Illustration to “Contrasts”. Medieval Catholic Christian [top drawing] versus nineteenth-century Protestant Utilitarian [below]. Source: Plates 33 and 34 in Hewison, John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye, which explains that Pugin depicts a nineteenth-century city in which “sectarian chapels replace Gothic churches, and an ironworks is built over the ruins of an abbey. Though he rejected Pugin's Roman Catholic slant, Ruskin nonetheless drew the same conclusions about the relationship between the state of architecture and the condition of society.”
Hewison, Robert. John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye.. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. Chapter 5.
Last modified 3 September 2014