Lava into crystal: Ruskin's dark materials

The essay investigates the symbolic value Ruskin attached to the dark materials of lava and black dust emerging from the Vesuvius - as described in Praeterita. The argument then follows the steps of his gradual revision of his initial revulsion. While at first connecting lava and black dust with the political and religious situation of Italy in the XIX century, Ruskin rescues dust in his essay The Ethics of Dust, showing that through crystallization the (apparently) useless dark materials can turn into beautiful regular forms. Later on, in Deucalion, he explores the nature of the geological strata and old volcanoes of the Lake District, and again discovers beauty in what previously was seen as useless scoria.