Gothic Church Ruins (by Carl Blechen) Tile

This design features a painting by the German artist Carl Eduard Ferdinand Blechen (1798–1840). His distinctive style was inspired by a Romantic belief in natural beauty and a new enthusiasm for an idealised Middle Ages, which arose in the late 18th century. The depiction of the ruins of Gothic churches, as trees and the natural landscape started to reclaim them, expressed a tension between order and disorder, as well as between civilisation and nature. The grand arches and incredible masonry of the Mediaeval cathedral serve to inspire great reverence. There is a young traveller who can be seen sleeping on the mossy ground. Some critics have seen a tragic element in the gradual loss of this incredible historical monument, and yet the natural world has a sublime grandeur of its own. The original artwork was created by Carl Blechen in 1826.