Oil on canvas
71 x 103 cm
Signed "K Plock" lower left
Private Collection, Hamburg, Germany
Plock’s deeply evocative painting of the ruins of the Aqua Claudia beneath a powerfully striking sky has a strong Symbolist feel. The choice of subject and its reference to the fall of the Roman Empire brings about thoughts of decay and death, and therefore rebirth and life. Within it there is a certain kind of ruin lust; a romantic harking back to a bygone era and a sense of wonder brought about by civilisations past.
This work was painted in Italy, where Plock lived until the outbreak of WWI, having previously studied at the Grand Ducal Baden Academy of Fine Arts in the 1880’s with Gustav Schönleber and Hermann Baisch.
