John Ruskin and the beauty of ornament as a way to truth and salvation

The notion of ornament lies outside a mere artistic treatise; in fact, it is the direct expression of a metaphysics of Being and of a more general vision of man and of society. Beauty does not depend on concepts and on the general; rather, it thrives on particulars and details. The importance that Ruskin ascribes to detail – and to ornament expressed through detail – is metaphysical. Ornament comes from detail and spreads through art in its entirety. In such a non-systematic thought as Ruskin’s, the notion of ornament presents itself as chaotic and contradictory, but it can become a magnet for the several Ruskinian themes that refer to heterogeneous sources and to each other without following strict theoretical paths: the ornament is the theme where Ruskin’s theoretical cruces and social projects come together.