From the Renaissance to the present day, each generation of artists, architects, and writers has used the powerful images of ruins to project its own vision of time and human destiny. The metamorphosis of the ruin motif in art explains not only the separations but the continuities between the perception of past and present that characterize the different art movements. Drawing from all media of Western art including garden design, photography, and fine art, Makarius explores the rich and diverse iconography of ruins from da Vinci to Van Gogh, from Botticelli to Roy Lichtenstein.Ruins is a reminder of history at a time when few art motifs still have the power to demand attention for our immense collective past-and at a moment when a reminder is sorely needed.