Ruin lust : artists' fascination with ruins, from Turner to the present day / Brian Dillon.

Published to accompany an exhibition held at Tate Britain, London, 4 Mar. - 1 June 2014.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The aesthetics of the sublime and the picturesque fuelled the 'ruin lust' of the eighteenth century, but in the nineteenth century ruins also came to represent fears of the decay of civilisation and the destructive effects of industrialisation. In the twentieth century these dystopian visions were made shockingly real after two world wars and successive economic crises. For contemporary artists the ruin has also become a way of thinking about art itself, conceived as a fragment of a lost past or a partial hint of a time to come. This publication accompanies a major exhibition exploring the theme of ruins and ruination in British art from the seventeenth century to the present day, considering how ruins have become the subject of visual and emotional fascination at particular historical moments.