In 2018 I made a two-week trip to Yorkshire with the specific aim of photographing ruined abbeys.  Why abbeys and why ruined ones? I will attempt answers to these questions shortly, but first a detour into art history.  The idea for the trip originated with an out-of-print book that I found at a public library sell-off.  "The Ruined Abbeys of England Wales and Scotland" by Henry Thorold is a thorough description of the almost 300 sites in the UK that feature remains of medieval abbeys. What I did not realize is that I would return with a set of photographs that frequently mirror the work of English romantic-era landscape painters. 

            J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) was a major figure in the history of Western art and is credited with initiating a revolution in landscape painting.  He was part of the Romantic era in landscape painting, whose foremost exponents, together with Turner, included John Constable and the German painter Caspar David Friedrich.   Romanticism extended not just to painting but to literature, music and architecture of the late 18th century.  It was a reaction to the birth of the modern era with its industrialization, urbanization, and secularization.  It put the emphasis on emotion and on glorification of the past and of Nature and was also a reaction to the preceding Enlightenment style which emphasized reason and balance. A survey of landscape paintings from this era reveals many artworks depicting church buildings in a state of ruin and in the process of reclamation by Nature and contemporary rural life.   In addition to the examples from Turner displayed here, similar themes appear in the work of other artists such as Caspar David Friedrich ( 1774-1840 ), John Constable (1776-1837), Thomas Girtin (1775-1802), J.S. Cottman (1782-1842), Richard Wilson (1714-1782), and J.C. Ibbetson (1759-1817) among many others. 

            So what is it about abbeys, and specifically ruined abbeys that drew these artists to choose them as their subjects?  They could have painted other things, and indeed most did.  However, the sheer numbers of ruined-abbey paintings by Romantic era painters points to this being an especially favored subject.  With regard to British artists one reason could be that travel in Europe was restricted somewhat by the several Napoleonic wars that occurred between 1803 and 1815.  This resulted in a boom of domestic tourism.  Britain is quite unique in that it has almost 300 of these sites, many quite spectacular, resulting from the the Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536-1541. Also, there emerged in this time a growing sense of pride in pastoral poetry and picturesque subjects evocative of the drama of national history.  Finally, there was a new culture of antiquarianism and preservation of historical artefacts that accompanied this nationalism.

            However, all of these factors contributing to the prevalence of ruined abbeys in British landscape art are rather straight forward and mundane.  Obviously, artists sought out these subjects because they were plentiful, easily accessible, nationally popular, and of antiquarian interest.  The nature of the Romantic aesthetic however suggests a deeper reason. 

            Romanticism, in hindsight, was predominantly a way of feeling.  Emotions that one may have had about religion were now placed in Nature.  Nature is permanent, man-made architecture is temporary.  Consequently, images of Nature reclaiming man-made religious architecture had aesthetic appeal.  Note that a frequent feature of these paintings is integration of the sites into pastoral country surroundings, overgrowth of the ruins by trees and ivy, and placement of grazing or relaxing farm animals in the scene.  The architecture was melting back into Nature and the pastoral way of life of a previous time.  The artists were experiencing what today we could call anemoia, nostalgia for a time one has not personally experienced.

            Romanticism did not die out with the 19th century.  It can and does serve as an inspiration to present day artists as well.  I invite you to look at the photographic images in my gallery, Abbeys.

Further Reading:

 Dillon, B.- Ruin Lust: Our Love Affair with Decaying Buildings - The Guardian - 17-Feb-2012

Matheson C.S. - Romanticism and Ruins - "Deep Blue" Repository, University of Michigan Library - 2007

Ivanov, B. - The Ruined Eldena Abbey in Germany: A frequent subject in the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich - Abandoned Spaces - January 2019