The Lamp of Sacrifice

Previously:

In my previous post about the Seven Lamps Project. I mentioned that I’d be reading through each chapter and hopefully summarizing each as a blog post. This is meant to help me absorb and wrestle with the material, since I’m forced to put it in to my own words (other than quotations of course). The end goal is to synthesize this work with the practice of software architecture. This post makes up the summary for the first chapter of the book: “The Lamp of Sacrifice”.

I have not given a good background for either Ruskin or the book, so let me correct that. John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a Victorian polymath who wrote on many subjects. Notable among those works are his writings on architecture (or really, aesthetics in general). He was very influential even during his lifetime, counting Oscar Wilde, G.K. Chesterton, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and Ezra Pound among those influenced by his writings, even still having institutions named after him. The Seven Lamps of Architecture was first published in 1849 as an essay, and then expanded in The Stones of Venice. It framed much of the Gothic revival of architecture as part of its criticism, as it captured many of the thoughts of the movement. Ruskin later disavowed the contents as a ‘wretched rant’, but it remains a thought-provoking look at the idea of beauty as derived from nature and crafted by man, in honor of God.

In the introduction to the book, Ruskin set out the stakes for Architecture in general, that is, not only having the failure of an actual building at stake, but also the potential failure of understanding what it is to build, and knowing what is even being built. He hinted at the possibility of pragmatism overriding the Good, and the architect possibly mistaking the art of architecture as so base that it doesn’t warrant the full weight and consideration of both man and God. Thus, having suitably set the stage for what’s at stake, and emphasizing the determination with which the architect must pursue his craft, the first lamp is introduced. (You can read more about the introduction in the previous post linked above.)

But first, what is “Architecture”? Ruskin makes a delineation between “building” and “architecture”, stating that “building” is not architecture, building is to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or receptacle of a considerable size, and that “building” does not become “architecture” just because of the stability of what it erects. It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference because there can sometimes be the pretense of what Ruskin calls “architecturism”, but architecture is that which is above and beyond a building’s common use.

Architecture is the art that considers the common uses of a building and impresses on its form that which is venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary.

Architecture then, is not the four walls that make a home, but rather, the rounded arch over a door, or ornamentation under the gables.

The types of architecture fall into five categories or “heads”:

  1. Devotional — for God’s service or honor
  2. Memorial — monuments and tombs
  3. Civil — national or society buildings, for common business or pleasure
  4. Military — defensive structures
  5. Domestic — every rank and kind of dwelling place

So we know what architecture is, but what about the “lamp”? Ruskin writes that when he uses “lamp”, he means the “spirit” of something, and by that spirit of sacrifice, he means that which chooses the hardest or more expensive path. With these two words defined, we can proceed with a negative definition of the lamp of sacrifice, which is “the opposite of the prevalent feeling of modern times, which desires to produce the largest results at the least cost.”

Ruskin then divides the lamp of sacrifice into two forms:

  1. The wish for self-denial for the sake of self-discipline.
  2. The desire to honor or please someone by the costliness of the sacrifice.

Let’s tackle them separately.

First, the wish for self-denial for the sake of self-discipline. This form is mostly private, though it may be known to others as well. I like to think of it as related to art, where someone may paint a picture using only stippling, or a photographer that chooses to work in black and white, as a way of practicing the self-denial leading to better discipline.

Ruskin goes even further in saying that in many circumstances, we should consider and acknowledge the good of self-sacrifice as a personal advantage, and that we should not be solely driven by calculations of the good as relative to the grievance to ourselves. Self-sacrifice is something we should consider a blessing-in-disguise for an unfortunate circumstance, a chance to foster within ourselves the virtue of temperance as related to a particular techne.

Second, when discussing the honoring of someone by the costliness of sacrifice, Ruskin does not have in mind the pleasing of a building’s benefactor or user even, but rather, the pleasantness of the building to God. This is usually a public sacrifice, though the worldly beauty that may accompany this is a byproduct of the adoration of the architect of God, and in fact the architectural sacrifice is a way of pointing to God’s sacrifice for humanity (Ruskin was thinking about cathedrals in particular). Architecture becomes a way of reminding us of God’s covenant.

The particular type of sacrifice that Ruskin had in mind isn’t limited to a particular area of self-deprivation, but rather falls into a general category of what Ruskin calls the “tithe of time”. Not only time is to be sacrificed, but more, described in a set of three pairs should be sacrificed: skill and treasure, strength and mind, time and toil. These offerings are not sacrificial in the Levitical sense of the word, but rather thankful offerings.

As a final digression on the two natures of the lamp of sacrifice, Ruskin opens the can of worms as to whether any human sacrifice not beneficial to men can be honoring to God, but I’ll skip that part of the summary as it constitutes a larger theological piece than I want to get in to here. The short version of this would be that the spirit is important, as these two quotes show:

I do not want marble churches at all for their own sake, but for the sake of the spirit that would build them.

And:

It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration; not the gift but the giving.

With that lengthy introduction into the nature of sacrifice out of the way, Ruskin finally turns his gaze towards something concrete in the practical sense. He starts with two prescriptions for the architect to keep in mind:

  1. In every thing do our best.
  2. Consider increase of apparent labor as an increase of beauty in a building.

The first is easy enough to understand, but he goes on to say that our work constantly has the look of “money’s worth” or “lazy compliance with low conditions”, instead of a fair putting forth of strength. We voluntarily degrade ourselves in our architecture and then complain over our shortcomings. Ruskin even goes so far as to say that we should favor the best work that is unfinished over work that is bad. Man intuitively calls out this lackadaisical work with a sense of wrong, as if his nature attests that “the strength of man was never intended by God to be sacrificed in vain.”

Concluding the chapter are a series of short recommendations to consider when designing architectural features: we should prefer what is good of a lower order of work or material over what is bad of a higher order of work or material, that when considering the ornamentation of a building we should consider the distance of the eye to the object, and that ornamentation in general can never be overused if it is good, but is always overused when it is bad.

Ruskin ends the chapter with a reflection on the reverence of the old builders:

The have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honors, and their errors: but they have left us their adoration.