Accidental nature

From Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul: Memories and the City": In 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture', John Ruskin devotes much of the chapter entitled 'Memory' to the beauties of the picturesque, attributing the particular beauty of this sort of architecture, and (as opposed to that of carefully planned classical forms) to its accidental nature. So when he describes something as picturesque ('like a picture') he is describing an architectural landscape that has, over time, become beautiful in a way never forseen by its creators. For Ruskin, picturesque beauty rises out of details that emerge only after the byildings have been standing for hundreds of years, from the ivy, the herbs, the grassy meadows that surrounded it, from the rocks in the distance, the clouds in the sky and the choppy sea. So there is nothing picturesque about a new building, which demands to be seen on its own terms; it only becomes picturesque after history has endowed it with accidental beauty and granted us a fortuitous new perspective.' (p 229)