Luxurious works of art excavated from the opulent houses of the urban elite in Pompeii and from nearby imperial villas along the shoreline of the Bay of Naples illustrate the region’s importance as an artistic center in the first exhibition devoted to ancient Roman art at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples” will premiere in the nation’s capital October 19 and remain on view through March 22. From there, it will travel to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, May 3⁏ctober 4, 2009.
In the First Century BC, the picturesque Bay of Naples became a favorite retreat for vacationing emperors, senators and other prominent Romans. They built lavish seaside villas in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius where they could indulge in absolute leisure, read and write, exercise, enjoy their gardens and the views and entertain friends. The artists who flocked to the region to adorn the villas also created paintings, sculptures and decorative arts for the residents of Pompeii and nearby towns.
“Pompeii and the Roman Villa” presents some 150 works of sculpture, painting, mosaic and luxury arts, including recent discoveries on view in the United States for the first time and celebrated finds from earlier excavations.
This exhibition reveals the shared artistic tastes and cultural ideals of the villa owners and townspeople, particularly their reverence for the arts of ancient Greece. Drawn from the collections of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, and from site museums at Pompeii, Boscoreale, Torre Annunziata and Baia, as well as museums and private collections in the United States and Europe, the exhibition is organized in five sections.
Patrons at Home focuses on portraits of the proprietors and inhabitants of the maritime villas or the well-appointed houses of Pompeii and surrounding towns who owned the types of objects in the exhibition. Works of art include marble or bronze portraits of members of the imperial family and individualized private portraits, such as that of Gaius Cornelius Rufus, found in the atrium of his family’s house at Pompeii in the Nineteenth Century, but never before lent for exhibition.
Courtyards and Gardens presents bronze statues and fountains, marble sculptures and reliefs, and frescoes that decorated the colonnaded courtyards at the very heart of Roman villas and houses. Much of the garden sculpture depicts wild animals and Dionysos, god of wine, theater and nature, with his entourage of satyrs and maenads. Frescos portray peacocks, swallows, magpies and other birds, as well as flowers and various flowering shrubs, including roses, laurel, and oleander.
A highlight of the exhibition is a dining room from the site of Moregine on the Sarno River south of Pompeii. Discovered in 1959, the site was excavated in 1999′001 when the walls from its flooded dining rooms were removed in order to preserve their frescos. The exhibition features three dining-room walls decorated with images of Apollo, god of the arts, with the muses, shown floating against a red background and framed by elegant architectural fantasies.
The Legacy of Greece demonstrates the Roman reverence for classical Greece and conveys the taste for antiquities that characterized the art collections formed by wealthy Romans around the Bay of Naples. The Roman patrons commissioned works of art in the full range of Greek styles, including a marble statue of Artemis in an archaic style current in the Sixth Century BC and a monumental sculpture of Aphrodite that echoes the classical style of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. A portrait of Homer, an equestrian statuette of Alexander the Great and a relief depicting scenes from the Trojan War exemplify the Roman appreciation of works representing Greek subjects and themes.
Rediscovery and Reinvention focuses on the impact that the Eighteenth Century excavations and rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum had on the art and culture of the modern world.
The National Gallery of Art is on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. For information, 202-737-4215 or www.nga.gov .
