Kate Rangel
Dr. Short
Humanities Core 1AES
November 5, 2016
Two Young Women Drawing on a Site of Antique Ruins
-Hubert Robert
Hubert Robert, was born to servants of the very high-class family of the Marquis de
Stainville, so he had the great opportunity to get a great classical education and get a bit of art
training before he was able to join the entourage of the marquis’s eldest son, the Comte de
Stainville (Morris). Hubert Robert, who is also known as “Robert of the Ruins,” loved to paint
ruined structures and landscapes. Robert has lived in Italy for about a decade before returning to
Paris in 1765. Many of his artworks were of ruins of ancient Rome which he painted and drew
with Jean Honore Fragonard. Robert also painted various imaginary landscape paintings in his
lifetime. This was where he would pick and choose different monuments from several areas and
strategically place them into the new landscape he creates. He was very well known for his
landscape and ruins paintings. Robert’s passion for ancient ruins were especially was encouraged
in Italy by works of Giovanni Paolo who was an Italian architectural artist (National Art
Gallery).
Throughout Hubert Robert’s landscape painting, Two Young Women Drawing on a Site of
Antique Ruins, there is more of a blue-grayish and yellow tone color which delivers depressing
yet optimistic tone. The blue-grayish surrounds the borders of the painting, yet makes way for
the yellow to be bright in the center of the image. As new is being created, it illuminates and
makes way for the rest of the world to see. The gloomy skies with a little sunlight gives off the
interpretation that there is always good behind the bad. These ruins could possibly stand for the
