Ruins of Despair

@ruinsofdespair

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)

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Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· 27d

The Old Temple Hubert Robert 1787–88 #art #painting

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· 27d

Happy Birthday! Remember to make a wish.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· 27d

The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe. Ending to 'Darkness' by Lord Byron, assumably written in July 1816 during 'The Year Without a Summer'. #wyrdwednesday #art Józef Rapacki 1918

Józef Rapacki: 'Nokturn'

A dark oil painting of chapel with a statue of Saint.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· 28d

Summer Moon Frederic Leighton (c. 1872) #art #painting

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· 28d

Here's The Public Universal Friend (1752–1819) to wish you Happy International Non-Binary People's Day! The Friend had no pronouns. In English, my pronouns are they/them. My native language, Finnish, has no gendered pronouns. Most languages in the world don't have gendered pronouns.

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jul 3

Walk with Lanterns Ilya Repin 1879 #art #painting #impressionism

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jul 3

A cartoon by Thomas Nast from 160 years ago, titled 'Why He Cannot Sleep', shows Jefferson Davis – imprisoned at the time – haunted by the spirit of Columbia and the ghosts of Union soldiers. #PhantomsFriday #July4th #250th #history

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 28

Offering to the God Pan Paul Delaroche 1855 #art #painting

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 28

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; – John Keats 1819 #art Marcel Rieder

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 27

Ave Maria Edward Okun 1902 #art #painting

An oil painting. A solemn file of hooded figures threads through cypresses at dusk, drawn past a luminous gothic window of a chapel.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 27

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. – Alfred Tennyson, 1847 #art William Turner of Oxford, 1832 #bookwormsat

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 24

I love how every painting depicts Prometheus suffering horribly, but Gustave Moreau decides to make him just incredibly pissed off.

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 21

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Black-and-white photograph of grotesques, by Ségolène Le Men.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 21

In 66 years, a different solstice 21 June 2092, 11am a black sun arose: an orb, the size of that luminary, but dark, defined, whose beams were shadows, ascended from the west; in about an hour it had reached the meridian, and eclipsed the bright parent of day. Mary Shelley, The Last Man, 1826

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 20

Nothing, in fact, can equal the beauty of the northern summer’s evening and night, if night it may be called that only wants the glare of day, the full light which frequently seems so impertinent, for I could write at midnight very well without a candle. Mary Wollstonecraft 1796 #art H.Munsterhjelm

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 20

White nights #juhannus #finland #midsummer #solstice

'juhannuskokko' (Midsummer bonfire) 1930
by Valokuvaamo Pietinen, Helsinki.
Finnish Heritage Agency

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 19

'The figure with outstretched hands pointed at me and said: Granby Manners, you will die in this room!' #Illustration by Sidney Paget for 'The Face in the Dark' by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, 1903. The story takes place between the 18th and 22nd of 'a very hot June'. #phantomsfriday

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!

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· Jun 1

'and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door.' – J. S. Le Fanu, Carmilla 1872 Happy Pride Month!

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 22

Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever! No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure. – Percy Shelley, Prometheus Unbound *** Great God! Why did I not then expire!…Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 22

'The Mother's Ghost' William Bell Scott 1844 #phantomsfriday

Pen and ink over pencil on sepia-toned paper. The mother has appeared in the doorway; the dogs are spooked.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 20

La galerie Notre-Dame, Paris #art Charles Meryon 1853

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 20

Vacant heart and hand and eye, Easy live and quiet die. – Lucy Ashton's song from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott (1819) #wyrdwednesday

Frontispiece of Lucy with her lute for The Bride of Lammermoor in Scott's Magnum Opus

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 8

'Orpheus' #art George de Forest Brush 1890

An oil painting depicting the unclad Orpheus, sporting only his sandals and a laurel wreath. He reclines on a black velvety-looking robe, leaning on a rock on a beach, and plays a golden lyre. Brown bunny rabbits have come to listen.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 8

'Mrs. Collins & Her Husband's Father, Recognized by Several.' F. M. Parkes 1875 #phantomsfriday

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 6

Temple de la Concorde à Rome Etching by C.-L. Clérisseau, early 19th C #art

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 6

Mother of this unfathomable world! Favour my solemn song, for I have loved Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, And my heart ever gazes on the depth Of thy deep mysteries. – P. B. Shelley, 'Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude' #wyrdwednesday 1/2

'Solitude' by Thomas Alexander Harrison (1893).

An oil painting of a dark, tranquil scene on a lake or a pond. In the middle is a moonlit row boat with its oar resting on the surface of the water. In the bow stands a naked figure with elbows raised and hands wedged behind their head, looking towards the shore or into the distance.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 3

A View of Königssee Dániel Somogyi (1879) #art #painting #landscape

An oil painting of an Alpine lake in bright green, brown, and blue tones. The water is azure, the sky is bright blue.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 3

A View of Königssee Dániel Somogyi (1878) #art #painting #landscape

An oil painting of an Alpine lake in earthy green, brown, and light grey tones. The water is dark, the sky is fair blue.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 2

Der pinkelnde Tod (Pissing Death) Max Klinger 1880 #art #painting

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.

Ruins of Despair@ruinsofdespair· May 2

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness; – P. B. Shelley, 'The Sensitive Plant' 1820 #bookwormsat #illustration by Charles Robinson 1911