Abstract

The concept of ruin in its modern meaning was born from the awareness that human experience takes place within an historical context, civilization, and culture. From Mantegna to Diderot, Füssli, Winckelmann; from Chateaubriand to Van Gogh, Duchamp, Camus, Kiefer: many artists, writers and philosophers attest that ruins have become the symbol of the struggle between cultural permanence and natural disappearance.