‘Picturesque’ was a word that often been used in connection with ruined buildings, and even been given to mean ‘universal decay’; this sort of picturesqueness Ruskin called ‘parasitical sublimity’. (128) To him picturesque meant a combination of beauty and the sublime, and it could be expressed in the different characteristics and intentions in art. Forexample Gothic sculpture was picturesque due to the way shadows and masses of shadows were handled as a part of the composition, while classical sculpture - like the metopes of the Parthenon - was not because it was intended to be seen against a darker background, and shadows were used mainly to clarify the subject. Artists could also treat their subject in a picturesque way, for example in the arrangement of the hair. Concerning historic buildings, the accidental, ruinous picturesqueness was not the main thing; it was the ‘noble picturesque’, “that golden stain of time”, the marks of ageing on the materials, which give it character. Considering that a building would thus be ‘in its prime’ only after four or five centuries, it was important to be careful in the choice of building materials to make them stand weathering for such a long time. (130)