Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- INDEX TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
- INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME
- BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
- The Stones of Venice, Vol. II. (CONTANING THE TEXT OF ALL THE EDITIONS)
- FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD
- SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD
- AUTHORS APPENDIX
- 1 THE GONDOLIER'S CRY
- 2 OUR LADY OF SALVATION
- 3 TIDES OF VENICE, AND MEASURES AT TORCELLO
- 4 DATE OF THE DUOMO OF TORCELLO
- 5 MODERN PULPITS
- 6 APSE OF MURANO
- 7 EARLY VENETIAN DRESS
- 8 INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO
- 9 SHAFTS OF ST. MARK
- 10 PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY
- 11 SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES
- 12 MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS
- 13 LETTERS BY RUSKIN ON The Stones of Venice AND ITS INFLUENCE
- 14 PREFACE BY WILLIAM MORRIS TO CHAP. VI. (‘THE NATURE OF GOTHIC’)
- 15 NOTE BY THE AUTHOR TO CHAP. VIII. (‘THE DUCAL PALACE’)
- 16 THE CAPITALS OF THE DUCAL PALACE: LIST OF SUBJECTS
- Plate section
5 - MODERN PULPITS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- INDEX TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
- INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME
- BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
- The Stones of Venice, Vol. II. (CONTANING THE TEXT OF ALL THE EDITIONS)
- FIRST, OR BYZANTINE, PERIOD
- SECOND, OR GOTHIC, PERIOD
- AUTHORS APPENDIX
- 1 THE GONDOLIER'S CRY
- 2 OUR LADY OF SALVATION
- 3 TIDES OF VENICE, AND MEASURES AT TORCELLO
- 4 DATE OF THE DUOMO OF TORCELLO
- 5 MODERN PULPITS
- 6 APSE OF MURANO
- 7 EARLY VENETIAN DRESS
- 8 INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO
- 9 SHAFTS OF ST. MARK
- 10 PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY
- 11 SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES
- 12 MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS
- 13 LETTERS BY RUSKIN ON The Stones of Venice AND ITS INFLUENCE
- 14 PREFACE BY WILLIAM MORRIS TO CHAP. VI. (‘THE NATURE OF GOTHIC’)
- 15 NOTE BY THE AUTHOR TO CHAP. VIII. (‘THE DUCAL PALACE’)
- 16 THE CAPITALS OF THE DUCAL PALACE: LIST OF SUBJECTS
- Plate section
Summary
There is no character of an ordinary modern English church which appears to me more to be regretted than the peculiar pompousness of the furniture of the pulpits, contrasted, as it generally is, with great meagreness and absence of colour in the other portions of the church; a pompousness, besides, altogether without grace or meaning, and dependent merely on certain applications of upholstery; which, curiously enough, are always in worse taste than those even of our drawing-rooms. Nor do I understand how our congregations can endure the aspect of the wooden sounding-board, attached only by one point of its circumference to an upright pillar behind the preacher; and looking as if the weight of its enormous leverage must infallibly, before the sermon is concluded, tear it from its support, and bring it down upon the preacher's head. These errors in taste and feeling will, however, I believe, be gradually amended as more Gothic churches are built; but the question of the position of the pulpit presents a more disputable ground of discussion.
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- Information
- The Works of John Ruskin , pp. 445 - 446Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1904