Ruins of Despair

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A weary pilgrim on the grave of the Romantic Hero, a forlorn eulogist cast upon the desolate shore of the exquisite agony that is The Gothic. #books #art #gothic #romanticism 'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' (P.B. Shelley)

Capriccio of a temple. One of four large canvases commissioned to decorate a salon at the Château de Méréville, arranged so the walls seemed to dissolve into fantastical scenes of Classical architecture.
A red apple with a birthday candle
Józef Rapacki: 'Nokturn' A dark oil painting of chapel with a statue of Saint.
Oil painting, muted palette of dusky blues, browns and ochre. Two women in classical drapery recline together on a stone bench beneath an arched niche, one resting her head on the other's shoulder.
The Public Universal Friend, American preacher (1821) The Friend claimed to have died and been reanimated as a genderless evangelist named the Public Universal Friend after suffering a severe illness, and then rejected both birth name and all pronouns and switched to androgynous attire. The Friend was from a Quaker family and preached mostly Quaker theology, emphasizing free will, anti-slavery and sexual abstinence. Followers of the Friend became the Society of Universal Friends.
Oil painting showing children of different ages walking through the lush woods or a garden in night-time. A lean adult figure with them, with their back to us, holds up a lantern with a warm glow.
Harper’s Weekly, 7 July 1866. Wood engraving in black. The scene shows Jefferson Davis, the former Confederate president, in his bed. A skeletal apparition has crept into bed with him, pointing to a bullet hole in its skull, and more are climbing through the window. Outside we see a gallows in the moonlight. Civil War battle scenes in the background. Beside the bed, spectral Columbia holding her arm out to showcase the horrors.
Oil painting in deep greens. Two figures kneel before a small altar in a forest clearing. A rowing boat moored by a stone trough in the foreground, draped with a red cloth.
Beauté crépusculaire au bord du lac d'Annecy / Rêverie au bord du lac d'Annecy (Twilight beauty on Annecy's lakeside) by Marcel Rieder (1862-1942) An oil painting. A candlelit supper laid on a vine-draped terrace above a moonlit lake, two women lingering in the lamplight as dusk settles over the hills beyond.
An oil painting. A solemn file of hooded figures threads through cypresses at dusk, drawn past a luminous gothic window of a chapel.
Dawn in the Valleys of Devon by William Turner of Oxford (1832) Watercolor with scratching out and gum arabic on wove paper. Landscape of a wooded valley at dawn. Dark green-blue hills and trees in the foreground, against a glowing amber-grey sky breaking through cloud. Sheep graze in a meadow at lower left, beside a winding path leading into the valley between tree-covered slopes.
Gustave Moreau 1868. Prometheus, chained to a cliff with a small flame burning upon his head, sits upright and gazes pointedly into the distance as a vulture nibbles on his liver.
Black-and-white photograph of grotesques, by Ségolène Le Men.
Eclisse di sole alle Fondamenta Nove (1842) Eclipse of the Sun in Venice on 8 July 1842 By Ippolito Caffi. An oil painting with a view from Fondamenta Nove out to the lagoon. People have gathered to watch as the Sun is eclipsed by the Moon, forming a dramatic, stark sector of remaining light in the sky.
Still Summer Evening, a View from Häme by Hjalmar Munsterhjelm (Finnish), late 19C. A bright-as-day summer lake shore with birch trees and a rowing boat.
'juhannuskokko' (Midsummer bonfire) 1930 by Valokuvaamo Pietinen, Helsinki. Finnish Heritage Agency
Harmsworth London Magazine vol 10, 1903. A black-and-white image of a young man or boy nervously walking down a gallery with a lit candle. Behind him, a dark-robed figure. Text: The figure with outstretched hands pointed at me and said: Granby Manners, you will die in this room!
Watercolour by Georges Rochegrosse, engraved by E. Decisy. Illustration for Camille Mauclair's (Séverin Faust) Le poison des pierreries, 1903. 'Ce fut dans un chaud crépuscule' (It was in a warm twilight) Hand-coloured etching with a garden scene in soft pastels. Two women in light flowing dresses embrace each other and kiss, leaning against a tree.
Two details of the oil painting 'Prometheus Bound' by Antonio Zanchi (1631–1722): A chained leg and chained arms, with the tip of a birds wing visible against the bright blue sky.
Pen and ink over pencil on sepia-toned paper. The mother has appeared in the doorway; the dogs are spooked.
Etching on green paper.
Frontispiece of Lucy with her lute for The Bride of Lammermoor in Scott's Magnum Opus
A spirit photograph by F. M. Barnes. A middle-aged woman posing with what looks like a bust or a drawing of an older man in her lap.
Etching with light wash, black-and-white with warm grey tones. Ruined temple with Corinthian columns, shrubs growing on the stonework. To the left, a ruined arch with a woman hanging laundry from a wooden rack above it. In the foreground, a man and a woman converse. A distant cityscape visible through the arch.
An oil painting of an Alpine lake in bright green, brown, and blue tones. The water is azure, the sky is bright blue.
An oil painting of an Alpine lake in earthy green, brown, and light grey tones. The water is dark, the sky is fair blue.
An oil painting of a skeletal figure with a scythe standing on a sandbank and peeing in the water. Muted beige, ochre, grey, and green.
Keats's grave in Rome, sans daisies. The photograph is from the 1913 book 'Shrines old and new, and other poems' by one 'obscure and unworthy disciple', as Thomas Devey Jermyn Farmer calls himself in the dedication: TO THE MEMORY OF Those Illustrious Two WHO "GAZING ON NATURE'S NAKED LOVELINESS" AND FOLLOWING HER IN SINGLENESS OF HEART REVIVED AND RESTORED THE PURITY OF ENGLISH POETRY AND WHOSE DUST FOREVER HALLOWS TESTACCIO'S HILL AT ROME, AN OBSCURE AND UNWORTHY DISCIPLE DEDICATES THESE HUMBLE EFFORTS The text below the image ("For here rests that sweet flower of song, than whom / No sweeter ever faded in its bloom.") is from Farmer's poem 'To a Violet' (Gathered on the grave of Keats at Rome.)
A frontal face with heavy-lidded eyes, framed by a mass of intertwined serpents; the figure's raised hands hold dripping bowls of black liquid that the snakes drink. On the sides, smoke or gas oozing from poppies. Gold and orange and blue-grey tones.
The Ghost Scene from ‘The Castle of Otranto’ by Susanna Duncombe (née Susanna Highmore, 1725–1812) Graphite, ink and watercolour on paper The horrified Isabella chased by Manfred in the hallway as the portrait begins to descend.
An oil painting. A figure wearing a white white robe in a landscape of conifers, facing a radiant moon; rays cut through the shadows of the trees.
'Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, O Rotha, with thy living wave!' Photograph of Wordsworth's grave by St Oswald's Church in Grasmere. Thomas Ogle 1850s. An overgrown plot with grass and wildflowers, multiple headstones. A taller monument in the background, and a church.
'The Wave' by Ivan Aivazovsky 1889. An oil painting with a storm at sea. The hues are greenish blue, as the huge waves fill the majority of the image. A sailship is being swallowed by the sea, and the crew is escaping in a small boat. Some have drowned.
Close-up of the little black dog in the illustration.
The Elgin Marbles moved back to the British Museum in London from their War-time home in a London Underground Railway tunnel. The photograph shows two men with centre slab of the East Frieze of the Parthenon with the Peplos Scene. Photographed at the British Museum, 27 November 1948.
Note: The translation is by E. P. Coleridge (1891), with the exception that the word 'car' is replaced by 'chariot', as is customary these days. Image: 'Diomède dévoré par ses chevaux' An oil painting showing the King of Thrace being attacked by four horses in a classical setting. The palette is muted and pastel, contrasting sharply with the subject of the painting. One of the enraged horses is brown and three are white. Diomedes is depicted as a young man in the state of undress and deep fear and anguish.
An unrelated brown bear; just an innocent bystander, really. Handcolored engraving by Manceau after an illustration by Edouard Travies from Charles d Orbignys Dictionnaire Universel d Histoire Naturelle, 1849.
An oil painting of Roman ruins, dominated by tall classical columns and a triumphal arch in the middle distance, with further ruined arcaded structures beyond. Fallen column drums and masonry in the foreground, where two small human figures sit amongst the rubble. Warm ochres and earthy browns against a pale blue sky with billowing clouds. Lush dark green trees to the left.
A black-and-white engraving titled 'A GHOST STORY'. A group of women a gathered downstair by the fireplace to listen an old woman tell a story. They are a bit startled as someone is just about to come downstair, yawning. In the upper right corner is depicted the story being told: looks like a woman standing infront of a painting, out of which stretches out an arm to pull her in.
An oil painting on panel, depicting the interior of a ruined Gothic chapel or crypt, with heavily carved stone arches, clustered columns, and ornate tracery. A lit Gothic window at the far. A woman and a man crouch against a column to the right, beside a pail. Two inscribed floor slabs are visible in the foreground. Deep olive-brown and slate tones with warm highlights.
A RIDDLE. 'Twas in heaven pronounced, and 'twas muttered in hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell ; On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confest. 'Twill be found in the sphere, when 'tis riven asunder, Be seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder. 'Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath, Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death, Presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health, Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth. In the heaps of the miser 'tis hoarded with care, But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir. It begins every hope, every wish it must bound, With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crown'd. Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam, But woe to the wretch who expels it from home ! In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found, Nor e'en in the whirlpool of passion be drown'd. … NO SPACE FOR THE ENDING IN THE ALT TEXT, BUT HOPEFULLY YOU'VE GUESSED IT ALREADY!
The letter E Image: The Passage to Eternity by Gabriel Jurkić 1918 oil on canvas A symbolistic painting. Under a vast starry sky, the night landscape of a flower meadow features a winged angel in white at the foot of a lit stone staircase, bowing their head. Two small stone pillars with a stream of smoke coming out of each of them. To the right, a stony ravine.
Dawn by Joseph Farquharson (1846–1935) An oil painting in greens, yellows, and blues. A heron takes flight on a lake.
An oil painting in deep browns and blacks with warm ochre-gold and cool pale grey-white for the light-flooded wall. A figure sits before a large arched window, through which bright, dappled light streams diagonally across a stone interior. Steps and a carved stone monument are faintly visible to the right.
Here we see a lightning flash of Edmund Kean as Richard III, circa 1814. Print by George Cruikshank etching, hand-colored A Shakespearean actor in a dramatic pose with a sword.
Oil painting. A coastal sunset scene with umbrella pines silhouetted on the left, a stone castle with round towers connected to the shore by an arched bridge in the middle distance, and a small rowing boat with figures to the right. Palette of deep amber and gold in the glowing sky, offset by cool blue-grey water and clouds. Rocky foreground shoreline.
Image: Rudolf Nureyev dancing his 1979 choreography for Tchaikovsky's 'Manfred', Paris Opera Garnier. Detail from photo by FRANCETTE LEVIEUX / FONDATION RUDOLF NOUREEV
Text: 'Manfred: A dramatic poem' by Lord Byron 1816–1817. Image: Rudolf Nureyev dancing his 1979 choreography for Tchaikovsky's 'Manfred', Paris Opera Garnier. Photo by FRANCETTE LEVIEUX / FONDATION RUDOLF NOUREEV
A detailed oil painting of a panoramic townscape viewed from a wooded hillside. A German town with a castle on a hill and church spires spreads across a broad river valley, framed by tall conifers and a deciduous tree in the foreground. A small figure leads cattle along a track in the middle distance. Deep greens and earthy browns, with a clouded sky of blue, grey, and white.
Deadly nightshade, illustration from 'The Instructive Picturebook, or Lessons from the Vegetable World,' by Charlotte Mary Yonge 1858.
Illustration from Pearson's Magazine, April 1905, drawn by Benjamin Edwin Minns. The housekeeper has to rescue the unconscious man from the plants grip. Text: 'She tugged with renewed strength at Wedderburn's motionless body, and brought the strange orchid crashing to the floor.'
From Die Muskete. Two-color lithograph print in red and black on cream paper. A robed and crowned skeleton figure clutching a sword stands left, with a circular void (the sun) at its chest. The text 'DIE SONNE LACHT!' arcs to the upper right. At lower right, a prostrate male figure lies among grass and flowers, head turned upward.
An oil painting. A robed figure kneels in prayer inside a cave hermitage, beside a small wooden cross and a hanging oil lamp. The cave opens onto a sunlit coastal landscape with a distant mountain and a tree silhouetted against a pale blue sky. Warm ochres and deep umbers dominate the interior, contrasting with the bright greens and blues of the exterior. Visible craquelure throughout the surface of the painting.
Map of Cumberland and the Ancient Citie Carlile, 1610 Hand coloured engraving By John Speed, published by J Sudbury and George Humble, Popes Head Alley, London, 1611-12.
A photo of a piece of text in a book: Berenice EDGAR ALLAN POE Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas EBN ZAIAT (Translation: My companions said that if I visited the grave of a friend, my worries would be somewhat alleviated.)
An oil painting. A straight canal recedes to a distant vanishing point, flanked by two dense rows of tall, dark trees. A full moon sits high in a teal-green sky, casting a broken white reflection along the water's surface; a small red light glows at mid-distance on the canal. The foreground bank is lined with reeds and grasses.
Also known as The Apparitionist; the full title is 'Der Geisterseher – Aus den Papieren des Grafen von O**' (The Ghost-Seer – From the papers of the Count of O**) Photo: a 19th century double exposure by The London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company