Destroyed House c. 1851 - 1857

Karl Peter Burnitz painted this evocative image of a Destroyed House using oil on canvas. The visible brushstrokes give a tangible sense of the damage depicted. The material qualities of the ruined building—stone, brick, and timber—are all rendered with a focus on texture. The artist has handled the paint to suggest the roughhewn nature of the construction, and the violence that has led to its collapse. It's hard not to consider the human effort involved in building this house originally; the labor of quarrying stone, firing bricks, felling trees, and assembling everything by hand. The painting captures not just the physical remains of the house, but also the social and economic implications of its destruction. What lives were upended here? What community displaced? In Burnitz's hands, the materiality of the house becomes a testament to both creation and devastation. It reminds us that even the most solid structures are vulnerable, and that behind every building lies a story of human endeavor.