Ruins of Despair
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Ruins of Despair
@ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
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A weary pilgrim on the grave of the Romantic Hero, a forlorn eulogist cast upon the desolate shore of the exquisite agony that is The Gothic.

#books #gothic #romanticism

'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' (P.B. Shelley)
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Ivan Suytin's interpretation of the Russian version of Snow Maiden, Snegurochka.

Circa 1900

#LegendaryWednesday #folklore #fairytale
Colour lithograph by Ivan Suytin Moscow, ca. 1900. An elderly man and woman in traditional winter clothing stand in a snowy landscape, reaching toward a girl made of snow. In the background is a village with snow-covered houses and children playing in the snow.
December 3, 2025 at 12:10 PM
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“Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning ..."

Mr Enfield leads us on the dark journey that we know as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by R. L. Stevenson.

#WyrdWednesday 🩸📚💙
Illustration by Edward A. Wilson 1952. Black-and-white drawing of Messrs. Utterson and Enfield, dressed in tailcoats and top hats, walking down a London street at night. Text: "Did you ever remark that door?"
December 3, 2025 at 5:59 AM
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'Die Ruine des Klosters Walkenried im Winter' (The Ruins of Walkenried Abbey in Winter)

Carl Hasenpflug 1843

#art #painting #gothic #winter #snow
Oil painting of the interior of a ruined Gothic cloister in winter, with tall pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and stone columns. Snow covers the floor and drifts in from the open archways. Daylight illuminates the structure through the broken walls. Scattered stones lie across the ground. There's a door to right, with a painting hanging over it. To the left, there's statue of a saint on the wall next to a doorway.
December 2, 2025 at 5:38 AM
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Cold, cold is the blast when December is howling,
Cold are the damps on a dying man's brow,—
Stern are the seas when the wild waves are rolling,
And sad is the grave where a loved one lies low;

– P.B. Shelley 1810

#poetry #gothic #romanticism #booksky #December
'Mid-Ocean, Mid-Winter' by John Singer Sargent 1876 Oil on canvas The dark waves of the wintery sea.
December 1, 2025 at 12:17 PM
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Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

– Edward Young, from 'Night Thoughts' 1742-1745

#poetry #gothic #books #booksky
'Die Nacht' by Ferdinand Hodler, 1889–1890 A horizontal oil painting of several nude or partially clothed people lying in exhausted poses, with a dark, shrouded figure looming over the central figure, who is awake and alarmed.
December 1, 2025 at 4:30 AM
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In the concisely titled 'TO A LADY WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN', Byron laments on the wintery setting of the proposed date, noting that Juliet romanced in a milder climate.

#ShakespeareSunday #booksky
Image: 'The Lovers Vow' by William Holyoake c. 1800 A man and a woman in winter clothing stand by a wooden stile in a snowy countryside. The man, dressed in a long tan coat and tricorne-style hat, leans forward to open the gate with a lean walking stick, while the woman in a dark blue cloak and bonnet watches beside him. Snow-covered fields, bare trees, and distant cattle in the background. Excerpt from the poem: For gardens seem, by one consent (Since Shakespeare set the precedent, Since Juliet first declared her passion), To from the place of assignation. Oh! would some modern muse inspire, And seat her by a sea-coal fire; Or had the bard at Christmas written, And laid the scene of love in Britain, He surely, in commiseration, Had changed the place of declaration. In Italy I've no objection, Warm nights are proper for reflection; But here our climate is so rigid, That love itself is rather frigid
November 30, 2025 at 8:43 AM
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'I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.'

– Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Black Cat' 1843

#motivational

#caturday #gothic #books #booksky
Black Cat by Arthur Rackham 1920 Illustration with stark contrast of black figures and light orange sky. A sullen-looking black cat sits on the branch of a tree, staring at the viewer. A dark silhouette of a castle is visible in the background.
November 29, 2025 at 2:26 PM
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'When I have fears that I may cease to be' seems prophetic to us, as Keats died only a few years after writing the sonnet.

Yet, in 1818, he was still very much alive and in those exhilarating years of young adulthood and overwhelming call of life.

#BookWormSat #poetry #booksky #romanticism
Painting: 'Winter Landscape with Skaters' by Regis Francois Gignoux 1860 A snowy scene with a frozen river or lake. It's daytime, but hazy. Several figures are skating on the ice, while a few people stand watching. Text: When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,    That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power    Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. – JOHN KEATS 1818
November 29, 2025 at 9:37 AM
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'Boulevard in the Evening'

Isaac Ilyich Levitan 1883

#art #painting #winter
A dark, almost black-and-white painting a snowy boulevard, lined with trees and small lights. Two dark figures in female attire are walking along. Further, a few other dark figures.
November 29, 2025 at 5:14 AM
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'Night Scene with a Monk in a Gothic Cloister'

A. E. Haffer 1845

#gothic #art #painting
A lonely monk, draped in white, in a vast cloister hall. Further parts of the building are lit by candlelight, the court and the dome by moonlight.
November 28, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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Fragment of a Ghost Story by P.B. Shelley

Often mistaken for Percy's entry to the famous Villa Diodati ghost story competition of 16 June 1816, that saw the drafts for Polidori's Vampyre and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Sadly, no text by Percy survives.

#PhantomsFriday #poetry #gothic #booksky
An Old Woman with a Child Lighting a Candle', after Rubens. Circle of Godfried Schalcken, late 17th c. An oil painting with softly dark atmosphere. An old woman holds a candle, shielding her eyes from the candlelight. She has a slight smile on her face. A boy pressing against the woman's shoulder looks at her lovingly, holding a candle ready to be lit. Text: A shovel of his ashes took From the hearth's obscurest nook, Muttering mysteries as she went. Helen and Henry knew that Granny Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any, And so they followed hard— But Helen clung to her brother's arm, And her own spasm made her shake.
November 28, 2025 at 10:04 AM
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'The Grave' by Robert Blair 1788

#poetry #gothic #romanticism #books #booksky
From a yellowed page of an old book: 'Tis but a night, a long and moonless night, We make the grave our bed, and then are gone. Thus, at the shut of ev'n, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledg'd wings, and bears away. FINIS.
November 27, 2025 at 2:35 PM
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'View of a Church Yard Entrance in Winter', Edmunc Koken c. 1862.

#gothic #romanticism #art #painting
Oil on canvas. A winter scene depicting a stone chapel or mausoleum with an arched wooden door, partially covered in snow. There are tall, bare trees, and a large building with spired rooftops looms softly in the foggy background. Snow blankets the ground.
November 26, 2025 at 4:58 PM
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In Goethe's version of the Faustian pact, the sacriface ought to give you pause:

If you ever come across a moment in life so beautiful that you wish it never to end, the devil will claim your life and soul.

#WyrdWednesday #romanticism #books #booksky
It is, in practice, Marguerite who ends up paying the price of her life for indiscretions of Faust, but her soul is spared. Image: Faust and Mephisto in prison, colored lithograph by Joseph Fay 1846
November 26, 2025 at 8:14 AM
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'It is actually possible to become amateurs in suffering.'

– Charles Robert Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer 1820

#goals

#gothic #books #booksky
Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 'The Cat and the Monkey' 1739. A painting of a black cat and a monkey infront of a fireplace, in what seems to be a classical villa. The monkey is prodding the cat to pull hot coals out of the fire.
November 25, 2025 at 11:21 AM
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Prozession im Nebel (Procession in the Fog) by Ernst Ferdinand Oehme 1828

#MistyMonday #art #painting #gothic
A procession of dark-robed figures, carrying a cross at the front, moves from a small arched stone bridge across the grassy landscape, dissappearing into the mist. To the right stands a tall, narrow stone structure resembling a small Gothic tower with a pointed spire and a crosses. Bare trees and low bushes frame the foreground, and faint outlines of larger trees are visible in the background. The sky is pale and hazy.
November 24, 2025 at 1:51 PM
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Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

– From 'Remembrance' by Emily Brontë 1845

#poetry #romanticism #books #booksky #snow
Caspar David Friedrich: Friedhof im Schnee (Graveyard under Snow) 1826 An oil painting of a snow-covered graveyard with simple wooden and metal grave markers, an old stone archway in the background, leafless trees behind it, and two shovels stuck in a partially dug grave in the foreground. The sky is light shade of grey.
November 23, 2025 at 10:09 AM
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What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?

– Mary Shelley, The Last Man

#gothic #scifisaturday #books #booksky 🪐📚
Peder Balke: 'The Mountain Range Trolltinderne' 1840s A murky toned oil painting of a northern mountainscape: dark clouds in the sky, and a barely visible boat on stormy water.
November 22, 2025 at 12:10 PM
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In 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' (1751), Thomas Gray first falls into rural reverie in a crepuscular graveyard, then laments the inequalities of society, and finally resigns himself to death.

Well, that escalated quickly.

#BookWormSat #poetry #romanticism #books #booksky
The first stanza of the poem: The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Painting: 'Friedhof im Mondlicht' (Cemetery in the Moonlight) by Carl Gustav Carus c. 1822 A gothic depiction of a churchyard at night. Silhouettes of ornate crosses draw dark against orange moonlight and faint stars in the sky. In the background, the church tower and hillsides.
November 22, 2025 at 6:07 AM
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'Ghosts on a Tree'

Franz Sedlacek 1933

#art #painting ##PhantomsFriday
An oil painting of a eery moonlit scene. On the foreground, a leafless tree with what looks like a murder of crows perched on its branches. On closer inspection the figures are not birds, but human-like figures with ghoulish heads, clad in black.
November 21, 2025 at 2:14 PM
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Ghost is sorrow in Wordsworth's 'Lucy Gray', 1799.

William heard the story from his sister: Near Halifax, a young girl lost her way in a snow-storm. The parents traced her footsteps in the snow to the middle of the lock of a canal, where they stopped.

#PhantomsFriday #poetry #romanticism #booksky
Two last stanzas from the poem: —Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living child; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild. O'er rough and smooth she trips along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind. Painting: 'Im tiefen Winter' by Richard Freiherr von Drasche-Wartinberg (1850-1923). A black river winds through a snowy landscape.
November 21, 2025 at 9:44 AM
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Lord Byron had cup made out of a monk's skull found on the grounds of his home, Newstead Abbey.

It could hold an entire bottle of claret, and was passed around 'in imitation of the Goths of old', among the Order of the Skull that Byron had founded at Newstead.

#BookologyThursday #gothic #booksky
In 'Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull', Byron muses on this vessel. Image: Dennis Price channels the poet in 'The Bad Lord Byron', 1949. Text: Excerpts from 'Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull Newstead Abbey, 1808 Start not-nor deem my spirit fled: In me behold the only skull From which, unlike a living head Whatever flows is never dull. I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee: I died: let earth my bones resign; Fill up I thou canst not injure me; The worm hath fouler lips than thine. Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, In aid of others' let me shine; And when, alas! our brains are gone, What nobler substitute than wine?
November 20, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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Ecstasy only smiles — despair laughs.

– Charles Robert Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer 1820

#WorldPhilosophyDay #gothic #books #booksky
'Saint John the Baptist' (1513-1515) by Leonardo da Vinci. The figure of John the Baptist emerges from the shadowy background. The saint is dressed in furs, has long curly hair and is smiling in an enigmatic manner reminiscent of Leonardo's famous Mona Lisa. He holds a reed cross in his left hand, while his right hand points up toward heaven.
November 20, 2025 at 9:48 AM
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In Finnish mythology the sacred white Swan of Tuoni swims in the black river of the underworld.

#WyrdWednesday #folklore #epic #Kalevala
In this cropped detail of a painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1897, the Swan observes from a safe distance the grieving mother and the dead body of her son, Lemminkäinen, on the shore of the river of Tuoni.
November 19, 2025 at 9:08 AM
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Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

– William Wordsworth

#poetry #gothic #romanticism #books #booksky
The Shooting Stars' by Jean-Francois Millet 1847-1849. An oil painting depicting the lovers Paolo and Francesca, whose doomed souls are described in Dante's Inferno as 'across the sky in long procession trailing'. Their lifeless nude bodies are being dragged by two equally elongated and softly illuminated figures against the dark night sky.
November 19, 2025 at 8:18 AM