Select a piece of artwork that, to you, reflects an aspect of ruin. Post the picture with the title and author and write a 100 words about ruin in the painting.
Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner
The painting shows the burning of the House of Lords. A fire started in one of the chimneys and quickly spread throughout the building, catching adjacent buildings on fire as well. The painting depicts the ruin that the fire has brought to London. Thousands of spectators stand watching the flames engulf their parliament, bringing ruin to the city, its leaders and people.
This would be a helpful assignment because it would further show human’s fascination with ruin. There are thousands of paintings of tornados, fires, burned houses, ruined buildings, people living in ruin, etc. Each person would most likely come up with a different painting, or identify ruin differently depending on the subject. For example, a ruined building versus a person who is ruined. The two paintings would represent two very different subject matters, which could lead to interesting discussions. The different subjects would be very interesting to discuss with in small groups.
When I was completing the assignment, I realized there were at least three ways to approach the assignment. I could search for “ruin paintings”, which leads to a bunch of paintings of crumbling buildings. I could think of an aspect of ruin, such as fire, burning, storms, tornadoes, people living in poverty, death, etc., and find a painting that looked like ruin to me out of the paintings that appeared in the Google image search. Or I could search for a painting that had ruin in the title, so I would be picking the painting based on the artist believing his/her painting depicted as aspect of ruin.
When I did the assignment, I really enjoyed exploring all the different paintings that could fall under the category of ruin. A lot of them weren’t even remotely similar. Some inspired awe, others were dark and full of terror, others were simply sad, some were colorful and filled with sunlight and others devoid of life. It was interesting to see different artist’s depictions of ruin as well. Because this could promote so much discussion, I think this assignment would be valuable.
-Elyssa Reisman
