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| Heneage Finch Ruin of Amphitheatre (possibly in Sicily) before 1812 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Heneage Finch Classical Landscape (ruined temple with Corinthian columns) before 1812 drawing British Museum |
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| Heneage Finch Ruins of Kenilworth Castle before 1812 watercolor, gouache Tate Gallery |
"In the park which surrounded our house were the ruins of the former mansion of Brentwood, a much smaller and less important house than the solid Georgian edifice which we inhabited. The ruins were picturesque, however, and gave important to the place. Even we, who were but temporary tenants, felt a vague pride in them, as if they somehow reflected a certain consequence upon ourselves. The old building had the remains of a tower, an indistinguishable mass of mason-work, overgrown with ivy, and the shells of walls attached to this were half filled up with soil. I had never examined it closely, I am ashamed to say. There was a large room, or what had been a large room, with the lower part of the windows still existing, on the principal floor, and underneath, other windows, which were perfect, though half filled up with fallen soil, and waving with a wild growth of brambles and chance growths of all kinds. This was the oldest part of all. At a little distance were some very commonplace and disjointed fragments of the building, one of them suggesting a certain pathos by its very commonness and the complete wreck which it showed. This was the end of a low gable, a bit of grey wall, all encrusted with lichens, in which was a common doorway. Probably it had been a servants' entrance, a backdoor, or opening into what are called "the offices" in Scotland. No offices remained to be entered – pantry and kitchen had all been swept out of being; but there stood the doorway open and vacant, free to all the winds, to the rabbits, and every wild creature. It struck my eye, the first time I went to Brentwood, like a melancholy comment upon a life that was over. A door that led to nothing – closed once perhaps with anxious care, bolted and guarded, now void of any meaning. It impressed me, I remember, from the first; so perhaps it may be said that my mind was prepared to attach to it an importance which nothing justified."
– from The Open Door by Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897)
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| Richard Wilson Landscape with Bathers, Cattle and Ruin ca. 1770-75 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Wilson Maecenas' Villa, Tivoli ca. 1765 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Wilson Hadrian's Villa ca. 1765 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Wilson Strada Nonentana (outside Rome) ca. 1765-70 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Wilson Lake Ruin and Pine Trees ca. 1765-70 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Wright of Derby Virgil's Tomb (Naples) by Moonlight, with Silius Italicus declaiming 1779 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, which lay scattered, and surveyed the sublimity and grandeur of the ruins, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times when these walls stood proudly in their original splendour, when the halls were scenes of hospitality and festive magnificence, and when they resounded with the voices of those whom death had long since swept from the earth. "Thus," said, I, "shall the present generation – he who now sinks in misery and he who now swims in pleasure – alike pass away and be forgotten."
– from A Sicilian Romance, by Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823)
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| Jacques Martin Sylvestre Bence and Louis-François Cassas Vue d'une partie des ruines du temple de Jupiter à Agrigente ca. 1801 hand-colored engraving Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Pieter van Bloemen Landscape with herdsmen and animals in front of the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, Rome ca. 1700 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Alexander Cozens Ruined Tower under a Stormy Sky before 1786 watercolor Tate Gallery |
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| John Constable Sketch for Hadleigh Castle ca. 1828-29 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| William Taverner Landscape composition, with the foundations of a ruined building in the foreground before 1772 watercolor Tate Gallery |