Temple ruins (from Paestum?) 

Carl Bloch painted this oil on canvas, depicting what are believed to be the temple ruins of Paestum. The imposing Doric columns speak of a time when such structures were not ruins but vibrant centers of civic and religious life. Consider these columns, their stoic presence echoed across millennia, from the Temple of Hera to the Roman Forum. They stand as silent witnesses, enduring symbols of order, reason, and the very foundations of Western civilization. Yet, time, that relentless sculptor, has reshaped them, and the temple stands as an evocative emblem of loss and the inevitable decay of human endeavor. The temple's ruined state touches a deep, primal chord within us. It stirs a sense of melancholy. Like a memento mori, it whispers of mortality and the transience of earthly power, and thus remains an enduring symbol, continually resurrected and reinterpreted in our collective consciousness.