Artwork Page for Ruin by the Sea

Details / Information for Ruin by the Sea

Ruin by the Sea

1881

Arnold Böcklin

(Swiss, 1827–1901)
Culture
Switzerland
Medium
oil on fabric
Measurements
Framed: 132.1 x 102.9 x 8.3 cm (52 x 40 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.); Unframed: 111 x 82 cm (43 11/16 x 32 5/16 in.)
Credit Line
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1979.57
Public Domain
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Location
219 19th Century European
Print
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Did You Know?

Who used to live in this crumbling villa on a lonely shore? Böcklin's eerie painting seems to beg the question of the building's history and the circumstances of its ruin. Haunted by the past, this scene also contains premonitions of future peril.

Description

The dark, ruined villa in this painting is made especially mysterious by the strange cypress trees tossed by the wind. A nervous green light flickers through the scene. Influenced by German Romantic art of the early 1800s, Böcklin was preoccupied with dreamlike images suggestive of death.
A vertically oriented oil painting depicts a towering, ruined building with crumbling beige walls with windows and archways, against a cloudy, gray sky, waves cast in darkness in the lower left. Muted sunrays from cracks in the clouds illuminate the ruins. The tallest section of the ruins juts up in the center, on which black birds perch. From within the building on the right, three fluffy, narrow trees sway to the right, black birds flying behind them.

Ruin by the Sea

1881

Arnold Böcklin

(Swiss, 1827–1901)
Switzerland

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