Title: The aesthetics of ruins /
Authors: Ginsberg, Robert.
Date: 2004
Publisher: Rodopi,
Physical description: xx, 538 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Language: English
LC classification: C
Abstract: "This book constructs a theory of ruins that celebrates their vitality and unity in aesthetic experience. Its argument draws upon over 100 illustrations prepared in 40 countries. Ruins flourish as matter, form, function, incongruity, site, and symbol. Ruin underlies cultural values in cinema, literature, and philosophy. Finally, ruin guides meditations upon our mortality and endangered world."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: The ruin as matter -- The ruin as form -- The ruin as function -- The ruin as incongruity -- The ruin as site -- The ruin as symbol -- The ruin as aesthetic experience -- Visit to a ruin: St. Andrews -- Building with ruin -- Nature as ruin -- Sculpture and other visual arts as ruin -- Cinema and television as ruin -- Literature as ruin -- Philosophy as ruin -- The terminology of ruin -- Theories of ruin -- The ruining eye-and other senses -- Fragments of a chapter on ruin -- Meditations on humanity, self, and the world as ruins.
Subject headings (LCSH): Aesthetics.; Antiquities.