to builders, carpenters and construction
foremen. In the Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro
(General Archive of Rio de Janeiro) there are the names of297
23 The formation of a labour market was the necessary condition to initiate a

process of industrialization. This bad been established since Lebreton:
"replacing the old Latin Schools, the hum.a.nistic high schools. Its mission
was to break the Il8lTOW structure of realist schools and promote the
fonnation of ftee men, not slaves of a profession. In this kind of school
genem1 education is more important than professional training." (Gama, R.
A tecnologia 0 Trabalho na Hist6rio. p.136)
12
builders of the Corredor Cultural in the region of Saara (Saara is
one of the three areas of the Corredor). Among the names only
13 were confirmed as having studied at the Liceu de Artes e
Oflcios do Rio de Janeiro, but the files are incomplete due a
1893 fire that burned a large part of the archive. However, the
quality of the pictures on the buildings and the fact that the
Brazilian school for arts and crafts was the only school training
the labour force in aesthetics make it likely that the authors of
the magnificent pictures were trained there.
Many teachers working at the school of arts and crafts of
Rio de Janeiro belonged to the Academia Imperial de Belas
Artes (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts), but at Liceu de Artes e
Oflcios do Rio de Janeiro they did not teach in a neoclassical
way (the method based on the strict rules of composition), as at
the academy, but rather taught the basic notions of drawing,
allowing the students to develop their own creativity.
John Ruskin was against teaching the rules of drawing; he
sought an empirical knowledge, whereby the student discovered
his own way of drawing when drawing. He insisted on the
associations between various styles, the basis of Ruskin's praise
of the courage of the venetian artists, who did not follow the
rules of classical composition and created original pictures.
Ruskin's concept of the architectural aesthetic seems to privilege
the drawing of the structural technique of the building,24
however, the ornament expresses the builder's subjectivity.
The designs in the Corredor Cultural mix different
architectural styles on the facade of one building, implying
24 This subject shall be discussed in the chapter on Ruskinian architecture.

13
free association in composition. Differently to those in Venice,
which in addition to being original designs, integrate Ruskin's
conception of the aesthetic by exhibiting the outline of their
structures in arches, those in the Co"edor Cultural are merely
facades, but rich in ornamentation.
This mixture of styles is extremely important for
Ruskin. In the Ruskin Library of the University of Lancaster
there are a number of drawing notebooks made by Ruskin
during his trips to Venice. Stephen Wildman25 stated that
"Ruskin used to cut many pictures into small pieces and then
mix them randomly creating new pictures."
Ruskin is not neo-Gothic, as he himself made clear in
two prefaces to different editions of the Seven Lamps of
Aremtedure, but, he may be an eclectic ...
The designs on the facades in the Corredor Cultural
have the same eclectic logic described by Ruskin, and they are
also original, resulting from a mixture of different styles, which
were conceived by the builders and workmen themselves. This
means that they are results of a work relationship, where there
is no division between those who think. and those who do.
2S Stephen Wildman, Curator of Ruskin Library in interview.

14
JOHN RUS~'S IDEAS
John Ruskin's ideas will be classified into three areas:

Nature, Painting sod Architecture. TIlls division is important
only to darify the concepts studied here, and the aim is to show
that they all have the same logic of composition.
Nature
According to Ruskin, vision is a determining subject

'<'fo see clearly is poetry. prophecy and religion - all in one.'026
This vision is a gaze full of meanings, which sees beyond the
immediate and reaches a mediation which he calls true
composition. Here Ruskin highlights one subject that orientates
aU the other ideas: his conception of nature.
Everything that exists in nature (men., animal,
vegetables, minen!ls... ) has a form, according to Ruskin.
Whatever these elements are, this fonn has both a material and
a spiritual part The Ruskinian form is made up of a shape and a
soul, which bas a 'IrKlral. For Ruskin the shape of the material is
made up of non-closed curved lines.
"ThaI all forms of acknowledged beauty are composed
exclusively of curves is true, I believe, but what I need
to prove is that the subtlety and constancy of cwvature
is found in all kinds of natural fonns,'.27
16 Ruskin, J. Moden Painlen, v. li, p268.

17 Ruskin. 1. Modem Painler3. v.II,p.44.
15
It is as if we looked at everything in the universe
through a microscope and saw only curved lines.
In Modem Painters (v. I) Ruskin creates a sort of
inventory of the natural elements, highlighting what he
qualifies as the essence of the soul, called truth. So each natural
element contains a truth, an essence, which distinguishes it
from the other natural elements, providing it at the same time
with a character.
In the fourth volume of Modem Painters, Ruskin
makes an inventory of other elements of nature such as
mountains, vegetables, minerals, and animals. However,
beyond the truth of these isolated elements, there is another
more important truth, which he called true composition, a kind
of relationship between natural elements.
Ruskinian animism raises an unusual theory of
perception based on the apprehension of a spirit that is revealed
in the act of visualization. Sensorial apprehension of an object
is feeling its spirit, or its moral element Therefore, the
aesthetic is the result of a procedure which is both sensorial
(what is seen) and intellectual (the apprehension of a moral).
Nevertheless, Ruskin's interest is not in the individual moral of
an element, but that which results from a harmonious
relationship between the elements, true composition, which is
the reason behind the natural logic of the elements. True
composition is the moment this logic reaches its unity and
equilibrium.
The notion of a whole is of fundamental importance in
Ruskin's theory, because, according to his aesthetics, what is
important is the apprehension resulting from the relationship
between the parts, and not the isolated parts. Ruskin's
16
aesthetics value only the whole and are the result of an ethics,
of a particular type of relationship, that of natural composition.
On the other hand, Ruskin remarks that whatever the
object is, it will transmit something of itself to whoever sees it.
Besides, that which the object transmits can be perceived
through the spectator's senses.
"But the picturesqueness is in the unconscious
suffering, the look that an old labourer has, not knowing
that there is anything pathetic in his grey hair, withered
arms, and sunburnt breast, and thus there are the two
extremes, the consciousness of pathos in the confessed
ruin, which mayor may not be beautiful, according the
kind of it, and the entire denial of all human work being
gone through all the while, and no pity asked for, nor
contempt feared. And this is the expression of the Calais
spire, and of all picturesque things, in so far as they have
mental or human expression at all. I say, in so far as they
have mental expression, because their merely outward
delightfulness - that makes them pleasant in painting or
in the literal sense, picturesque - is their actual variety of
colour and form. A broken stone has necessarily more
various forms in it than a whole one, a bent roof has more
various curves in it than a straight one, every excrescence
or cleft involves some additional complexity of light and
shade, and every stain of moss adds to the delightfulness
of colour. "28
Ruskin superimposes a picturesque aesthetic

apprehension on the verbal dimension in order to found the
composition on a notion of form taken from painting.
28 Ruskin, J. Modern Painters, v. IV, p.7.

17
Ruskinian composition is a picturesque composition, in which
the parts work to express the whole, captured by the sense of
vision. As an example of this definition, Ruskin speaks about the
phenomenon of the sunset in Turner.
"I speak especially of the moment before the sun

sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and when this
light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud
forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of
vapour, which would in common daylight be pure snow-
white, and which gives therefore fair field to the tone of
light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check
to the intensity of the hues assumed. The whole sky from
the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten, mantling sea
of colour and fire, every black bar turns into massy gold,
every ripple and wave into unsullied shadowless, crimson
and purple, and scarlet, and colours for which there are no
words in language, and no ideas in the mind, - things which
can only be conceived while they are visible - , the intense
hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it all -
showing here deep and pure and lightless, their modulated
by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, till it
is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold.,.29
Ruskin believed that the artist through his art would be

able to spread this natural truth. It would bring about states of
contemplation, which are formed by the apprehension of
sensations transmitted by an object to a spectator. This truth
29 Ruskin, 1. Modem Painters, v. I, p. 158.

18
can only be apprehended, according to R.usldn, atfirst sight, or
rather, during the :first visual contact.30
The notion of first sight is linked to categories of
metaphysical forces. This notion is something like the capture
of the spirit of the material or its character. This spirit is
apprehended by the spectator's sense of vision at the exact
moment he sees the object for the :first time. This impression
also bas associations of various subjects, which appear in the
spectator's memory as soon as he sees an object, a sort of
intuition.
This way of dealing with the process of perception and,
thus, conceiving its function, makes evident the existence of a
privileged sensation at the origin, caused by the first sight,
which would provide a very imprecise notion of a whole. This
mysterious sensation is always dubious, never stating but only
suggesting. Ruskin called it sublime, which means, in addition
to being imprecise, grandiose, beyond human comprehension,
whose logic is not fully understood. To Ruskin, the sublime is
the sensation that appears from the material when visually
confronted for the :first time. In other words, the sublime is the
apprehension of the spirit of the material related to the
memories of the spectator's life experience, which is also
related to a logic in nature.
Defined by Ruskin as the internal element of the sphere
of aesthetic apprehension, as the element concerning the
that He only did right in a kind of passive obedience to his first

30 .....and
vision, that vision being composed primarily of the strong memory of the
place itself which he had to draw and secondarily, of memories of other
places (whether recognized as such by himself 01' not I cannot tell)
associated with the new centtal thought." (Ruskin, J. Modem Painters,
v.N,p.28)
19
spectator, the sublime would however maintain the character of
the object, its ethical and moral quality.
Ruskin states that the notion of sublime is irrelevant to
the theory of classical perception. He calls himself anti-
classical, because he is against every theory which apprehends
the object and establishes relationships of proportion, such as
Vitruvius's notion of symmetry.31
3JSymmetry in Vitruvius, "In the Doric, the symmetrical proportions are

distinguished by the following rules: Let the top of the corona. which is laid
above the casing, be on a level with the tops of the capitals of the colmnns
in the pronaos. The aperture of the doorway should be determined by
dividing the height of the temple, from floor to coffered ceiling, into three
and one half parts and letting two and one half there of constitute the height
of the aperture of the folding doors. Let this in nun be divided into twelve
parts, and let five and a half of these form the width of the bottom of the
aperture. At the top, this width should be diminished, if the aperture is
sixteen feet in height, by one third the width of the door-jamb; if the
aperture is from sixteen to twenty-five feet, let the upper part of it be
diminished by one quarter of the jamb; ifftom twenty-five to thirty feet, let
the top be diminished by one eighth of the jamb. Other and higher apertures
should, as it seems, have their sides perpendicular." (Vitruvius. The Ten
Books on Archilecture, p.7l)
20
Painting
Whenever Ruskin deals with composition, he uses

religious metaphors in which composition is related to
Christian ethics. However, in order to understand this concept.
its definition when applied to painting will initially be used.
Ruskin associated the notion of composition in painting to his
notion of composition in nature, which, in turn, was associated
to religious ethics, which then became composition in
architecture, as will be seen later.
Composition for Ruskin is what is here called the policy
of mutual-help between all the elements of a picture.32 He says
that there is an aesthetic in the elements that compose the
painting, the result of a kind of relationship that leads to
equilibrium. By equilibrium he understood the result of this
policy ofmutual-help.
Pictorial composition is derived from true composition.
In mutual help the logic of one element makes up for what
another lacks, and successively, until a natural chain of
equilibrium is formed. According to this logic no element of a
painting is autonomous as all of them depend upon each other
and are dissolved into each other. Nature is made up of a chain,
32 "A pure holy state of anything, therefore, is that in which all its parts are
helpful or consistent. They may or may not be homogeneous. The highest of
organic purities are composed of many elements in an entirely helpful state.
The highest and first law of the universe - and the other name of life, is
therefore, help. The other name of death is separation. Government and
coopenttion are in all things and eternally the laws of life. Anarchy and
competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death. ... (Ruskin, J.
Modem Painters, v. V, p.I60)
21
expressed by the interdependence of its parts, as is the case of
pictorial composition.
Following Ruskin's thought, it is possible to say that
nature is a painting. Nature provides the parameters for
pictorial composition, and this, in Ruskin, is called natural
unity. Metaphorically speaking, this is the result of a
connection of the drawing of all the elements of a canvas. This
connection is harmonious when there is a policy of mutual
help. This harmony or equilibrium seems to be the most
important Ruskinian notion, deriving from the natural dynamic,
and which is why Ruskin transfers it to religion, stating that
nature is the work of a creator, a God.
The theme of the divine in Ruskin contains a peculiar
aspect of Ruskin's theory of fo~ and this is another subject
dealt with by Ruskin to demonstrate the existence of a natural
logic.
It is necessary to say that nature is structured because of
the existence of a natural order, whose expression creates its
aesthetic dimension.
This order was created by the superior metaphysical
being, who established a natural dynamic for everything. This
dynamic is the result of a kind of relationship called natural
ethics, generating harmony between its elements based on the
policy ofmutual-help.
The aesthetics of this ethics is the result of a kind of
drawing, which structmes relationships into its forming
elements, leading them to states of equilibrium.
"( ... ) that the whole tree is fed partly by the earth,
partly by the air, strengthened and sustained by the one,
22
agitated and educated by the other, all of it which is best,
in substance, life, and beauty being drawn more from the
dew of heaven then the fatness of the earth. ,.33
Ruskin illustrates a logic in which the elements are
interdependent, and their outlines would have the necessary
form to establish this kind of relation.
The aesthetic value of this logic is in the result attained
through the relationship of the elements (equilibrium =
harmony = reason), which means that no isolated element is or
is not beautiful. Beauty shows itself as a result of true
composition.
Ruskin says that equilibrium can be understood as the
result of a relationship of exchange, a fair exchange: someone
has something that another person does not have but needs, so
they exchange what they have, and everyone benefits.
The logic Ruskin sees in nature, true composition,
seems to have migrated to the pictorial form. All the elements,
animals, non-animate objects, etc., are part of the true
composition. The objects are materials which have an outline,
but also a spiritual essence. From the notion of material in co-
relation to the notion of spirit, Ruskin elaborated the notion of
form, in which drawing and morals, that is, the drawing of a
moral, are central elements.
For Ruskin seeing is feeling a moral, which means
feeling an essence, a truth. When relating truth to aesthetics he
states that not every truth is beautiful, since beauty is the result
of a relationship in which the result is not always harmonious.
Beauty appears only when the truth of an element has a
33 Ruskin, J. Modern Painters, v. V, p. SO.

23
relationsbip of equilibrium with the truth of another, that is,
when true composition takes place.
Ruskin makes this movement all the time, going from
the aesthetic argument to the ethical argument, changing the
expression harmonious relationship into the notion of
Ruskinian symmetry.
Symmetry is the result of a relationship in which the
abundance of one compensates for what other lacks. This
metaphor expresses a search for balance between elements with
different weights. With balance there is symmetry, and beauty
is always the result of a symmetrical relationship.
There are no rules for the equilibrium, since it takes
place during a dynamic process. The movement sets off a sort
of equilibrium that takes place at one moment and is never
repeated. Ruskin seems to condemn any kind of repetition,
calling it blindness or anesthesia or even the mechanization of
perception.
Dynamic equilibrium would be a state resulting from
parts always made up of new drawings. The newness of the
demonstrations of equilibrium is the nature itself of life, which
means its constant creativity. Its animism (referring to the idea
that everything has life) derived from a ceaseless movement of
generation and corruption, the result of the dynamic of an
eternal birth.34
34 "It will perhaps appear to you, after a little further thought. that to create
anything in reality is to put life into it A poet, or creator, is therefore a
person who puts things together, not as watchmaker steel, or shoemaker
leather, but who puts life into them. His work: is essentially this: it is the
gathering and arranging of material by imagination, so as to have in it at last
the harmony of helpfulness of life, and the passion or emotion of life. Mere
fitting and adjustment of material is nothing that is watchmaking" But
24
Therefore, from the Rusldnian perspective, in order to
be beautifUl, to have symmetry, a composition must above all
be creative, meaning that beauty is always something new and
never repeated. The logic of nature does not set standards;
beauty is always the result of associations that have never taken
place before.
Ruskin regarded nature as being immersed in a process
of creative composition leading towards equilibrium. He
understood nature as a natmal chain, in which every element is
part of the process of composition. On a universal scale the
composition will always be harmonious, therefore, beautifUl.
The Rusldnian natural chain comes from a relationship of
composition in which the truth of one element establishes a
relationship with the truth of another and results in harmony.
Nevertheless, Ruskin states that man will never be able to
understand this logic, but only to feel it, since true composition
is the apprehension of the infinite, and man can only apprehend
the finite.
"True composition being entirely easy to the man
who can compose, he is seldom proud of it, though he
clearly recognizes it. Also true composition is
inexplicable. No one can explain how the notes of Mo2'Mt
melody, or the folds of a piece of Titian's drapery,
produce their essential effect on each other. If you do not
feel it, no one can by reasoning make you feel it.,,35
helpful and passionate harmony, essentially choral harmony, so called from

the Greek work "rejoicing", is the harmony of Apollo and Muses, the word
Muse and Mother being derived from the same root, meaning "passionate
seeking", or love, of which the issue is passionate finding, or sacred
Invention.' (Rnskin, J. Modem Painters, v. V, p. 167)
3' Ruskin, J. Modem Painters, v. V, p.163.
25
It is necessary to keep in mind that the sensations are
confusing feelings, although fundamental. In this sense Ruskin
says that we feel the infinite, but we do not see it, though we
feel the existence of an order.
In Model'll Painters (v. V) he mak.es a detailed study of
the concept of true composition by cataloguing the natural
elements: the sky, mountains, the sea, vegetables, animals,
stones, clouds, and classifies them according to their essence,
their own particular characteristics. However, his goal was not
to demonstrate the individual essence but to expose a relation
of harmony between them. And he concludes that there is the
existence of a true unity, a true composition.
Ruskin mixes apparently non-mixable subjects, dealing
at the same time with ethics, aesthetics associated with nature,
religion and the social problems of the time. Hersey described
this as a non-verbal, that is, a spatial thinking. Ruskin uses
ethics, aesthetics, then links nature to religion, and then
associates aesthetics to contemporary social problems. And it is
in these associations, these subjects, which appear not to have a
direct relationship with each other, that Ruskin's methodology
finds its most suitable definition. Its logic and rationality are
based on this spatial vision. The Rusldnian method intertwines
all that exists, attempting to introduce a sense of order and
equilibrium. However, this method often confuses the reader.
"'The problem for Ruskin's audience was that his
expanded vision seemed to get increasingly mystical.
Because he wanted to bring all things into a unity, in his
public writing he jumped from subject to subject in a
26
confusing way, and though discussing quite simple
things, he gave them a deeper meaning. ,,36
In common sense, the truth is defined by its contrary,

falsehood. Thus an object is false when its materiality does not
match its essence, a difficult definition to understand. Like
truth the false does not have a positive or negative moral value.
What is correct or true might be false, and what is wrong might
be true. The false correct is, for Ruskin, what Vitruvius defined
as being correct for architecture, the logic of proportions. For
Ruskin this correct is false because it imprisons the designer by
making him repeat strict rules and blocks his creativity.
When Ruskin explained, in the Nature of Gothic, the
Venetian builder's wrong doing, he was referring to an act
considered disrespectful to classical composition at the time.
However, he considered this disrespect an act of courage and
creativity, hence, co"ect and true. 37
Following the same line, composition is the building of
a situation of equilibrium. Since beauty is a symmetrical
relationship, composition is the building of beauty itself. This
happens during states of movement, resulting in fragile
equilibriums, which may break at any time and be reorganized
again to form another unity and another design.
36 Hewinson, R John Ruskin and the Argument of the Eye in John Ruskin
and the Victorian Eye, p.46.
37 This subject will be discussed in a further chapter.
27
Ruskinian Arebiteetu:re
Creation, in Ruskin, is related to a God, creator of

nature and imitated by men. Man seems to be an architect, such
as the divine. In Modern Pamters Ruskin examines painting
and then architecture, concluding that the latter one is one of
the greatest arts. In Seven Lamps of Arehiteetu.re and The
Stones of Venice he associates the logic of his conception of
nature with architecture.
A more careful reading of Ruskin's architectural ideas
will show that architectural fonn in Ruskin derives from his
ideas on painting, in which similar concepts can be used for
both architecture, painting and nature. 38 .
Ruskin was not an architect; nevertheless, he considered

architecture the greatest art, because he understood the scale of
architecture was larger than that of painting. 39
And by choosing architecture as the greatest fonn of art,
Ruskin considered all the space of the city as belonging to
architecture.
"We are forced, for the sake of accumulating our
power and knowledge, to live in cities, but such
advantage as we have in association with each other is in
great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellowship with
Nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, or our
38 This subject is discussed in Modern Painters (v. m. V). Ruskin's ideas on

architecture are found in The Stones of Venice and developed in The Seven
Lamps ofArchitecture.
39 "... I say the architecture and all the arts. because, according to my
thought, the architecture is the mother of all arts.» (Ruskin, J. The Seven
Lamps ofArchitecture, p.3)
29
pleasant fields to meditate... Then the function of our
architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these, to tell us
about Nature. ,,40
Ruskin elaborates several hypotheses to validate a

history of architecture, such as the good mix of cultures
influencing changes in the classical architectural lexicon, or the
opposition of the Venetian church to the Roman church,
disregarding the rules imposed by the Vatican. But only in The
Seven Lamps of Areldteemre did he make explicit the
concepts he called the laws ofarchitecture.
40 Ruskin, J. The Stones ojVenice, v. I, p.35 1.

30
The Laws of Architecture
Sacrifice
The first Ruskinian architectural law is sacrifice.

Sacrifice is, first of all, a requirement, before being an
artist or architect, or before having any profession, Ruskin asks
people to devote themselves to the cause of the logic of nature.
The Truths of Architecture
Another Ruskinian law is architectural truth, which is

divided into truth ofstructure and truth ofmaterial.
The Truth of Structure
To illustrate this truth it is necessary to make a

comparison between true composition and architectural
composition.
1) As we have already seen, Ruskin regards true
composition as a sort of relationship between the parts that
create a whole. The same idea can be used to define
architectural composition. The parts are the elements of an
architectural work.
2) True composition tends to create a condition of
equilibrium between its elements, as happens in architectural
31
composition. The equilibrium in architectural composition
takes place through the distribution of the forces of the design
of its structuml elements. A building gains its state of
equilibrium when its structural elements support the weight of
the building as well as the weight of nature and functions
through which the project was conceived.
The composition of classical architecture uses the logic
of proportions to reach its state of equilibrium, but, in Ruskin,
equilibrium takes place after the structural elements have been
designed, in response to the requirements of forces that act on
the building. The design of the columns of the Ducal Palace in
Venice is a good example of this logic; one can visually
understand how the forces are distributed between the arches
and columns to keep the building up.
The structural design is, for Ruskin, a motive for visual
exhibition, and each building should have its own design;
visual exhibition is the understanding of the resolution of forces
acting on the building, which means its structural design. The
architectural aesthetics are this truth.41
The notion of equilibrium enters the same field of the
sublime apprehension previously seen. Equilibrium and
sublimity are equivalent in the area of architecture. The most
important element of Ruskinian architecture is the notion of a
whole in equilibrium (the building stands and it can be visually
understood how this comes about).
41Each constituent element of the building must be the expression of a

design compatible with the resistance of its material. All the elements form
a whole in equilibrium. Isolating the elements, they do not have balance;
only the final composition is balanced.
32
The design of the building's structural elements tends to
attain a dynamic equilibrium, creating a sensation of a
harmonious whole. The design of distribution of forces creates
a feeling of visible structural security, and this feeling is the
sublime.
Like Ruskinian symmetry, the design of architectural
equilibrium is the result of the struggle of forces in tension, as
if the elements were moving till they reach equilibrium. The
feeling is of a system of organic :fibres in movement, in which
the parts twist as in a plant, more precisely, a creeper.
Symmetry is achieved when these forces stop, and the building
is standing.
The truth of structures corresponds to the creation of a
design presented in a way that teaches the gaze to capture the
sensation of security (the building is not going to fall down, and
it is possible to feel this visually).
Out of this definition comes another more important
one, the Ruskinian architectural aesthetic.
"The architect is not bound to exhibit structure;
nor are we to complain of him for concealing it, any more
than we should regret that the outer surfaces of the human
frame conceal much of its anatomy; nevertheless, this
building will generally be the noblest, which to an
intelligent eye discovers the great secrets of its structure,
as an animal form does, although from a careless
observer they may be concealed.,,42
42 Ruskin, J. The seven lamps ofarchitecture, p.35.

33
Tbe RlIskinian Architectural Aestbetic
In order to better explore the truth of structures the

notion of the architectural aesthetic must be better defined. The
visible security provided by the design of the structural
elements, or the design of the strUctural technique of the
building, is what we call the Ruskinian architectural aesthetic,
which is expressed by the truth of its structures.
Ruskin developed the concept of ornament as linked to
the definition of architectural aesthetic. He remarks that the
ornament belongs to the design of the structure. The ornament
must be visible over the design of the structure to add value to
it. The best example of this definition are the drawings on the
arches and pillars of the Venice Ducal Palace.
According to Ruskin, the ornament is dependent on the
structures of the building, but it has the central role of
registering the history and the emotional characteristics of the
place, as well as the subjectivity of the builder, emphasizing the
regional culture and personal beliefs.
"The nobility of each building depends on its
special fitness for its own purposes, and these purposes
vary with every climate, every soil, and every national
custom, nay, there were never, probably, two edifices
erected in which some accidental difference of condition
did not require some difference of plan or of structure, so
that, respecting plan and distribution of parts.'.43
43 Ruskin, J. The Stones ojYenice, v. I, p.200.

35
The ornament will respect the regional particularity of
whoever has built it. Above all, it represents the subjectivity of
the builder.
"In all these instances, however, observe that the
permission to represent the human work as an ornament
is conditional on its being necessary to the representation
of a scene, or explanation of an action.,,44
The role of the ornament is extremely important in John

Ruskin's ideas, since it emphasizes his anticlassical thought,
asserting that the natural elements do not belong to a notion of
universality, which decreases or nullifies the builder's personal
taste, and also banishes the local culture. The Ruskinian vision
is basically regionalist.
Ruskin wrote a historical narrative to justifY this
regionalist predilection, dividing the history of the ornament
into periods. The main point of the story is the rise of
Christianity. According to Ruskin, the anti-slavery position of
Christianity allowed manifestations of local culture, also
assuring the expression of builder's subjectivity.
"We have then, three orders of ornament, classed
according to the degrees of correspondence of the
executive and conceptive minds. We have the servile
ornament, in which the executive is absolutely subjected
to the inventive, - the ornament of the great Eastern
nations, more especially Llamite, and all pre-Christian,
yet thoroughly noble in its submissiveness. Then we have
the medieval system, in which the mind of the inferior
worlanan is recognized, and has full room for action, but
44 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Yenice, v. I, p. 218.

36
is guided and ennobled by the ruling mind. This is the
truly Christian and only perfect system. Finally we have
ornaments expressing the endeavour to equalize the
executive and inventive, - endeavour which is
Renaissance and revolutionary, and destructive of all
noble architecture. ,,45
Together with this anticlassical aspect, another question

is raised: wrong doing in opposition to the correct doing.
Ruskin regarded correct doing as a copy of what had already
been done, and the wrong doing as something spontaneous, full
of the subjectivity and creativity of who is doing it. Ruskin
thought wrong doing as the force of life with its naive will,
which does not respect rules.
Ruskin believed the architecture of the Renaissance to
be decadent, through its strong classical aspect. He believed
that the limits of architecture had been reached after a period of
extreme creativity, after the Roman Empire. lbe division
between the intellectual and the operational implemented by the
architecture of the Renaissance, following Vitruvius thinking,
turned the builder into a mechanical doer as the intellectual
work was then job of the architect. Architectural creativity
ended with the Renaissance, since the new relations of work.
restricted the creativity of the builders.
Architectural beauty in Ruskin is defined by the lines of
the structure, not by the lines of the ornaments, which is exactly
the opposite of Renaissance architecture, where the structure is
hidden and the ornaments are foregrounded.
45 Ruskin, J. The Stones ojVenice, v.1, p.243.

37
"Against the degraded Gothic, then came up the
Renaissance armies, and their first assault was in the
requirement of universal perfection, for the first time
since the destruction of Rome, the world had seen in the
work of the greatest artists of the fifteenth century a
perfection of execution, and fullness of knowledge which
cast all previous art into the shade, and which begin the
work of those men united with all that was great in that of
former days, did indeed justify the utmost enthusiasm
with which their efforts were, or could be, regarded, but
when this perfection had once been exhibited in anything
it was required in everything, the world could no longer
be satisfied with less exquisite execution or less
disciplined knowledge. The first thing that it demanded in
all work was that it should be done in a consummate and
learned way: and men altogether forgot that it was
possible to consummate what was contemptible, and to
know what was useless. Imperatively requiring dexterity
of touch, they gradually forgot to look for tenderness of
feeling, imperatively requiring accuracy of knowledge
they gradually forgot to ask for originality of thought.
The thought and the feeling which they despised departed
from them and they were left to felicitate themselves on
their small science and their neat fingering. This is the
history of the first attack of the Renaissance upon the
Gothic schools, and of its rapid results, more fatal and
immediate in architecture than in any other art, because
there the demand for perfection was less reasonable, and
less consistent with the capabilities of the workman,
being utterly opposed to that rudeness or savageness on
38
which, as we saw above, the nobility of the elder schools
in great part depends.,,46
46 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v. Ill. p.12.

39
LIST OF PLATES
1- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street, n° 307.

2- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Visconde de Rio Branco Street,

n° 63. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
3- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street, n 48. Photo

4- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street nO 48. Photo

5- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Senado Street n° 47 to 49.

6- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Uruguaiana Street with

Ouvidor Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
7- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Uruguaina Street with Sete de

Setembro Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.

taken by Claudio Amaral in 20 I I.
9- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Republica do Libano Street n°

13. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
10-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Constituiyao Street n° 41.

11- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Visconde do Rio Branco Street
with Invalidos Street. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.
12- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire Street

nO 151. Photo taken by Claudio Amaral in 2011.

14- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire Street n° 248.



17- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street nO 36. Photo

I8-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street n° 217.

I9-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street n° 238.

Plate 1
Plate 2
Plate 3
Plate 5
Plate 6
Plate 10
Plate 11
Plate 12
Plate 13
Plate 14
Plate 15
Plate 16
Plate 17
Plate 18
Plate 19
The Truth of Materials
Like the truth of the structure, the truth of materials is

derived from the truth of nature. The materials used in
architecture must express its truth, in other words, its essence
and character.
"The painting of surfaces to represent some other
material than that of which they actually consist (as in
the marbling of wood), or the deceptive representation
of sculptured ornament upon them.'..47
According to Ruskin every material has a particular
aging process, and this is sublime. The aging process brings a
certain dignity to the material, because, as it causes signs of
aging it brings back memories and historical events of the local
culture.
This is what he means speaking about the moss growing
on the stones, the darkening of the wall painting, a parasite
plant rising from the fissures of a wall. These would be signs of
sublimity, which he called parasitical sublime. 48
In the Seven Lamps of Ardaiteeture Ruskin classifies
as forgery of history every kind ofrequalification of space. The
aging of the space is a true principle, so, when talking about the
truth ofmaterials, Ruskin considers natural the degeneration of
matter.
47Ruskin, J., The seven lamps of architecture, p.34.

48It is sublime because it rises from a notion of a whole, and parasitical
because it is something new growing upon something previously built, and
only comes as time passes by. Ruskin implies that a building has life, it is
born, breathes, gets old, and one day dies.
41
But this does not mean that Ruskin was against
repairing buildings; however, he was against exchanging old
material for new material, or alterations of the original design.
His proposal was to replace ruined material by material similar
in age and appearance to maintain the actions of time.
"Together with Count Zorvi Ruskin worked
repairing the Basilica of San Marco in Venice in 1870.
The work did not change the original characteristics,
replacing ruined material for new artificially aged
material, and the original design of the building was not
changed. ,,49
49 Quill, S. Ruskin's Venice, The Stones Revisited, p.l93.

42
The History of Ruskinian Arehiteeture
The history of Ruskinian architecture is associated with

the notion of architectural aesthetic. Ruskin divides the
building into four parts: the base, representing the foundation;
the veil, representing the enclosures and openings, the cornice,
and the roof. To build this history he gives the elements a
grammar made up of specific drawings for each historical
period.
The beginning of the European architecture is Greco-
Roman, and Ruskin believes the most creative period of history
was the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the
beginning of the Renaissance, regardless of stylistic divisions
within the period, and he does not distinguish the various styles
such as Lombard, Roman, Byzantine, Moorish, all of which he
labels Christian architecture.
Christian architecture is a rupture with classical
architecture, starting a process of changes in the design of its
elements and breaking the structure of the logic of classical
composition.
These changes started when Christian architecture went
against classical design. The styles were mixed randomly.
Doric and Ionic, for example,were seen together on the same
facade. Original capitals respected only the requirements of the
forces of gravity and structure on the colwnns, and sometimes
there were several different kinds of colwnns under the same
capital.
"After these we see the Greek shaft, less in scale,
and losing all suggestion or purpose of suggestion of
43
complexity, it's so called fluting being, visibly as actually
an external decoration. The idea of shaft remains
absolutely single in the Roman and Byzantine mind. but
true grouping begins in Christian architecture by the
placing of two or more separate shafts side by side, each
having its own work to do, then three or four, still with
separate work, then by such steps as those above
theoretically pursued, the number of the members
increases, while they coagulate into a single mass, and we
have finally a shift apparently composed of thirty, forty,
fifty or more distinct members ..."so
The workmen's creativity thus intervened in the design
of the capitals. The Doric, Ionic and Corinthian were replaced
by designs never seen before, and it was possible to find several
types of capital design in only one facade.
"I always assumed the weight above to be given
by the alteration of this weight, therefore, the architect
has it in his power to relieve and therefore alter, the forms
of his capitals, by its various distribution on their centers
or edges, the slope of bells and thickness of abacus will
be affected also, he can divide his weights among more
shafts, he cannot throw them in different facades and
different directions on the abacus, he can alter slope of
bells or diameter of shafts, he can use spurred or plain
bells, thin or thick abacus, and all these changes
admitting of infinity in their degrees, and infinity a
thousand times told in their relation and all this without
so Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v. I. p. 98.

44
reference, to decoration merely with the five forms of
block capital ... ,,51
The design of the placing of plan in buildings was also

changed. The new cross-shaped disposition in Byzantine
architecture modified the traditional rectangular design in
sacred spaces. The design and size of arches were also changed,
responding only to the technical necessity of the building's
structure.
"And the great value of the arch is that it permits
small stones to be used with safety instead of large
ones ... ,,52
" ... the central round, or semicircle, is the Roman,

the Byzantine, and Norman arch, and its relative pointed
includes one wide branch of Gothic. The horseshoe round
is the Arabic and Moorish arch, and its relative pointed
includes the whole range of Arabic and lancet, or Early
English and French Gothic. ,,53
The arch was considered the most important structural

element of the Ruskinian architectural aesthetic. Ruskin
classifies the historical styles of architecture according to its
variations in design.
Another characteristic of Christian architecture was the
diversification of ornamental motives. Byzantine architecture
introduced the theme of the cross, which also gives variations
to the capital; Moorish architecture has its abstract drawings;
51 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v. I, p. 115.

53 Ruskin. 1. TheStoneso/Venice, v. I, p. 131.
45
and the Gothic brought in stained glass windows with religious
legends.
According to the Ruskinian perspective, the ornament is
placed over the structural design of the building, and its
function is to give visibility to this structural solution and
express the workman's personal taste.
Ruskin's view of history highlights the period between
the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the
Renaissance. Christian architecture helped to develop his
aesthetic theory of architecture and was the background to his
history of architecture, which culminated in Gothic
architecture, the result of all modifications which had
previously taken place (Lombard, Roman, Byzantine...).
"But the lava stream of the Arabs, even after it
ceased to flow, warmed the whole of the Northern air,
and the history of Gothic architecture is the history of
the refinement and spiritualization of Northern work
under its influence. The noblest buildings in the world,
the Pisan-Romanesque, Tuscan (Grotesque) Gothic and
Veronese Gothic, are those of the Lombard schools,
under its close and direct influence. The various Gothics
of the North are the original forms of the architecture
which the Lombards brought into Italy, changing it
under the less direct influence of the Arab."S4
The mixture of different kinds of knowledge brought by
the workmen from the barbarian cultures resulted in Gothic
architecture, of which the Venetian is the most creative form.
54 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v.!, p. 19.

46
"During the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries,
the architecture of Venice seems to have been formed on
the same model and is almost identical with that of Cairo
under the caliphs, it being quite immaterial whether the
reader chooses to call both Byzantine or both Arabic, the
workmen being certainly Byzantine, but forced to the
invention of new forms by their Arabian masters, and
bringing these forms into use in whatever other parts of
the world they were employed. ,,55
Ruskin never considered the Gothic a style. His
argument was that its main characteristic was having no
characteristics.
"The principal difficulty in doing this arises from
the fact that every building of the Gothic period differs in
some important respect from every other, and many
include features which, if they occurred in other buildings
would not be considered Gothic at all, so that all we have
to reason upon is merely, if I may be allowed so to
express it, a greater or less degree of Gothicness in each
building we examine.,,56
Empirical work is considered extremely important by

Ruskin, because the unity (reason) attained is not attached to
the rules of composition, but to the workmen's free will when
they carry out the work.
" ... to make the abstraction of the Gothic character
intelligible, because that character itself is made up of
many mingled ideas, and can consist only in their union.
S5 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v. I, p. 21.

56 Ruskin, J. The Stones 0/ Venice, v. II, p. 151.
47
That is to say, pointed arches do not constitute Gothic,
nor vaulted roofs, nor flying buttresses, nor grotesque
sculptures, but all or some of these things, and many
other things with them when they come together so as to
have life."S7
The Ruskinian balance in architecture is that which he

saw in nature, the same logic of true composition. Gothic
composition would be, then, the composition of structural
design, which expresses the tensioned forces of each element
until balance is reached.
"Finally the two noblest pillars in Venice, those
brought from Acre, stand on the smooth marble surface
of the Piazzetta with no independent bases whatever.
They are rather broken away beneath, so that you may
look under parts of them and stand safe by their own
massy weight. Nor could any bases possibly be devised
that would not spoil them. But otherwise if the pillar be
so slender as to look doubtfully balanced, it would indeed
stand quite as safely without an independent base as it
would with one. But it will not appear so safe to the eye.
And here, for the first time, I have to express and apply a
principle which I believe the reader will at once grant, the
feature necessary to express security to the imagination
are often as essential parts of good architecture as those
required for security itself.',ss
The aim of the Ruskinian architectural aesthetic is to
emphasize the visibility of the building's elements - base, veil,
cornice and roof. The purpose of this visibility is to transmit the
57 Ruskin. J. The Stones o/Venice, v. II. p. 151.

48
feeling of security, of a state of equilibrium. Therefore, no
structuml element of the building should be regarded singly,
because none of them has autonomy, which means that it is
possible for one to work only when helped by another; this is
the logic of the Ruskinian true composition, which works as the
mutual-help policy we have already seen.
Ruskin divides the nature of the Gothic into six
moments: wildness, changes, naturalism, grotesque,
redundancy and rigidness.
The barbarian aspect, wildness, is the most important
feature attributed to the Gothic, because it allowed a break with
the classical.
"I am not sure when the word Gothic was first
generically applied to the architecture of the North, but I
presume that,. whatever the date of its original usage, it
was intended to imply reproac~ and express the barbaric
character of the nations among whom that architecture
arose. ( ... ) Gothic architecture has been sufficiently
vindicated, and perhaps some among us, in our
admiration of the magnificent science of its structure, and
sacredness of its expression, might desire that the term of
ancient reproach should be withdrawn, and some other, of
more apparent honorableness, adopted in its place.,,59
The roughness of the Gothic is the free and creative
work, without a hierarchy to conceive and make the drawings.
Ruskin associated this logic with the factory work of his time,
qualifying it as mechanical and lacking creativity.
59 Ruskin, J. The Stones oj Venice, v. Ill, p. 153.

49
"We have much studied and much perfected, on
late, the great civilized invention the division of labor,
only we give it a false name. it is not, truly speaking the
labour that is divided, but the men: divided into mere
segments of men - broken into small fragments and
crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence
that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail,
but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the
head of a nail. ( ... ) And how it will be asked, are these
products to be recognized, and this demand to be
regulated? Easily: by the observance of three broad and
simple rules: 1) I never encourage the manufacture of any
article not absolutely necessary, in the production of
which invention has no share. 2) Never demand an exact
finish for its own sake, but only for some practical or
noble end. 3) Never encourage imitation or copying of
any kind, except for the sake of preserving records of
great works.~
The changes refer to the constant alterations that may

happen during the production process of a Gothic work. As the
workmen are free to state their opinion, some changes are made
during the productive process, changing the original design.
"Let us understand at once that change or variety
is as much a necessity to the human heart and brain in
buildings as in books, that there is no merit, though there
is some occasional use in monotony; and that we must no
more expect to derive either pleasure or profit from an
architecture whose ornaments are of one pattern, and
whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should out of
60 Ruskin, J. The Stones a/Venice, v. ill, p. 163.

50
a universe in which the clouds were all of one shape, the
trees all of one size. ( ... ) The pointed arch was not
merely an old variation, grouped shaft was not merely a
bold variation from the single one, but it admitted of
millions of variations in its grouping, and in the
proportions resultant from its grouping. The introduction
of tracery was not only a change in the treatment of
window lights, but admitted endless changes in the
interlacement of the tracery bars themselves. So that
while in all living Christian architecture the love of
variety exists, the Gothic schools exhibited that love in
culminating energy, and their influence, wherever it
extended itself, may be sooner and farther traced by this
character than by any other, irregularity and richer
variation in the forms of the architecture it is about to
supersede long before the appearance of the pointed arch
or of any other recognizable outward, sign of the Gothic
mind...61
The variations associated with the concept of change

made Ruskin classify architectural Gothic as the most rational
form of architecture in history.
"For in one point of view Gothic is not only the
best, but the rational architecture as being that which can
fit itself most easily to all service, vulgar or noble.
Undermined in its slope of roof, height of shaft, breath of
arc~ or disposition of ground plan, it can shrink into a
turret, expand into a hall, coil into a staircase or spring
into a spire with undegraded grace and unexhausted
energy and whenever it finds occasion for change in its
61 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, 'II. ill, p. 173.

51
fonn or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest
sense of loss either to its unity or majesty - subtle and
flexible like a fiery serpent ... ,,62
Naturalism, according to Ruskin, is the logic of true
composition.
"The third constituent element of the Gothic mind
was stated to be Naturalism, that is to say the love of
natural objects for their own sake, and the effort to
represent them frankly unconstrained by artistical
laws.,,63
Ruskin did not mix his notion of naturalism with the

simple imitation of vegetation; his natural design is about
capturing the logic of nature.
"I have before alluded to the strange and vain
supposition that the original conception of Gothic
architectUre had been derived from vegetation, from the
symmetry of avenues, and the interlacing of branches. It
is a supposition which never could have existed for a
moment in the mind of any person, acquainted with early
Gothic, but however idle as a theory, it is most valuable
as a testimony to the character of the perfected style, it is
precisely because the reverse of this theory is the fact,
because Gothic did not arise out of, but developed itself
into a resemblance to vegetation, this resemblance to
vegetation is so instructive as an indication of the temper
of the builders. ,,64
62 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice. v. m, p. 178.

63 Ruskin, J. The Stones oj Venice, v. m, p. 179.
64 Ruskin, J. The Stones oj Venice, v. III, p. 198.
52
The grotesque is the exhibition of creative work made
with freedom. It is also related to wrong doing. It also refers to
the notion of time, for instance, the Ruskinian parasitical
sublime, something which was unplanned brought by time
(such as a parasitic plant in the crack in a wall), suddenly
appears; this is grotesque.
Rigidity is a strange term to describe a structure which
is apparently moving all the time. The Gothic does not have a
relation with mechanisms without movement but is the
impression the spectator has of forces in movement. In
Ruskin's words:
"... for I mean, not merely stable, but active
rigidity, the peculiar energy which gives tension to
movement, and stiffuess to resistance which makes the
fiercest lightning forked rather than curved, and the stout
oak branch angular rather than bending, and is as much
seen in the quivering of the lance as in the glittering of
the icicle.',6S
The energy of forces struggling for a provisional
stability is seen in the Gothic. It is like a nervous movement in
which every single movement causes a new condition of :fragile
stability.
"Egyptian and Greek buildings stand, for the most
part, by their own weight and mass, one stone passively
incumbent on another, but in the Gothic vaults and
traceries there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones
of a limb, or fibres of a tree; an elastic tension and
communication of force from part to part, and also a
65 Ruskin. J. The Stones o/Venice. v. III, p. 200.

53
studious expression of this throughout every visible line
of the building.',66
Redundancy is the accumulation of ornaments, which is
possible because of the free expression of the workman's
subjectivity.
"For the very first requirement of Gothic
architecture being, as we say above, that it shall both
admit the aid, and appeal to the admiration of the rudest
as well as the most refined minds, the richness of the
work is, paradoxical, as the statement may appear, as part
of its humility. No architecture is so haughty as that
which is simple, which refuses to address the eye, except
in a few clear and forceful lines, which implies in
offering so little to our regards, that all it has offered is
perfect, and disdains, either by the complexity of the
attractiveness of its features to embarrass our
investigation, or betray us into delight. That humility,
which is the very life of the Gothic school, not only in the
imperfection, but in the accumulation of ornament.,,67
Although Ruskin defends the Gothic he was never a
neo-Gothic. His relationship with the Gothic approaches a kind
of Gothic logic, which relates drawing and work relations, and
it was the Gothic logic of composition that pleased him, not the
final result.
The drawing notebooks mentioned here are .those of
Ruskin's visit to Venice. According to Stephen Wildman,
Curator of the Ruskin Library at the University of Lancaster,
66 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v. m. p. 201.

67 Ruskin, J. The Stones o/Venice, v. III, p. 204.
54
Ruskin used to cut up his drawings and place different parts of
buildings together thereby creating new buildings. If we must
associate Ruskin with one architectural style, then this might be
the eclectic, not the neG-Gothic.
55
JOHN RUSKIN AND THE TEACHING
OF DRAWING IN BRAZIL
John Ruskin's ideas were present in the first

industrialization project in Brazil made by Rui Barbosa during
the reign of Emperor Dom Pedro II. Rui Barbosa planned to
transform. a rural col.Ultry into an industrial one and in 1883
published his Reforma do Ensino Primario (Reform. of
Primary Education).68 Nevertheless, since 1856 there had been
an industrialization project which had started with the founding
of the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro, whose
strategy was a new policy of the teaching of drawing with the
aim to establish a labor market which would have both manual
and aesthetic skills.
The first step to industrialize the country would be an
educational policy focusing on manual work. Barbosa's
educational ideas would replace those based on memorization,
originally introduced by the Jesuits. This new pedagogy was
intuitive, based on the observation of nature, and Rui Barbosa
adopted some of John Ruskin's ideas on aesthetics.
Differently to Barbosa, who was influenced by Ruskin,
the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro followed French
ideas.69 Despite the different sources, both had in common the
same strategy of industrializing Brazil.
68 Barbosa, R Reforma do Ensino Primario e VOrias InsliJui{:Oes

Complementares do Instruyiio Publica. Obras completas de Rui Barbosa,
1946.
69 The French origin of the Liceu de Artes e OfIcias do Rio de Janeiro.: "In
France, in 1675, Colbert asked the Science Academy of Paris for a study on
arts and crafts, which was linked to the manufacturing policy he developed.
57
Joaquim Bethencourt da Silva, a disciple of Grandjean
de Montigny, a member of the French mission led by Lebreton,
as we saw, was the founder of Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio
de Janeiro. The Sociedade Propagadora das Belas Artes
(Society for the Spread of Fine Arts) intended to transform the
city into a work of art. Beauty would be present in everyday
locations, such as bakeries, drugstores, restaurants, butcher's
shops, tailor's workshops, besides public buildings (which were
already seen as art).
Free evening courses were offered to anyone, regardless
of their social position, gender or nationality. The main aim of
the school was to instruct qualified workers and form a labour
market.
Modern European culture was the basis for the Brazilian
teaching of drawing policy, and one of the most important
moments was Ruskin's critiques of the 1851 Great Exhibition.
The teaching of drawing seemed, at the time, to be the solution
for this dilemma.
However, this policy of the teaching of drawing,
according to Gama, was much more than a simple response to
the Great Exhibition, and was rather that of a rupture between
the capitalist and feudal forms of production.
As a result of this study he wrote Descriptions des arts et metiers, firites ou

approuvees par Messieurs de I'Academie royale des sciences de Paris, where
the design of every tool and machine was pictured, in overviews and cuts,
with details of important parts. The work had started in 1693, but the first of
76 volumes was published only thanks to the efforts of Reamur and
Duhamel du Monceau in 1761. Diderot's and D'Alembert's shows the
French success in this field. (Gama, R.. A Teenolagio e 0 Trabalho no
Histaria, p.56)
58 .
Although Brazil was not an industrialized country, its
governors wanted it to be. The Lieeu de Aries e Ofieios do
Rio de Janeiro and A Reforma do EnsinG Primirio (RefonD.
of Primary Education) by Rui Barbosa were the first projects to
industrialize the country.
One great obstacle to this project, according to
Bethencourt da Silva, was the prejudice against manual work.
This kind of work should be carried out by slaves and was
therefore forbidden to "honest men". Notwithstanding, it was
widely known that if the project would change the agrarian
position of the country, it was necessary to fonD. a working
class which should be valued.
The Liceu de Artes e Oflcios do Rio de Janeiro and Rui
Barbosa tried to change Brazilian culture and value of manual
work through education. The establishment of the school of arts
and crafts in Rio de Janeiro took place during the slavery
period in Brazil, even though the social concept of the school
was against slavery and also against the teaching of the craft
guilds that still existed in Brazil. 7o The fact it was a school put
it in opposition to the craft guilds as it would qualify workers to
compete with them, which would be impossible in a society
based on slavery or one with powerful craft guilds.71
70 Although the craft corporations bad been forbidden in Brazil there were
some that still existed. Inside these craft corporations there was no
difference between production and teaching. The master took on an
apprentice for a certain amount of money and made him work according to
his orders. The apprentice was at the same time student and servant.
71 "The corporative laws of the Middle Ages methodically prevented ( ... ) an
artisan master from becoming capitalist, establishing strict limits on the
number of people he bad the right to employ. He was also allowed to
employ an apprentice only in the work he was master of. The corporation
carefully protected itself from mercantile capital. The merchant could buy
59
"During the 18th century one of the great names
of the history of educatio~ the Swiss Jean Jacques
Rousseau, wrote Emile, considered the great classic of
Utopian pedagogy, which proposes that education can
reform society. Artz, as well as La Cbalotais and
Condillac, remembers that Rousseau followed Locke's
theory on human knowledge and its origin in sensations -
the basis of reflexive thought - which also affirms that
direct experience and reason should replace authority in
educatio~ insisting on the value of learning while doing.
Besides, he declares his hatred of books, which only
teach us how to speak about things which we do not
know anything. This is why, more than any other writer,
he regards the manual arts in their true educational value:
a young man learns more in one hour of manual work,
than in a whole day of verbalized instruction."72
The industrialization of Brazil, according to Barbosa
and Bethencourt, first needed to go through a cultural change,
forming a society with a tendency for work, and then the
all kinds of goods, but not labour as a mercbandise. The corporative

organization excluded the manufiJcturing division of work. although
manufacture contn"buted to the existence of the cmpomtion, dividing,
specializing and perfecting the crafts. In general, the worker and his means
of production remained together, like a shel1, so they lacked the main
condition for manufacture - the separation between the worker and the
means of production and the conversion of the means of production into
capital. ( ... ) Technical teaching answered the technical and professional
requirements, brought about by the great economic changes of the 19th
century, particularly the development of industry and public administration.
The old corporative centers could not continue their work. The qualified
workmen were thus not satisfied with leaming the job from a master artisan
or from the fiunily." (Gama, R. A Tecnologia e 0 Trahallw no Hist6ria,
I: 109, 122)
Gama, R. A Tecno/ogia e 0 Trabalho, p. 133.
60
factory structure would be able to start up. This would plant the
seeds of an industrial Brazil.
Barbosa's Reform of Primary Edueation intended to
change the educational system, starting at the primary level,
eventually reaching the professional level. This was the door
through which Ruskin's ideas, introduced by Barbosa, arrived
in Brazil.
It is important to note that drawing, for Ruskin, seems
to be the derivation of a logic, which expresses itself by
diluting the difference between liberal and mechanical arts, and
which also creates the conditions for a kind of a relationship in
production without the hierarchy of dividing those who think
from those who do. Barbosa knew these ideas of Ruskin well
but did not make use of all of them.
61
The Liceu de Aries e Ofieios do Rio de Janeiro
As we saw, the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de

Janeiro was founded in 1856 by the architect Francisco
Joaquim Bethencourt da Silva and was maintained by the
Society for Diffusion of Fine Arts.
Bethencourt da Silva was Grandjean de Montigny's
student in Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, but
it is not correct to say that Bethencourt was a neoclassicist like
Grandjean, because his ideas on aesthetics were contradictory
and was influenced as much by Neoclassicism as by
Romanticism.
The teaching of drawing at Liceu de Artes e Oficios do
Rio de Janeiro was not restricted to any kind of aesthetic
paradigm, and the teachers had an eclectic position, like
Bethencourt's.
''Our course did not insist on aesthetic rules, and
the students were not obliged to follow the private
opinions of the teacher, who gave them total freedom of
expression, worrying only about the technique; and
therefore it can be said that seldom have such interesting
results in artistic engraving been achieved."73
The ideas of the European industrial revolution brought
by the French Mission were the origin of Brazilian school of
arts and crafts, according to Mario Barata, quoting Lebreton.
74
73Barros, P. 0 Liceu de Artes e Oftcios e seu Fundador, p. 134.

74"This dual establishment, although different from the first, the Academia
de Belas Artes, has strong links to it. At the beginning it used the same basic
principles of drawing, even the study based on lines; and the same teachers,
63
Lebreton intended to found two schools, one for liberal
arts and other for mechanical arts. Nevertheless, his influence
only appeared at the first school, the second being founded a
long time after his death in 1856, at a different period of the
history of the industrialization of the world.
"Lebreton brought to Brazil the knowledge he had
acquired. in the European industrial revolution, which he
had lived through. He was very involved with Jean
Jacques Bachelier, the founder of the Royal School of
Paris, devoted to the teaching offtee drawing.,,75
The idea that industry would solve all national problems
was not new. 76 The project of industrialization based on the
teaching of drawing was drafted, according to Gama, before
Bachelier's proposal. Gama summarizes the moment of
industrial revolution as the transformation of technical
conception into a bourgeois technology.
There were several ways to define the term technology.
Some of them confused this term with the concept of
Debret, and a Portuguese teacher, who was in charge of this part of the
teaching. Debret already had considerable experience of the primary
teaching of drawing, as well as the teaching of painting because he not only
directed the atelier of the neoclassical French painter, David, for 15 years,
but he was also the only drawing master at the best and largest school in
Paris, the school ofSt. Barbe. ( ... ) After the first classes on the study of the
figure, the drawing of ornaments started, which was very varied and useful
to all crafts, and which could be used to adorn and beautify, whether by the
choice of forms, or accessories. Thus the school was totally under the
influence of the architectu:re teacher, since the furniture, vases, jewelJry
objects, joinery, etc. are under his responsibility, and he also teaches the
carpenter and the cart maker the necessary precise and exact roles."
~GAMA, R. Tecno/agio e Trabalho no HistOria, p. 134,135)
5 Gama, R. Teenolagia e Trabalho no Histaria, p. 59.
76 Sque~ L. 0 Brasil nos Letras d£ um Pintor: Manuel de AraUjo Porto
Alegre, p. 171.
64
technique. 77 Notwithstanding, bourgeois technology has always
expressed a thinking related to doing.
The progress of science, the improvement in men's
lives, requires, according to Bacon, the technical knowledge to
be part of science and natural philosophy. The methods,
procedures, operations, and language of mechanical arts were
established and perfected outside the world of official science,
in the world of engineers, architects, qualified artisans, and
machine and toolmakers. These methods, procedures and
languages now had to become the subject of examination,
reflection and study. 78
The relation between theory and praxis, necessary to the
concept of bourgeois technology, was not present when there
77 "Technique: a set ofpractica1 rules to do detennined things, involving the

ability to carry out verbal instructions, for example, in use of bands,
instruments and tools. Teehaology: the scientific study and knowledge of
technical operation or technique, which includes the systematic study of
instruments, tools and machines employed in several branches of technique,
of gestures and times of work and costs ofmaterials and employed energy.
Technology implies the application of methods of physical and natural
science, and, as stated by Alain Birou, it also involves communication
between these elements of technical teaching." (Gama, R. Tecnologia e
Traballw no HistOrla, p. 30, 31)
18 "The idea that the industry could solve national problems started to appear
in newspapers and publications related to Brazil at the beginning of the 19th
century, showing the very advanced position of Brazilian intellectuals. In
1818 Emperor Dam Jo!o VI ordered that a number of the seminarists were
taken as apprentices in mechanical crafts. In 1819 in Bahia a technical
school opened. Dam JoIo's most ambitious investment in this area was the
establishment of the so-called Escola Real de Ci&icias, Artes e Oficios
(Royal School of Sciences, Arts and Crafts), which became the Academia
de Belas Artes (Academy of Fine Arts). However, its characteristics would
be modified several times, and in 1840 it was an academy to teach only
liberal arts." (Gama, R. Tecnologia e Traba/ho no Histaria, p.47)
65
was a distance between the liberal and mechanical arts, and this
distance needed to be eliminated.79
The process of the rupture between industrial capitalism
and artisanaI production had been taIcing place since the 15th
century. Nevertheless, there was a crucial moment when certain
activities which had been performed together were separated.
Brunelleschi, of the Florentine School, initially conceived the
dome of Santa Maria das Flores in a drawing, and only
afterwards was it transferred to the construction site, thus
separating the architectural project. Alberti (1452) invented the
concept of theory in architecture, through the mathematical
equations to design the dome. Prior to the Renaissance,
knowledge of design was considered a sort of secret guarded by
the master artisans. With the separation of design and
construction came the separation between production and
education, giving birth to the modem architect As a result,
teaching was carried out in a different place to work.
Bourgeois technology required teaching to be an
autonomous activity.
"The word technology was used in its more
general sense. However, dictionaries define technology in
terms of systematic knowledge of practical subjects, and
the characteristic of artisan's methods was that they did
not depend on a systematic knowledge; they had an
intuitive knowledge obtained through experience. In
79 "In our days the bond between science and production, as the only way of
joining theory and praxis, is very narrow, since the improvements reached
by the productive forces in this century would be impossible without
scientific progress.» (Gama, R. Teena/agio e Trabalho no His/lJria, p. 80)
66
consequence the word technology. strictus sensus, cannot
be used to describe the artisan's work."so
The French Mission came to Rio de Janeiro to found
schools. which means that the bourgeois concept of technology
was present. Lebreton, proposing the teaching of drawing,
brought the experience of the European industrial revolution of
the time.
The French Liceu reduced the distance between the
liberal and mechanical arts, and proposed the conception of
bourgeois technology. However, it cannot be said that
Bethencourt strictly reproduced Lebreton's ideas, as he was
responding to another period of the industrial revolution,
although the problem was similar. More precisely, Bethencourt
was responding to critics of the Great Exhibition in London,
who emphasized the necessity of increasing the number of
drawing courses. SI
Although Brazil was not an industrialized nation, the
Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro intended to
implement the policY of an aesthetic education.82 "To build
industry is to organize education. ,,83
80 Gama, R. A Tecno/ogia e 0 Trabalho na Histaria, p. 53.

81 "The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the beginning ofa new era. It did for
art, for the British. what Socrates had done for philosophy when be brought
it from the heavens to men; it taught the British people that the goddess
could live under any family root: as in a Venetian Palace." (Barbosa, R.
Speech held in Liceu: 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 13)
112 "But we are a rural nation. Why not also be an industrial nation? Do we
lack gold, silver, iron, tin, bronze, marble, clay, wood, rubber, textile pulp?
Certainly not. What is, then that we lack? Only the special education which
would enable us not to pay to foreigner the huge tribute of manual work,
and, above all, artistic manual work." (Barbosa, R. 0 Desenho e a Arte
Industrial, p. 45, 46)
113 Barbosa, R. 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 48.
67
Rui Barbosa approached the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do
Rio de Janeiro when he introduced the ideas of the greatest
critic ofart ofthat time: John Ruskin.
"AraUjo Porto Alegre (teacher of the Imperial
Academy of Fine Arts) considered pitiful the presence of
Brazil in the Great Exhibition of 1851, and Rui Barbosa
showed that the British participation was also disastrous;
his comments were certainly inspired by John Ruskin,
whose The Stones of Venice he quotes in his speech.
Ruskin stressed how ugly the objects produced in
Victorian England were, the superiority of craft
production, and Ruskin's vision of art as a social need,
which no nation could despise without risking its
intellectual existence." 84
Ruskin's ideas were part of the first industrial project in
Brazil, possibly because they were internationally known after
his critiques of the Great Exhibition. The suppression of the
distance between liberal and mechanical arts was compatible
with the unity of theory and praxis, present in the conception of
bourgeois technology.
84 Gama probably read some of Ruskin's works, although, like most

historians of modem architecture, he did not understand his theory of
perception. which is why be considered Ruskin to be against the industrial
revolution and a follower of the medieval relations of production. saying
that: Ruskin defended the superiority ofartisanai production.
In this work the hypothesis that Ruskin was a follower of the industrial
revolution is defended. but be defended another kind of relation in f8ct0ry
work, different from that adopted by the Victorian factories. This proposal
appeared with Charles Ashbee's Arts and Crafts. (Gama, R., A teena/ogio e
o trabalho no histOria, p.l44)
68
"What did Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de
Janeiro do in 60 years? It dignified the crafts, giving
them the title of liberal art!"ss
Bethencourt wanted to eradicate the prejudice against
manual work, and Ruskin's ideas may have inspired him.
"Work is the symbol of youth, it is the emblem of
virtue, honesty and progress; with it we shall show the
cowards and corrupt that innovation is not an assault and
that the future shall be ours. Let us handle our society
with good will and care, let us open the doors of our
school building, let us put on the altar of our land and
national muse the lighthouse, which will guide our
children in studies, and the future of arts, the country and
youth shall be saved.,,86
The teaching of aesthetics to the working population of
Rio de Janeiro had a mobilizing effect. It was implicit that a
city designed with ornaments would express a society directed
to work:. The ultimate purpose of the Brazilian school of arts
and crafts would be to transform the city into a work ofart.
" ... Besides, the advantages will not result from
this teaching of art to the people and the nation. What
value will the works of national industry have, when the
Fine Arts enrich the ornaments of all our production
improving their manufacture, harmonizing their lines,
giving them a new shape, using all the resources of
Brazilian nature! ( ...) Only then will it be known among
us, and the European nations be shown the superiority of
85 Barros, P. 0 Liceu de Artes e Oftcios do Rio de Janeiro e 0 seu Fundador.

Pi 156.
Bethencourt da Silva. 0 Brosil Artfstico. Nova Phase, p. 27.
69
American intelligence which has until now been
sacrificed to routine and abandon. The carpenter, tailor,
goldsmith, builder, and other workers will no longer
make mistakes that characterize their work nowadays, if
they devote a few hours in the evenings for three years to
the study of the art they pmctice. So they will stop
producing artistic sacrilege; and they will be compared to
the good mechanics from England, Germany and
France."S7
In the magazine Brazil Artfstico, 1030 do Rio quoted
Viollet-Le-Duc and Ruskin (Rusquim) to express his
indignation with the design of the colonial city, saying that it
should be redesigned, and also stated that it was necessary to
develop a labour market in the area of construction.
It is possible that the designs on the facades of buildings
in the Corredor Cultural in the historical center of the city were
done by students from Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de
Janeiro. These designs were called at the time eclectic, the
adjective we have also used for John Ruskin's work.
"So it was not until the late 1840's that Britain's
Gothic Revival began to look outside Britain for its
sources of inspiration. And the man who is traditionally
held to be responsible for this novel expansion of our
national aesthetic is, of course, John Ruskin.',88
Critics classified British neo-Gothic as Ruskinian
Gothic. However, Ruskin rejected this classification. According
to Crook:
P;] Bethenoourt da Silva. 0 Brasil Artfstico, Nova Phase, p.4O.

88 Crook, J. M. Ruskinian Gothic in Hunt, D. The Ruskin Polygon, p. 67.
70
"In 1899 Ruskin argued, in The Seven Lamps,
for the rejection of styles and the pursuit of style. ( ... ) In
the 1855 edition of Seven Lamps he went out his way to
deny his supposed commitment to Venetian Gothic. "The
Gothic of Verona", he wrote, "is far nobler than that of
Venice, and that of Florence nobler that ofVerona.,,89
In 1859 Ruskin declared that Chartres was as beautiful
as the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. But his effort was in
vain, as critics continued to call him a neo-Gothic.
It is important to remember that The Stones of Veniee
expresses Ruskin's passion for the architecture of Venice. The
chapter The Nature ofGothic explains why: Ruskin admires the
logic of work. In this chapter his conception of the
architectural aesthetic appears for the :first time. Ruskin
attributes the appearance of the Venetian Gothic to the mixture
of styles of various workers combining diverse knowledge from
different cultures to produce designs never seen before. It was
the mixture of this varied knowledge that enabled Venetian
architecture to be original. Ruskin was against the notion of
style, because the style limits the creativity for new drawings.
It's certain that the Victorians were seeking a style to represent
them, but Ruskin disagrees with this aim.
"What exactly was to be the form of this New
Style? And, anyway, who to form it, and for how long?
Was each inventive architect to invent a new style for
himself, and have a country set aside for his conceptions,
or a province for his practice? Or must every architect
invent a little piece of the new style, and all put it
together at last like a dissected map? Anyway, what next?
89 Crook, J. M. Ruskinian Gothic in Hunt, D. The Ruskin Polygon, p. 68.

71
I will grant you this Eldorado of imagination - but can
you have more than one Columbus? Or, if you sail in
company, who is to come after your clustered Columbus?
When our desired style is invented, will not the best we
can all do be simply - to build in it? And cannot your
new do that in styles that are known? Whatever happens,
that New Style will not be final.,,90
The randomly mixed designs on the facades of the
Corredor Cultural in the historical center of Rio de Janeiro
express the free association of styles. Thus they can be called
eclectic. But what is the eclectic if not the juxtaposition of all
styles? If this is so is not Ruskin also an eclectic?
90 Crook. J. M. Ruskinian Gothic in Hunt, D. The Ruskin Polygon, p. 71.

72
Rui Barbosa and John Ruskin
This study proposes that Ruskin's ideas on aesthetics

were influential not only in English-speaking countries and in
nineteenth-century Europe, but also in Brazil. Ruskin's ideas
were indirectly introduced into the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do
Rio de Janeiro through Rui Barbosa, who was effectively an
honorary member of the school. Barbosa devoted a large part of
his life to education. He proposed the expansion of the teaching
philosophy found in this school to the country's entire
educational system through primary education reform, asserting
that before learning how to read and write students should learn
how to draW. 91
Lebreton wanted a school to qualify skilled workers to
substitute the work of slaves, but this school was to be attached
to a Fine Arts School. One school would do the thinking, and
the other would construct what had been thought. But what
Lebreton called "thinking" was the teaching of the neoclassical
style based on composition rules that consists of strictly
imitative drawing.
The goal of the Liceu was to e1iminate the prejudice
against manual labour that had existed since Classical times,
and which viewed such work as degrading and fit only to be
performed by slaves and the poor.
91Barbosa, in Gama, R., A Tecnologia e 0 Trabalho no Histbria • p.145.

John Ruskin had the same thought: "(...) The art of drawing should be taught
to every child." (Haslam, Ro, According to the requirements ofhis scholars:
Ruslcin drawing and art education In Hewison, Ro, Ruslcin's Artists, Studies
in the Victorian Visual Economy, p.153)
73
"The Greek: word banausia means mechanical art,
manual work: and has a pejomtive meaning. It means dirty
and vulgar work:. This kind of work: was for slaves and
for the poor who must obey those who do not work: and
have time to think.,1J2
The project of founding a school for fine arts and
another for mechanical arts was part of a greater movement to
break away from Brazilian feudalism and move towards the
European capitalistic model. According to Gama, it represented
a shift towards the notion of 'bourgeois technology', which
meant developing knowledge aimed at productive practice.93
The whole concept was directed towards material productio~
i.e. towards the world of work: and the establishment of schools
to teach people how to work:.
"The Brazilian response to the Great Exhibitio~
like that of the Europeans, was to invest in the teaching of
drawing. In Europe, this was specifically directed to
improving the quality of the design of industrial products,
but for Bethencourt, the teaching of drawing would take
on a broader sense and be incorporated into the general
education of skilled workers to develop a labour market
to replace slave labour.,,94
The Brazilian industrial project intended to replace the
traditions of a national culture in which labour was perceived as
slavery, to one in which labour was a commodity. For
Bethencourt, the main consideration was to provide an
92 Gama, R. A Teena/agia e 0 Trabalho no Histaria, p.170.

93 "Bourgeois technology is the productive labour science." (Gama, R.,
Teenalagio e Trabalho no Histaria, p.185)
94 Gama. R. A Teenalagia eo Trabalho na Histbrio, p. 142.
74
education which would value labour. Thus teaching of drawing
was a moral act.
The industrialization project in Brazil in the second half
of the 19th century was guided by the policy of Drawing
Education spread by the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de
Janeiro and Rui Barbosa's Reform of Primary Education. And
its core was Aesthetics Education as a key element in the
development of a skilled labour market. Education was seen as
the ideal vehicle to alter values. In its promotion of the union of
liberal and mechanical arts, the Brazilian school of arts and
crafts approached Ruskinian values.
"All ideas of this kind are founded upon two
mistaken suppositions: the first that one man's thought
can be or ought to be, executed by another man's hands,
the second, that manual labour is degradation, when it is
governed by intellect. (...) We are always in these days
endeavouring to separate the two, we want one man to be
always thinking, and another to be always working, and
we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative,
whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the
thinker often to be working, and both should be
gentlemen, in the best sense.,,95
Differently, but in other ways similar to what was
taking place in Brazil, John Ruskin in Britain struggled against
the teaching of drawing based on mechanical procedures. In
Brazil this meant struggling against the neoclassical
educational ideas, and in Britain this meant struggling against
the South Kensington system, a teaching based on developing
drawing skills for industrial design skills.
95 Ruskin, J., The Stones of Venice. v.II, p.167.

75
"Ruskin's beliefs in a moral as well as material
truth - a truth of impression as well as form - meant that
this higher level truth could only be activated in drawing
by both intense perception and the use of the imagination.
The education of sight was for Ruskin a far more
complex thing than simply the training of sense
perception - intellectual lens and moral retina.,,96
Ruskin is quoted in Barbosa's Reforma do Emino
Primario (Reform of Primary Education), and also in his
speech made at the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro
in 1882, entitled 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial (Drawing and
Industrial Art).
"The great lesson of history, states the most
renowned master in art this century has ever produced, is
that, having so far been sustained by the egoistic power of
the nobility without ever extending to comfort or aid the
masses, the arts of taste thus practiced and matured serve
solely to hasten the ruin of the States that encourage
them. Thus, in any reign, the moment when the greatest
triumphs of its most celebrated artists are acclaimed will
portend precisely the time of the collapse of the States.
The names of certain painters are like death bells: the
name of Velazquez announces the demise of Spain; that
of Titian, the death of Venice; that of Leonardo, the ruin
of Milan; that of Raphael, the fall of Rome. This is a
profoundly just coincidence, inasmuch as the crime of
their use for vain or vile purpose is in direct ratio to the
nobility of these talents; and, before our days, the more
96 Haslam, R., According to the requirements of his scholars: Ruskin

drawing and art education In Hewison, R Ruskin's Artists, studies in the
Victorian visual economy, p. 153.
76
elevated the art the more certain its exclusive use for
decorating pride or provoking sensuality. Another is the
truth that enfranchises us. Let us give hope a hand, or, if
you prefer, let us renounce the temptations of the pomp
and elegance of Italy in its youth. No longer for us the
marble throne or the golden dome: ours is the privilege,
more eminent and more amiable, of bringing the talents
and the attractions of art into the reach of the humble and
the poor; and, since the magnificence of past times has
fallen through its "exclusivism", it (art) will be
perpetuated through its universality and its humility."97
Barbosa was not only familiar with Ruskin's ideas but
also admired him as the most renowned master in art-related
subjects this century has produced. In this speech, Barbosa
translated an excerpt of The Two Paths, in which Ruskin
defends popular art as opposed to art for the elites, i.e., when
Ruskin argues against the separation between liberal and
mechanical arts. 98 Elsewhere in the same speech, Barbosa
translated a passage from Modern Painters.
"When all other service is vain, from plant to tree, the
soft mosses and grey lichen take up their watch by the
head-stone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing
grasses, have done their part for a time, but these do
service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for
the bride's chamber, com for the granary, moss for the
grave.,,99
97 Barbosa, R 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p.38.

98 Barbosa, R 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 38, 39, 40, translated by R
Barbosa, First edition.
99 Barbosa, R 0 DesenJw e a Arte Industrial, p. 37.
77
Barbosa again showed his indebtedness to Ruskin in his
Reform of Primary Education (1883), a work that encapsulated
Barbosa's educational project to prepare the industrialization
process of Brazil. loo Ruskin is quoted in defense of a natural
education:
"Mr. Ruskin, the eloquent artist, to whose
influence in our days is attributed the awakening of
artistic life in the bosom of England, and whose helpful
advocacy has replaced, in the public sentiment, the cult of
the old conventions for the reverent and loving study of
nature, has profoundly influenced the popular modem
culture of his country. On one occasion, Mr. Ruskin
lamented the neglect of nature in education, using words
that seem directed deliberately at the general state of
education among US."lOI
Barbosa, like Bethencourt, regarded the policy of
teaching drawing as a moral issue:
"Drawing is beginning to be seen as an essential
branch of general education at every level, as well as the
basis of all technical and industrial education. There is an
emerging perception that it constitutes a useful thing in
every part of labour and in every condition of life; that it
is the best means to develop the faculty of observation,
and cultivate an appreciation of the beauty in objects of
nature and of art, which is indispensable to the architect,
the painter, the draughtsman, the sculptor, the mechanic;
100 MagalhAes, Rejane, M. M. Os Discursos de R. Barbosa, Desenho: um

revolucionador ere ideias (The speeches ofR. Barbosa, Preface to Drawing:
a revolutionist ofideas), p.xxxii. First edition.
101 Barbosa, R. Reforma do Ensino Prim6rio. Complete Works of R.
Barbosa, v. 10, t. n, p. 253, First edition.
78
whic~ in short, gives the hand and the eye an education
that everyone needs."I02
Unlike Ruskin, Rui Barbosa did not develop his ideas
theoretically, but made it clear that he knew Ruskin's ideas and
agreed with them; hence, when dealing with the subject of
pedagogy in LifOes de Coisas (Lessons of Things), he referred
to the reconciliation of education with nature, announcing a
natural education.
"But this reform embodies precisely the most
complete reaction against this system. It stems from the
desire to bring together education and nature; it is
inspired by the rightful indignation against rhetorical
pedagogy, to which these words had been addressed
already at the time of Montaigne, through which
glimmers the premonition of the educational revolution,
which our times are experiencing.,,103
We know, in fact, precisely the work by Ruskin with
which Barbosa was familiar, for several volumes were found in
his private library, now in the Fun~ao Casa de Rui
Barbosa. 104 These are editions from the United States Book
Company, and they include The Crown of Wild Olive; Munera
Pulveris; Pre-Raphaelitism; The Ethics of the Dust; The
Elements of Drawing; Deucalion; The King of the Golden
River; The Eagle's Nest; Arrows of the Chase; Fors Clavigera;
Bonus Inclusus; Lectures on Art; Proserpina; Ariadne
Florentina; The Opening of the Crystal Palace; St. Mark's
102 Barbosa, R Re/anna do Ensino Primario, p.IIO, First edition.

103 Barbosa, R. Re/anna do Ensina Primario, p. 274.
104 Private LibraIy of Rui Barbosa. Fun~o Casa de Rui Barbosa, Rio de
Janeiro, Rna Sio Clemente, nO 134.
79
Rest; The Elements of Perspective; The Stones of Venice; The
Two Paths; Love's Meinie; The Pleasures of England;
Mornings in Florence; and Notes on the Construction of
Sheepfolds. He also owned some translations into French,
published in Paris by Libraire Rendaurd (H. Laurens ed., 1908),
including Les Reps de Saint Mark; Les Pierres de Venise; and
a
Les Matins Florence.
When Lebreton arrived in Bmzil he was starting from a
European background of industrial revolution, and in so doing,
he provided a door through which John Ruskin's ideas could
enter the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro via Rui
Barbosa
"(...) we are unshakably convinced that the
starting point to promote the expansion of national
industry, which is still incipient among us, is to introduce
the teaching of drawing at every level of public
education, from primary to secondary and trade school,
and to give 1rade schools a new capacity, adapting them
to the formation of professionals in the arts of common
application. ( ... ) We have a whole future to create; and
that future belongs to this country.,,105
For Barbosa, educational reform would have to begin
from the child's first steps, for only thus could the prejudice
against manual labour be neutralized. His aim was to alter the
culture and mindset of the population through education,
understanding that this went hand in hand with the
industrialization ofBmzil. 106
lOS Barbosa, R. A Reforma do Emino Primario, v. 9, t. 1, 1942, p.l72.

106 Barbosa, R., Lifiks de COisas, v. I, p. XlII, t. 1.
80
"Imitating the words of an ancient general, who,
concerning war, stated - To win, three things are
necessary: first, money, second, more money, third, yet
more money -; this statesman expressed himself thus: As
I see it, every master is a general, a fighter against
ignorance and superficiality. Indeed, I see the lack of
education as the root of all evil on earth, I see no other
means to eliminate it but through three things: first,
education, second, more education, third, much more
education. ,, 107
For Barbosa, the aesthetic education of the population

could solve not only the problem of social prejudice against the
mechanical arts but also economic problems, class conflict,
improving political morals, and even the democratization of
Brazil.
"(...) Industrial education represents one of the
most effective aids in the increasing levelling of class
distinctions among men, without weakening the real
superiorities, but destroying artificial inferiorities that
prolong in this light the layers of the working classes, that
is, elevating to an even higher plane the worker's action
and thinking. Intellectual shortsightedness is the most
constant generator of egoism. Imbuing the individual
with serious habits of observation, of mental discipline,
of rational application of our practical faculties, and of
beauty, the universal note of harmony of the universe,
will enable him to assume his dominion over souls,
propagating fra.temity among all classes, annihilating all
conceptions of caste, and truly establishing moral
107 Barbosa, R. 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 45.

81
equality among all men, which is impossible without the
symmetrical development of all the hmnan skills in the
individual and the community. Democracy is almost
nonexistent among us, except nominally, because the
popular forces, due to the incapacity of a system of
national education, are in fact more or less excluded from
the government. Industrial education, however, will
indubitably inaugurate their initiation in the political
work of the State. Art is unquestionably the most
powerful disseminator of peace." 108
The essence of Barbosa's pedagogy was drawing, and
this was the essence of Brazil's first industrial policy. The
teaching of drawing proposed by the Liceu de Artes e Oficios
do Rio de Janeiro was not based on rules to be repeated
mechanically as was neoclassical teaching, but included a
moml purpose that dignified the act of work. Bethencourt and
Barbosa were responding the critics of the Great Exhibition of
1851, especially those of John Ruskin.
The following images, taken in 2011, are from

Co"edor Cultural do Centro Historico do Rio de Janeiro:
small buildings constructed at the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th centuries: butchers shops, chemists, shoe
shops, restaurants, barber shops, cigar shops, clothes stores,
hardware shops, residences, etc. The drawings do not express
the luxury of monmnental buildings such as the Municipal
Library, the Municipal Theatre or the building of the Musemn
of the Academy of Fine Arts of Rio de Janeiro, and they are not
signed works unlike the latter ones, although they are richly
108 Barbosa, R. 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 55-56.

82
ornate and express a deep knowledge of the art of drawing.
These artists are the builders themselves, which makes us
wonder whether they trained at the Liceu de Artes e Oficios do
Rio de Janeiro.
83
REFERENCES
BARROS, A. P. 0 Liceu de Artes e Ojicios e seu

fondador. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia do Liceu de Artes e
Oftcios do Rio de Janeiro, 1956.
BARBOSA, Rui. Reforma do Ensino Primario. Obras
Completas de Rui Barbosa, v. X, t. II. Rio de Janeiro:
Minist:erio da Educ~ao e SaUde, 1946.
_ _ _-J' Rui. LifOes de Coisas. Obras Completas de
Rui Barbosa, v. XIII 1886, t. I. Rio de Janeiro: Minist:erlo da
Edu~ e Salide, 1950.
_ _ _ _,' Rui. 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial. Rio de

Janeiro: Rodrigues & Cia, 1949.
BAZIN, O. Historia do historia do arte. Sao Paulo:
Martins Fontes, sid.
BELL, Q., ASHBEE, C. R. An Endeavour towards the
Teaching of John Ruskin and William Morris. London: E.
Arnold, 190 1.
BIELINSKI, A. C. Liceu de Artes e Ojicios do Rio de
Janeiro - dos pressupostos aos reftexos de sua criafoo - de
1856 a 1900. Rio de Janeiro: Faculdade de Betas Artes da
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2003.
BOCKKEMUHL, M. Turner, the World of Light and
Color. KoIn: Taschen, 2000.
BRADLEY, J. L. Ruskin, the Critical Heritage.
London: Routledge & Henley. 1984.
85
BRIGGS, A. William Mo"is: Selected Writings and
Designs. London: Richard Clay & Co., 1955.
CLARK., F. Paisagem na arte. Lisboa: Editora Ulisseia,
1961.
CLARK, K. Ruskin Today. London: John Murray,
1964.
___, K. Ruskin and his Circle. London: Shenval
Press, 1964.
DAVIES, L. J. The Working Men's College, 1854-1904,
records of its history and its work for fifiy years by members of
the college. London: Mamillan and Co, Limited. 1904.
DIDEROT, D. Da interpretafiio da natureza. Sao
Paulo: numinuras, 1989.
_ _----', D. Pensamientos sueltos sobre la pintura.
Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1988.
EVANS, J. The Lamp of Beauty. London: Phaidon
Press, 1959.
F ARTInNG, S. Ruskin and the Art of Education.
Birgmingham: The review of The Pre-Raphaelite Society,
Keymay Communications, 1993.
GAMA, R. A Tecnologia e 0 Trabalho na Historia. Sao
Paulo: Nobel Edusp, 1986.
GOMES, N. Um revolucionador de ideias, Rui
Barbosa. Rio de Janeiro: CHD editora, 2003.
GORDON, S. John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye. New
York: Harry Abrams, 1993.
86
HELSINGE~ E. Ruskin and the Art of the Beholder.
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982.
KITCHIN, G. W. Ruskin in Oxford. London: John
Murray, 1904.
MAGALH.AES, R. M. Os Discursos de Rui Barbosa.
Preflicio de Desenho: um revolucionador de ideias. Rio de
Janeiro: Minist6rio da Educayao e Saiide.
MAGN6LIA, C. S. Posflicio, Diderot, D. Da
interpret[JfOo do Natureza. Sao Paulo, lluminuras, 1989.
PENNY, N. Ruskin's Drawing. Oxford: The University
of Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1988.
PIMENTA, P. A linguagem dasformas: ensaio sobre 0
estatuto do helo na filosofia de Shajtesbury. Sao Paulo:
FFLCHlUSP, 2002.
QUENNEL, P. John Ruskin. London: Longmans Green
& Co., 1956.
QUILL, S. Ruskin's Vmice, the Stones Revisited.
London: Ashgate. 2000.
SADLE~ M. John Ruskin's Plan for National
Education. Manchester: Romanes & Son, 1907.
ROSEMBERG, J. The Darkening Glass. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1962.
RUSKIN, J. Modern Painters. London: Smith, Elder &
Co. 1948, v. 1.
J. Modern Painters. London: Smith, Elder &
Co. 1856, v. II.
87
_ _-", J. Modern Painters. London: Smith, Elder &
Co. 1856, v. ill.
_ _-" J. Modern Painters. London: Smith, Elder &
Co. 1856, v. IV.
_ _-', J. Modern Painters. London: Smith, Elder &
Co. 1860, v. V.
___, 1 The Stones of Venice. London: George, Allen
& Unwin. 1925, v. I, II, m.
_ _-", J. Las siete lampadas de la arquitectura.
Buenos Aires: El Ateno, sid.
_ _-", J. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. London:
J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1921.
_ _--',J. Munera Pulveris. London:
RoutledgelThoemmes Press, 1994.
- - , 1 A Joy for Ever. London: RoutledgelThoemmes
Press, 1994.
- - ' J. Sesame and Lilies; The two paths; The king of
the garden. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1944.
- - , 1 Time and Tide. London: Routledgeffhoemmes
Press, 1994.
--,J. The Crown of Wild Olive. London:
RoutledgelThoemmes Press, 1994.
- - ' J. Unto this Last. London: Routledgeffhoemmes
Press, 1994.
- - ' J. Lectures on Architecture and Painting.
London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1854.
88
---J J. Nature of Gothic. A Chapter of The Stones of
Venice. London: edited by William Morris, Kelmscott Press,
Hammersmith, and published by G. Allen. 1892.
TIIOMPSON, E. P. William Morris: Romantic to
Revolutionary. London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. 1955.
VITRUVIUS, V. P., The Ten Books on Architecture.
London: Harvard University Press, 1914.
89
INDEX
B Hunt, J., 3.
Barbosa, Rui, 2, 11,57, 67, M

77, 78, 79,80,81,82.
Magalhaes, Rejane, 78.
Barros, A., 11,63,69.
Magnolia, 8.
Bethencourt da Silva, 69,
Q
70.
Quill, S., 42.
Bradley, J., 4.
R
C
Ruskin, John, 15, 17, 18, 19,
Crook, J.M., 2, 70, 71, 72.
21, 23, 24, 29, 30, 33, 35,
G 36,37,39,41,44,45,46,
47,48,49, 50, 51, 52, 53,
Gama, Rui, 8, 9, 10, 12, 58,
54,75.
60,64,65,66,67,68,73,
74. S
H Squeff. L, 10, 64.
Haslam, R., 4, 73, 76. T
Heisinger, E.,3. Thompson, E. P., 6.
Hersey, G., 3. v
Hewinson, R., 27, 73, 76. Vitruvius, 20.
91
Claudio Silveira Amaral
Dr. Claudio Silveira Amaral is a Professor at the

Universidade Estadual Paulista in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Amaral
holds a Ph.D. in Architecture and Urbanism from the Universidade
de Sao Paulo.

Nfluence N USK N On The NG Z: I JOH R I Drawi BRA IL

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THE INFLUENCE OF JOHN R USKIN

ON THE TEACHING OF DRAWING

Claudio Silveira Amaral

The Edwin Mellen Press

Amaral, Claudio Silveira.

Copyright «::> 2012 Claudio Silveira Amaral

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The Edwin Mellen Press The Edwin Mellen Press

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Printed in the United States of America

1- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street, n° 307.

2- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Visconde de Rio Branco Street,

3- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street, n 48. Photo

4- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street n° 48. Photo

5- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Senado Street n° 47 to 49.

6- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Uruguaiana Street with

7- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Uruguaina Street with Sete de

8- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street n° 34. Photo

9- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Republica do Libano Street n°

10- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Constituiyao Street nO 41.

12- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire Street

13- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street nO 32. Photo

14- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire Street n° 248.

15-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street with Rel~ao

16- Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Lavradio Street with Relayao

17-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Passos Street n° 36. Photo

18-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street n° 217.

19-Cultural Hall of Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires Street nO 238.

Most historians of Modem Architecture see John

Translated by John Milton and Adriano Ropero

The study "The lDfiueDce of JOB Rusm OD the

The hypothesis of this study is that John Ruskin's main

1 FRAMPTON, K.; PEVSNBR. N.; VANLONN, W. H.; GOMBRICH, E.

4 Heisinger, Ruskin and the art ofthe beholder, 1982.

9 A sentence that influenced William Morris to write "News from

10 An exhl'bition of industrialized products from many countries, which took

13Gama, R. A. tecnologia e 0 Trabalho na Hislor/a, p. 138.

16Gama, R. A teenolagia e a Trabalho no Histbria, p. 133.

The Liceu de Artes e Oficios do Rio de Janeiro did not

However, many of Ruskin's ideas were not present in

19 Barbosa. R. 0 Desenho e a Arte Industrial, p. 31.

23 The formation of a labour market was the necessary condition to initiate a

24 This subject shall be discussed in the chapter on Ruskinian architecture.

2S Stephen Wildman, Curator of Ruskin Library in interview.

John Ruskin's ideas will be classified into three areas:

According to Ruskin, vision is a determining subject

16 Ruskin, J. Moden Painlen, v. li, p268.

Ruskin superimposes a picturesque aesthetic

28 Ruskin, J. Modern Painters, v. IV, p.7.

"I speak especially of the moment before the sun

Ruskin believed that the artist through his art would be

29 Ruskin, 1. Modem Painters, v. I, p. 158.

that He only did right in a kind of passive obedience to his first

3JSymmetry in Vitruvius, "In the Doric, the symmetrical proportions are

Whenever Ruskin deals with composition, he uses

33 Ruskin, J. Modern Painters, v. V, p. SO.

helpful and passionate harmony, essentially choral harmony, so called from

In common sense, the truth is defined by its contrary,

Creation, in Ruskin, is related to a God, creator of

Ruskin was not an architect; nevertheless, he considered

38 This subject is discussed in Modern Painters (v. m. V). Ruskin's ideas on

Ruskin elaborates several hypotheses to validate a

40 Ruskin, J. The Stones ojVenice, v. I, p.35 1.