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Romantic Ruins - Gothic Dreams of Decay and Destruction
http://romantic-ruins.blogspot.com/
The interest in ruins is a major theme of Romanticism, the dark Romantic of the gothic novels. There is a strong longing for decay, death and destruction. Ruins as icons are picking up the symbolism of older baroque vanitas paintings, reminding us of the futility of our doing and the limitedness of all. In modern films this images are used to illustrate impending perils of humanity. But if you have a closer look at these films you will soon discover the old dark romantic lust in decay and destruction.
Recent Posts
Baroque Decay
I don’t know another city where the baroque passion for the vanitas the symbol of the futility of live and human efforts is so present, it finds its correlation in the whole city which seems to fall apart.The skull the main symbol of the vanitas ca...
Fashion and Decay
In the Vogue Italy appeared in June 2007 this editorial by the famous fashion photographer Steven Meisel (maybe my favourite).It shows different models in the scenery of abandoned and derelict industrial architecture. Meisel likes this morbid atmosph...
Past and Present
The Past (1838)The Present (1838)The English-American artist Thomas Cole (1801-1848) confronts here two paintings showing the same castle in different epochs, first in the middle ages during it’s best time, second today as a ruin. In the painting o...
One small stone, one giant leap in ruin history
Probably it’s neither a nice photo nor an impressive ruin, nevertheless it is one of the most important buildings in the history of ruins.It is the so called Ponte Ruinante (the ruined bridge) part of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and probably desi...
Al-Qaeda Fantasy
When I saw these paintings by Boris Vallejo for the first time, I couldn’t avoid thinking of the 9/11. Maybe old Osama and the guys in Afghanistan were great fans of Boris Vallejo. But in the end I don’t think so. The big similarity derives from ...
Colosseum Ruins for Dallas
Not long ago I stumbled upon this interesting project called CO-OP CANYON by the architecture firm Standard. It was planned as a sustainable, zero carbon, no waste water community of modern, terraced urban dwelling house in Dallas.This architects cla...
