Ruin by the Sea

Arnold Böcklin was the most influential figure in German-speaking Symbolism, and his melancholy visions of antiquity made him a touchstone for de Chirico and the Surrealists. Ruin by the Sea condenses the mood that runs through his later career: a fragment of classical architecture standing in a desolate coastal setting, rendered with the painstaking finish he insisted on even for his most dreamlike subjects. The work epitomizes the Böcklin mood that contemporaries failed to imitate, and it helped clear the way for the metaphysical painting of the next century.