In the painting The Last Days of Pompeii, by Russian artist Karl Pavlovich Bruillov, depicts a scene of chaos and destruction in the ancient city of Pompeii. Bruillov visited the site where Pompeii once stood in 1812 and sketched numerous scenes all depicting the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The painting inspired the novel The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton when he saw it in Rome. Due to this, the fashion for Roman based novels basically began with Lytton's novel of Glaucus and Ione in Pompeii and the destruction the city faced.
The painting fits into the nineteenth century's fad for all things classical because it portrays a romanticized scene of destruction and chaos as the citizens flee for their lives. The painting also shows two sides of civilization. In the light of the lightening that breaks the clouds are citizens who are fleeing for their lives, some of which are carrying away treasures, while those in the shadows are attempting to help others out of the city and protect their families. This can show how many people in the nineteenth century viewed the fall of Rome and that the main cause of the fall was due to the tyranny and corruption of the pagan empire. They believed that only Christianity could save the Romans or other empires like it. This painting expresses that through the light landing on those who are only helping themselves and stealing treasures from the streets as if the light of God has found them guilty, while those helping each other are in the shadows and out of the light of Gods wrath. The painting is likely romanticized for the viewers to show them an idealized golden age of an ancient world that closely mirrored many of the problems they found in their own society.