Francois de Nomé often painted wondrous images of imaginary cities with spectacular ruins, disastrous fires and looming catastrophes.
Despite the fact that the painting is around 400 years old, it appears as an apocalyptic vision of the future, perhaps from another planet in the solar system. The buildings, which display traces of classicist architecture, as well as gothic, mannerist and baroque elements, are in a process of decay. Everything leans slightly to the left, seems to be slipping away, instilling a feeling of uncertainty and the unreal.
Like Archimboldo and Hieronymous Bosch, the surrealists of the 1930s considered de Nomé to be one of their artistic predecessors. To them, his works appeared to be dreams or visions from the unconscious. André Breton used this painting as an illustration in a book published in 1957.
