Ruins of Despair
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ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Ruins of Despair
@ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
190 followers 220 following 150 posts
A weary pilgrim on the grave of the Romantic Hero, a forlorn eulogist cast upon the desolate shore of the exquisite agony that is The Gothic.

#books #gothic #romanticism

'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' (P.B. Shelley)
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ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Ruins of Despair @ruinsofdespair.bsky.social · Oct 4
I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

– Lord Byron
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wunderkammertales.bsky.social
Magic, tall tales and #Yulefolklore

A story a day – told over the holidays, until 6 January.

So, come, gather around the fireplace and listen to dark seasonal tales of trolls, witches & other things that go bump in the Winter!

Find the link for today’s first tale in the comments

🎨Hannah Ward
November 30, 2025 at 9:39 AM
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ahistoryinart.bsky.social
Four years before John Constable painted this in 1821, John Keats was writing about 'Negative Capability: 'when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.' This is what negative capability looks like in paint.
November 30, 2025 at 12:35 PM
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trahias.bsky.social
"Fear" by Dragan Bibin

#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
November 30, 2025 at 9:45 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
In the concisely titled 'TO A LADY WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN', Byron laments on the wintery setting of the proposed date, noting that Juliet romanced in a milder climate.

#ShakespeareSunday #booksky
Image: 'The Lovers Vow' by William Holyoake c. 1800 A man and a woman in winter clothing stand by a wooden stile in a snowy countryside. The man, dressed in a long tan coat and tricorne-style hat, leans forward to open the gate with a lean walking stick, while the woman in a dark blue cloak and bonnet watches beside him. Snow-covered fields, bare trees, and distant cattle in the background. Excerpt from the poem: For gardens seem, by one consent (Since Shakespeare set the precedent, Since Juliet first declared her passion), To from the place of assignation. Oh! would some modern muse inspire, And seat her by a sea-coal fire; Or had the bard at Christmas written, And laid the scene of love in Britain, He surely, in commiseration, Had changed the place of declaration. In Italy I've no objection, Warm nights are proper for reflection; But here our climate is so rigid, That love itself is rather frigid
November 30, 2025 at 8:43 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.'

– Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Black Cat' 1843

#motivational

#caturday #gothic #books #booksky
Black Cat by Arthur Rackham 1920 Illustration with stark contrast of black figures and light orange sky. A sullen-looking black cat sits on the branch of a tree, staring at the viewer. A dark silhouette of a castle is visible in the background.
November 29, 2025 at 2:26 PM
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pauljwillson.bsky.social
Follow the light
November 29, 2025 at 7:39 AM
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gwyllm.bsky.social
Sowing Stars by Valera Lutfullina
November 29, 2025 at 2:25 AM
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gwyllm.bsky.social
The Hashish Smokers’. Gaetano Previati. 1887.
November 29, 2025 at 2:47 AM
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trahias.bsky.social
Sarah Evans (Welsh Artist, born 1974)
"Atlantic Ocean", 2022.
Acrylic on Wood, 16" × 24".
Private Collection.

#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
November 29, 2025 at 7:08 AM
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trahias.bsky.social
Debra Tate Sears (Canadian, b.1951)
"After the Snowfall," 2020
Egg tempera on true gesso cradled birch panel
#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
November 29, 2025 at 6:52 AM
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juliew67.bsky.social
#10minutesfromhome #Scape
A silhouetted tree and the moon in Hollins on my way home tonight
Walking home tonight in Hollins past a silhouetted tree and the moon. The sky was a clear blue in the early evening light
November 28, 2025 at 5:49 PM
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folkloretwitcher.bsky.social
"I want to do something splendid… something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.” (Jo March)

✍️ Louisa May Alcott, "Little Women" #BookWormSat
19th century portrait of the young woman looking over her right shoulder, looking downwards. She is dressed in black, her hair is plaited and has a fringe - unknown artist.
November 29, 2025 at 9:29 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'When I have fears that I may cease to be' seems prophetic to us, as Keats died only a few years after writing the sonnet.

Yet, in 1818, he was still very much alive and in those exhilarating years of young adulthood and overwhelming call of life.

#BookWormSat #poetry #booksky #romanticism
Painting: 'Winter Landscape with Skaters' by Regis Francois Gignoux 1860 A snowy scene with a frozen river or lake. It's daytime, but hazy. Several figures are skating on the ice, while a few people stand watching. Text: When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,    That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power    Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. – JOHN KEATS 1818
November 29, 2025 at 9:37 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'Boulevard in the Evening'

Isaac Ilyich Levitan 1883

#art #painting #winter
A dark, almost black-and-white painting a snowy boulevard, lined with trees and small lights. Two dark figures in female attire are walking along. Further, a few other dark figures.
November 29, 2025 at 5:14 AM
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sardonicus.eu
Bat Friday
drawings of lots of bats, bats as desirable citizens
November 28, 2025 at 12:56 PM
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racheldeering.bsky.social
Church on way to little theatre.
Photo of side of church with lit window in darkness.
November 28, 2025 at 7:19 PM
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bobhawkins.bsky.social
Born on this day in 1757 in Soho London William Blake Poet,visionary & Romantic. #WilliamBlake
November 28, 2025 at 11:37 AM
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rebeccabradvica.bsky.social
“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”

Happy Birthday #WilliamBlake
November 28, 2025 at 2:54 PM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'Night Scene with a Monk in a Gothic Cloister'

A. E. Haffer 1845

#gothic #art #painting
A lonely monk, draped in white, in a vast cloister hall. Further parts of the building are lit by candlelight, the court and the dome by moonlight.
November 28, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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afizgig.bsky.social
#DailyBat 🖤🦇🖤
A photo of a bat in flight wings outstretched.
November 26, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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theghostmonk.bsky.social
A remarkably spooky illustration for 'Under The Sunset' by Bram Stoker, 1882.
#PhantomsFriday #gothic #BramStoker #Victorian #ghost
November 28, 2025 at 3:08 PM
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sanctorium.bsky.social
earlier wander, with coffee
November 28, 2025 at 8:41 AM
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signemaene.com
'What do you want, dark ghost! Where are you going?'
-Guido Gezelle

🎨Moritz von Schwind
#PhantomsFriday
Painting title: Apparition in the Forest (from Sleeping Beauty). A woman with long brown hair, wearing a white dress, walking in the forest (though it seems like she's floating. A man wearing purple clothes is looking at her from in the plants. Which is definitely creepy.
November 28, 2025 at 9:47 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
Fragment of a Ghost Story by P.B. Shelley

Often mistaken for Percy's entry to the famous Villa Diodati ghost story competition of 16 June 1816, that saw the drafts for Polidori's Vampyre and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Sadly, no text by Percy survives.

#PhantomsFriday #poetry #gothic #booksky
An Old Woman with a Child Lighting a Candle', after Rubens. Circle of Godfried Schalcken, late 17th c. An oil painting with softly dark atmosphere. An old woman holds a candle, shielding her eyes from the candlelight. She has a slight smile on her face. A boy pressing against the woman's shoulder looks at her lovingly, holding a candle ready to be lit. Text: A shovel of his ashes took From the hearth's obscurest nook, Muttering mysteries as she went. Helen and Henry knew that Granny Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any, And so they followed hard— But Helen clung to her brother's arm, And her own spasm made her shake.
November 28, 2025 at 10:04 AM
ruinsofdespair.bsky.social
'The Grave' by Robert Blair 1788

#poetry #gothic #romanticism #books #booksky
From a yellowed page of an old book: 'Tis but a night, a long and moonless night, We make the grave our bed, and then are gone. Thus, at the shut of ev'n, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cow'rs down, and dozes till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledg'd wings, and bears away. FINIS.
November 27, 2025 at 2:35 PM