Arches in Ruins 

Hubert Robert's "Arches in Ruins" presents us with an intimate scene amidst the grandeur of decay. Robert was known as "Robert of the Ruins" for his numerous depictions of Roman ruins. Painting during the Enlightenment, Robert captured a fascination with the past that gripped Europe, where ruins symbolized both the glory and the transience of civilizations. Yet, Robert doesn’t just show us stones, he peoples the scene with figures, inviting us to reflect on gender, class, and the human relationship to history. In the foreground, we see a woman in repose and a man appearing to work, perhaps drawing or documenting, in what feels like a gendered division of labor. The ruin becomes a stage where these figures play out their lives, shadowed by a history they can never fully grasp. It asks us to consider who gets to write history and whose stories get told and remembered. Robert asks us to find beauty in decay, and to ponder the narratives we construct from fragments of the past.