Christopher Woodward
Autor von In Ruins
Über den Autor
Christopher Woodward is director of the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, England where he lives.
Werke von Christopher Woodward
The Building of Bath 4 Exemplare
Windows: No.2 in a series of conservation advisory booklets produced by The Building of Bath Museum and Bath City… (1995) 3 Exemplare
Opening Doors 1 Exemplar
Zugehörige Werke
The Smiles of Rome: A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers (2005) — Mitwirkender — 57 Exemplare
Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman — Einführung — 5 Exemplare
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Woodward distinguishes between an artistic response to ruins as emotionally engaging as “half empty” and Hitler’s exaltation of Roman ruins as the “half full” attraction to millenia lasting monuments of Empire.
Further chapters explore haunted houses with Byron, Italian ruins with Shelley, ruins as a metaphor for the decay of individual life, brilliant chapters about the changing sensibility for monastic ruins following the English Reformation and the successful English architect Sir John Soanes’ interest in ruins, culminating in his leaving his specially constructed London house (filled to display his collection of antiquities and art) as a museum to the nation under an Act of Parliament on the proviso that as far as possible it is to be left unchanged.
There is a chapter considering the “Ozymandias Complex” which playfully considers artists and writers feelings of the temporary nature of empire and success. Another considering responses to ruins created by war, referencing national responses to the destruction of the Second World War, especially John Piper’s paintings, and W G Sebald’s response to the military ruins at Orfordness.
The book concludes with the author’s praise for:
• Rose Macaulay’s The World My Wilderness and The Pleasure of Ruins;
• John Harris’s No Voices from the Hall (one of my favourite books); and
• Lampedusa’s The Leopard.
The book evolves from its more formal first chapter to become more personal, subjective and impressionistic, which works well for me. It very much captures its author’s love of and appreciation of the aesthetic effect of ruins. It reassures that there are others whose sensibilities resonate with ruins and fruitfully explores that response.
I enjoyed it.… (mehr)