A view across a wide, brightly lit field scattered with broken pieces of stone is framed to the left and right by crumbling stone temples in this horizontal painting. The sunlight is infused with a soft pink glow, which warms the cream-white stone with a pale blush. The temple on our left sits on a low rise, and a row of at least nine columns topped with an entablature faces our right. Several of the columns are broken off, and part of the entablature and the entire roof is missing, from what we can see. Fragments of pediments and wheel-like sections of columns tumble down from its front steps and back along its side, cascading into and across most of the field before us. The rocky terrain is carpeted in celery-green growth speckled with sage green and areas of rust red in the lower left and right corners. Barely visible in the center of the field, are two men, barely taller than the fragments they inspect. One man wears an apricot-orange suit and bowler hat over blond hair. He kneels with his back to us as he writes or sketches on a piece of paper. A second man stands to his right, also with his back to us, dressed in a long pleated, white tunic with a red cap, jacket, and knee-high boots. To our right and farther back than the other temple, a brick-red tower stands next to another columned arcade. A third temple there, or perhaps another part of that building complex, has columns carved into the shape of six identical, robed women, facing our left. Beyond the ruins, the field slopes down to a peach-colored plain that ends at a wide, topaz-blue body of water with mountains in the far distance along the low horizon line. A petal-pink haze rises from the water and mountains and almost fills the blue-gray sky above. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “S.R. Gifford 1880.”

Ruins of the Parthenon

Sanford Robinson Gifford

A view across a wide, brightly lit field scattered with broken pieces of stone is framed to the left and right by crumbling stone temples in this horizontal painting. The sunlight is infused with a soft pink glow, which warms the cream-white stone with a pale blush. The temple on our left sits on a low rise, and a row of at least nine columns topped with an entablature faces our right. Several of the columns are broken off, and part of the entablature and the entire roof is missing, from what we can see. Fragments of pediments and wheel-like sections of columns tumble down from its front steps and back along its side, cascading into and across most of the field before us. The rocky terrain is carpeted in celery-green growth speckled with sage green and areas of rust red in the lower left and right corners. Barely visible in the center of the field, are two men, barely taller than the fragments they inspect. One man wears an apricot-orange suit and bowler hat over blond hair. He kneels with his back to us as he writes or sketches on a piece of paper. A second man stands to his right, also with his back to us, dressed in a long pleated, white tunic with a red cap, jacket, and knee-high boots. To our right and farther back than the other temple, a brick-red tower stands next to another columned arcade. A third temple there, or perhaps another part of that building complex, has columns carved into the shape of six identical, robed women, facing our left. Beyond the ruins, the field slopes down to a peach-colored plain that ends at a wide, topaz-blue body of water with mountains in the far distance along the low horizon line. A petal-pink haze rises from the water and mountains and almost fills the blue-gray sky above. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “S.R. Gifford 1880.”

Colors in this work

Details
Artist
Sanford Robinson Gifford
Date
1880
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 69.53 × 132.72 cm (27 3/8 × 52 1/4 in.) framed: 110.5 × 174.3 × 12.7 cm (43 1/2 × 68 5/8 × 5 in.)
Department
CAB
Holding institution
National Gallery of Art
Palette

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Image provider
national-gallery-of-art
License
CC0-1.0
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund, 1881)

Art Genome Taxonomy

7 tags

Subject Matter

  • Antiquity as Subject Both · 99%

    The title identifies the Parthenon, and the image visibly presents monumental classical ruins and architectural fragments as the central subject.

  • Landscapes and Waterscapes Both · 99%

    The museum description identifies a wide field of ruins, a body of water, and distant mountains; these elements are clearly visible in the image.

  • Atmospheric Landscapes Visual · 94%

    The distant water, mountains, and horizon are rendered with softened contours and reduced contrast beneath a broad veil of warm haze.

Visual Qualities

  • Earth Tones Visual · 91%

    The composition is dominated by muted ocher, rust, cream, ocher-green, and dusty pink tones associated with the stone and dry terrain.

Medium and Techniques

  • Oil Painting Metadata · 99%

    The National Gallery of Art identifies the medium as oil on canvas.

Time Periods

  • 19th Century Art Metadata · 99%

    The work is dated 1880, placing it within nineteenth-century art.

Cultural and Religious Styles

  • Greek Art and Architecture Both · 98%

    The title names the Parthenon, and the visible columned temple architecture is recognizably Greek in form.

Source & rights

Sanford Robinson Gifford. Ruins of the Parthenon. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

High-resolution sources

Catalog record ↗ Image source ↗ Image license ↗ Image-use terms ↗ Catalog metadata terms ↗

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