Capriccio all’antica. Shaping the Ruin in the Age of Enlightenment

From its outset in the 14th century, the poetics of ruin underwent a gradual mutation from nostalgic lamentation to romancing reverie. However, it was during the age of Enlightenment, and in the context of archaeological discoveries and picturesque voyages, that the perception of ruin acquired a more objective dimension. Nevertheless, the imaginative approach still persisted in the various representations of ruins, mainly through the medium of assemblage, displacement or distortion. These are, in fact, the strategies of capriccio, an artistic category which, although theoretically mistrusted, was quite in vogue during the age of Enlightenment. Even more interestingly, the caprice was not limited to painting, as it was introduced – in the form of the so-called fabrique – in the garden design as well, which, by that time, was largely considered as closely related to landscape painting itself. This text attempts to examine the ruin as an object/place meant to concentrate and display a complex set of meanings, pertaining to patrimony, history, time or destiny.