Fallout 3

Some impressive pictures of the video game Fallout 3:



For me the pictures of Fallout 3 are like a summary of modern post-apocalyptic ruin aesthetics.

Resident Evil: Extinction

From the Resident Evil movies "Extinction" is the post-apocalyptic one. Mankind has nearly disappeared and only few survivors are trying to make their way through an infested country. And if there wasn’t Milla Jovovich like an avenging angel nobody would made it.

That’s a nice occasion to show the glamour of Las Vegas in ruins. Like relics of a bygone civilization there are the Eiffel Tower and Lady Liberty.

Exotic Orient

Like many other artists of this time the Scottish painter David Roberts (1796–1864) traveled in the early 19th century to Egypt. But different from others he intended from the beginning to sell his artwork later as lithographs to a greater public. And as true son of the romantic movement he drew dramatic sketches of exotic ruins, still covered with paintings and half buried in the sand. Maybe he was the first to discover the special attraction of exotic ruins at all.


Probably it was due to this combination of romantic interpretation and (unromantic) mass production that Roberts gained this enormous influence on the iconography of ruins. Without his artworks many modern films and videogames like Tombraider or Indiana Jones would have a different look.

Defending New York

Mighty Samson was a post-apocalyptic comic created by writer Otto Binder and artist Frank Thorne and published by Gold Key between 1964 and 1982.


Mighty Samson is a kind of superhero who has to fight with evil humans and mutated monsters. Here in #4 he’s defending New York against foreign scrap robbers. Despite I don’t understand why anybody should fight about metal scrap in a world full of ruins, it’s nice to meet Lady Liberty again and to see that she will be defended by our hero.

Exotic Battlefields

Two beautiful paintings by the Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904).

Vereshchagin was probably the most famous Russian battle painter of his time and accompanied the Russian army on it’s campaigns in Central Asia. At the first look the paintings look idyllic, war and misery are hidden only indicated by the vultures above.

Post-Apocalyptic Rolling Stones

This nice painting by Rodney Matthews from the 1970s with the title "Another Time, Another Place" shows the Rolling Stones as post-apocalyptical highwaymen.

And because Rodney Matthews is as British as the Stones, in the back there is Big Ben to be seen and not Lady Liberty.

Anticipating Disasters

The Historic Museum in Ningbo (China) by Wang Shu of Amateur Architecture looks like an earthquake or a tornado have passed by. The walls are asymmetric, inclined and composed of different materials.



The architect Wang Shu explained, that fragments of demolished buildings from all over the region were used to construct the walls of the museum. This is part of local traditional building techniques called "wa pan", developed by local farmers to cope with frequent natural disasters.

Jewish Cemetery

A Jewish cemetery in Berlin. Many of the graves are in art nouveau or art deco style. But because of many families there is no one left to take care of the graves they are falling apart.



Ivy, moss, fern and other plants are covering the monuments of death uniting them with nature: Ashes to ashes dust to dust.

Beksiński’s Nightmares

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929–2005) was an important Polish artist who became famous for his surrealistic post-apocalyptic paintings.


In many of this disturbing sceneries ruins are playing an important part as symbols of death and decay. Also interesting is that he combines sometimes ruins with body parts which underlines the death metaphor of the ruins.

Old India

Ruins south Old Delhi. Two steel engravings published c.1860. These typical 19th century and very romantic pictures are already presenting ruins as exotic artifacts.