In Ruins

Rating:
Summary: A Spectacular Little Book
Review: Here is the best description of the fascination of ruins that I have ever read. It is full of surprises and wonderful illustrations. There is nothing little about the spirit of this book - Woodward writes beautifully and has a perfect grasp of the sublime aesthetics of fine ruins. The reader is swept through a wide range of time, and of time periods, from antiquity to the present day. All throughout are marvelous, pithy descriptions - a super book !!

Rating:
Summary: A Walk Though Paradise Garden
Review: IN RUINS by Christopher Woodward is one of the most genteel, warmly evocative, yet scholarly extended essays about beauty that has appeared in a while. Only a true artist could 1) come up with the idea of meditating on ruins of past civilizations and 2) recreate historical places not only through his own perceptive eyes but also through the eyes and writings and drawings and paintings of artists for the past two hundred years. Woodward finds beauty in the "neglected" ruins, the old sites where nature has nudged the surfaces with wild flowers, mosses, crawling vines, and ground swells, preferring this respect for times past to the wild flurry of the preservationists who seek to 'restore' these treasures to their 'original glory' but often invite tourism with its adjunctive sales, stands, and souvenirs. He has visited the ruins of Rome, of Sicily, Cuba, England, etc and is distraught when he finds these various havens for poets sequestered with guardrails and other implements of distraction. "..the artist is inevitably at odds with the archeologist. In the latter discipline the scattered fragments of stone are parts of a jigsaw, or clues to a puzzle to which there is only one answer, as in a science laboratory; to the artist, by contrast, any answer which is imaginative is correct." "What [poet] Shelley's experience shows is that the vegetation which grows on ruins appeals to the depths of our consciousness, for it represents the hand of Time, and the contest between the individual and the universe." Of the 'Picturesque Movement' in England, Woodward writes referring to the latter day artist John Piper "I know perfectly well I would rather paint a ruined abbey half-covered with ivy and standing in long grass than I would paint it after if has been taken over by the Office of Works, when they've taken of all the ivy and mown all the grass." Woodward talks about even the transporting of ruins from, say, Libya to England (as per King George IV in 1827 importing the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna to his Gardens at Virginia Water). "A ruin is a dialogue between an incomplete reality and the imagination of the spectator." And finally in his thoughts on war monuments and memorials he writes "Is it ever possible to preserve the 'strange beauty' of war, to capture the moment of 'dust in the air suspended'?"

Each of these eloquently written thoughts and musings is unlike anything else you will find in books on art history, architectural history, or even philosophy. Christopher Woodward has graced our libraries with a little volume that holds dear the intangible, the corporeal transience, the lasting loveliness of man's time on this planet as protected by nature. This is truly a beautiful book that begs for moments of your indulgence, away from the madding crowd.

Rating:
Summary: A Walk Though Paradise Garden
Review: IN RUINS by Christopher Woodward is one of the most genteel, warmly evocative, yet scholarly extended essays about beauty that has appeared in a while. Only a true artist could 1) come up with the idea of meditating on ruins of past civilizations and 2) recreate historical places not only through his own perceptive eyes but also through the eyes and writings and drawings and paintings of artists for the past two hundred years. Woodward finds beauty in the "neglected" ruins, the old sites where nature has nudged the surfaces with wild flowers, mosses, crawling vines, and ground swells, preferring this respect for times past to the wild flurry of the preservationists who seek to 'restore' these treasures to their 'original glory' but often invite tourism with its adjunctive sales, stands, and souvenirs. He has visited the ruins of Rome, of Sicily, Cuba, England, etc and is distraught when he finds these various havens for poets sequestered with guardrails and other implements of distraction. "..the artist is inevitably at odds with the archeologist. In the latter discipline the scattered fragments of stone are parts of a jigsaw, or clues to a puzzle to which there is only one answer, as in a science laboratory; to the artist, by contrast, any answer which is imaginative is correct." "What [poet] Shelley's experience shows is that the vegetation which grows on ruins appeals to the depths of our consciousness, for it represents the hand of Time, and the contest between the individual and the universe." Of the 'Picturesque Movement' in England, Woodward writes referring to the latter day artist John Piper "I know perfectly well I would rather paint a ruined abbey half-covered with ivy and standing in long grass than I would paint it after if has been taken over by the Office of Works, when they've taken of all the ivy and mown all the grass." Woodward talks about even the transporting of ruins from, say, Libya to England (as per King George IV in 1827 importing the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna to his Gardens at Virginia Water). "A ruin is a dialogue between an incomplete reality and the imagination of the spectator." And finally in his thoughts on war monuments and memorials he writes "Is it ever possible to preserve the 'strange beauty' of war, to capture the moment of 'dust in the air suspended'?"

Each of these eloquently written thoughts and musings is unlike anything else you will find in books on art history, architectural history, or even philosophy. Christopher Woodward has graced our libraries with a little volume that holds dear the intangible, the corporeal transience, the lasting loveliness of man's time on this planet as protected by nature. This is truly a beautiful book that begs for moments of your indulgence, away from the madding crowd.

Rating:
Summary: Before you Travel anywhere, read this book
Review: Its' difficult to describe this book, or even what its about...but I couldn't put it down for two days (The time it took to read it). I suppose the best way to describe reading it is that is was like sitting down at a nice pub by the fire and listening to a very, very interesting person speak.

Woodward has that all too rare combination of being extraordinarily intelligent, thinking and feeling, and able to express it.

Have you ever looked at a ruin, and found your imagination running away? Have ever wondered why ruins seem to evoke more thought from people -from poets like Shelly (covered in the book) and artists of the Romantic period?

Short of going there and contemplating yourself, this book is the next best thing, in fact, i would recommend if before anyone goest to see

Rating:
Summary: A Classic for the Ages
Review: The erudite Woodward has written an enormously entertaining and illuminating book whose rich, flowing prose is a pleasure to read. History is blended with the starkness of the modern world and transmitted to the reader redolent with imagery. Woodward's broad, firm grasp of history and effective weaving of desperate elements produces a satisfying read for those intrigued by the forgotten corners of the world and the mystery of the past. "In Ruins" is destined to become a classic. The residue of a romantic, misty past lingers long after the last page is turned.

Rating:
Summary: The Beautiful Ruin
Review: To be honest, I am surprised that a book like this was even able to find a publisher. An extended essay on the quirky subject of ruins is not something that I think would stand out as a potential bestseller in an editor's eyes. Fortunately, someone took the chance and we have access to this interesting little book.

In it, Woodward takes us through the subject of ruins. Not only ruins we can still see today but also ruins that have disappeared over time. Not only physical ruins but also ruins that can be seen in and have influenced art and literature both classic and modern. Not only an objective account of the formation and impact of the ruin but also his visceral impressions and those of other observers both famous and not.

One wouldn't think there was enough about ruins to fill 250 pages but this book proves that misconception false. In fact, there is a lot here that I wasn't aware of or didn't give much thought to before. For example, I tend to think of ruins in the classical sense (such as Roman or Greek ruins) but Woodward also discusses the effect dealing with the ruins of recent wars (in particular, WWII) has had on people. He also discusses the trend in vogue a few hundred years ago towards the wealthy actually building ruins as objects d'arte on their estates. I never realized that some of the ruins one can see while traveling through England and France were in reality artificially created.

Anyone who has ever marveled at the Colosseum or Parthenon, anyone who has ever meditated inside the crumbling walls of an old abbey, anyone who has ever wondered about that abandoned house down the street, anyone who has read Shelly's The Last Man or been shocked by the final frames of Planet of the Apes, will find something of value in Woodward's pages.

Rating:
Summary: The Beautiful Ruin
Review: To be honest, I am surprised that a book like this was even able to find a publisher. An extended essay on the quirky subject of ruins is not something that I think would stand out as a potential bestseller in an editor's eyes. Fortunately, someone took the chance and we have access to this interesting little book.

In it, Woodward takes us through the subject of ruins. Not only ruins we can still see today but also ruins that have disappeared over time. Not only physical ruins but also ruins that can be seen in and have influenced art and literature both classic and modern. Not only an objective account of the formation and impact of the ruin but also his visceral impressions and those of other observers both famous and not.

One wouldn't think there was enough about ruins to fill 250 pages but this book proves that misconception false. In fact, there is a lot here that I wasn't aware of or didn't give much thought to before. For example, I tend to think of ruins in the classical sense (such as Roman or Greek ruins) but Woodward also discusses the effect dealing with the ruins of recent wars (in particular, WWII) has had on people. He also discusses the trend in vogue a few hundred years ago towards the wealthy actually building ruins as objects d'arte on their estates. I never realized that some of the ruins one can see while traveling through England and France were in reality artificially created.

Anyone who has ever marveled at the Colosseum or Parthenon, anyone who has ever meditated inside the crumbling walls of an old abbey, anyone who has ever wondered about that abandoned house down the street, anyone who has read Shelly's The Last Man or been shocked by the final frames of Planet of the Apes, will find something of value in Woodward's pages.

Rating:
Summary: Please don't walk on the history
Review: What a wonderful, dusty, fern-festooned treasure hunt of a book this tome is! Young Mr. Woodward has a sympathetic vibration in his soul for ruins, and communicates this passion to the reader most convincingly. Ruins of all kinds in Europe and the UK are explored here: Edwardian houses, medieval abbeys, Italian towns and palaces that were victims of recent earthquakes, the great Roman ruins, artificial ruins for the gardens of cultured gentry, and even imaginary ruins, Picturesque-era paintings of landmarks as they might appear after the fall of civilization.

The usual Romantic era luminaries make appearances: Byron, the Shelleys, Keats, inspired by the Italian ruins to reflect on the grandeur that was Rome. Possibly the saddest passage is on the destruction of English country manors, which had been commandeered by the army during WWII, and were beyond the owners' ability to repair at war's end. Woodward says that so many of these were destroyed in the Fifties that the loss to British heritage rivals that of the Dissolution of 1536, when the abbeys were closed by Henry VIII.

This is a ramble, not a tour, so don't expect a clearly laid out thesis. Strikingly, Woodward's strongest expression of nostalgia is not for the famous ruins as they were when they were intact, but for when they were overgrown and seldom-visited. He relates Stendhal's account of a visit to the Colosseum, where the traveler saw an Englishman riding his horse on the floor of the arena. "I wish that could be me," grumps Woodward. From him I learn that there was even a book published in the 1850s, cataloging the plantlife growing on the Colosseum. Some of it was quite exotic, the seeds having been brought there with the wild animals for the circuses. Now the place is well hosed with weedkiller.

Ruins of such antiquity are not found in my area of the world, apart from Indian mounds. But wherever you live, a book like this will cause you to gaze at your surroundings with a keener eye for the past.

Rating:
Summary: Please don't walk on the history
Review: What a wonderful, dusty, fern-festooned treasure hunt of a book this tome is! Young Mr. Woodward has a sympathetic vibration in his soul for ruins, and communicates this passion to the reader most convincingly. Ruins of all kinds in Europe and the UK are explored here: Edwardian houses, medieval abbeys, Italian towns and palaces that were victims of recent earthquakes, the great Roman ruins, artificial ruins for the gardens of cultured gentry, and even imaginary ruins, Picturesque-era paintings of landmarks as they might appear after the fall of civilization.

The usual Romantic era luminaries make appearances: Byron, the Shelleys, Keats, inspired by the Italian ruins to reflect on the grandeur that was Rome. Possibly the saddest passage is on the destruction of English country manors, which had been commandeered by the army during WWII, and were beyond the owners' ability to repair at war's end. Woodward says that so many of these were destroyed in the Fifties that the loss to British heritage rivals that of the Dissolution of 1536, when the abbeys were closed by Henry VIII.

This is a ramble, not a tour, so don't expect a clearly laid out thesis. Strikingly, Woodward's strongest expression of nostalgia is not for the famous ruins as they were when they were intact, but for when they were overgrown and seldom-visited. He relates Stendhal's account of a visit to the Colosseum, where the traveler saw an Englishman riding his horse on the floor of the arena. "I wish that could be me," grumps Woodward. From him I learn that there was even a book published in the 1850s, cataloging the plantlife growing on the Colosseum. Some of it was quite exotic, the seeds having been brought there with the wild animals for the circuses. Now the place is well hosed with weedkiller.

Ruins of such antiquity are not found in my area of the world, apart from Indian mounds. But wherever you live, a book like this will cause you to gaze at your surroundings with a keener eye for the past.