Embarrassing childhood pics of medieval castles

May 14, 2023 11:23 PM

What old (i.e. before photography) paintings depict buildings or landscapes that still look largely the same today?

I was looking at some of the illustrations from the “Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry” and was fascinated to see that some of the castles depicted are still standing today.

Any more examples like that? As well as buildings, landscapes interest me too.

Could be from any time period/anywhere in the world.

posted by iamsuper to Society & Culture (12 answers total)

Response by poster: [couldn’t edit but just saw a similar question about landscapes from 2005, which I will check out!]
posted by iamsuper at 11:25 PM on May 14, 2023

It's not nearly as old as a medieval castle, but the cottage on the River Stour depicted in Constable's The Hay Wain (1821) predates photography by a couple decades and looks essentially the same today.
posted by theory at 11:57 PM on May 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

You'll also find many locations depicted in vedute to look much the same today as when they were painted, particularly well-preserved cities like Venice and Siena.
posted by theory at 12:13 AM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

The National Gallery in London has a landscape by Peter Paul Rubens which features his own substantial home Het Steen in the middle distance. 5 years ago the building was listed for sale at €4million. After 400 years, the painting is probably 'worth' more.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:37 AM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Edinburgh Views" has a few nice examples of landscapes which are pretty much unchanged - at least in that the key landmarks are all still present. In general Scotland has lots of places a bit like this. For example this mid Victoria painting of Dunottar castle
posted by rongorongo at 2:43 AM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

There's some good stuff for London.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:01 AM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: A lot of the paintings from the Hudson River School art movement do this. In fact - some paintings are so detailed that art historians have sometimes been able to work out not only what the painting is of, but the specific spot where the artist was standing, and have landmarked several of those spots to create an art trail of the Hudson River Valley in New York.

(I wrote about the Hudson River Art Trail for Atlas Obscura - my friend is a photographer who had a lot of photos of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River Valley, to the point that I was able to offer several then-and-now shots in my article comparing a painting to "a photo of that spot".)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:37 AM on May 15, 2023 [9 favorites]

There are paintings of Stonehenge going back to at least the 1500s - eg
posted by crocomancer at 5:04 AM on May 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is a really cool question!

The best I've been able to find so far is Piazza San Marco, Venice : 2014 vs 1496
posted by protorp at 5:19 AM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I realise now the question wasn't looking for the oldest, and oldest ≠ best...

Another good example from Constable is Salisbury Cathedral : 1825 vs 2015
posted by protorp at 5:30 AM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Warsaw Old Town looks today like it did in Canaletto paintings in the 18th century. This is because they were used to reconstruct the buildings after the Nazis bombed them flat.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 5:48 AM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is more a resource than an answer, sorry, but: the r/papertowns subreddit is a good ongoing source for this kind of thing; a good recent example. Sometimes the comments include interesting bits of history and links to contemporary views.
posted by McBearclaw at 7:53 AM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]