'Pompeii And The Roman Villa' opens at LACMA

It looks like I need to plan another visit to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 'Pompeii And The Roman Villa' has opened there and will be on exhibit until October 4. At least I have most of the summer to find a decent airline ticket. This article doesn't mention anything about gladiator armor. When I was in Naples a couple of years ago I was very disappointed that gladiator armor found in Pompeii was not on exhibit at the Museo Archaeologico di Napoli. It was apparently on tour. I was hoping this traveling exhibit from the Naples museum was the one that contained it.

"An exhibition celebrating the art, culture and luxurious lifestyle of Ancient Rome's wealthy elite has reached Los Angeles. Entitled 'Pompeii And The Roman Villa', the event features over 120 items from ancient villas in the Bay of Naples, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.

The mosaics, sculptures, paintings and jewellery, some of which only uncovered in the last few years, are mostly on loan from the Naples Archaeological Museum.

Solid silver wine goblets, jewelled caskets that once contained exotic perfumes and the remains of gourmet delicacies, such as flamingo tongue and roast ostrich, are among the items uncovered.

In addition, the exhibition documents the fascination of Rome's nouveau riche with Greek culture, through books by Epicurius and Plato, garden sculptures of nude athletes and scantily clad statues of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. - More: Ansa.it If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Why sex rather than kissing is depicted in Pompeiian art

With the coming of Valentine's Day there is always a plethora of articles about the history of celebrations of love and romance. But, I found this short reference to a presentation by Dr. Donald Lateiner particularly interesting because I had never thought about why I had seen so much erotic art in Pompeii but did not remember seeing any depictions of a simple kiss. Apparently, Dr. Lateiner thinks it is a result of being "too small a gesture" to be featured in the full length artwork that was in vogue at the time. Knowing how important status was to the Romans though, I would venture to say it was probably not featured because it symbolized subservience. Lateiner points out that people used a kiss to curry favor, beginning with the hands and proceeding then to the shoulders and lastly to the head. Most erotic art that I have seen from Pompeii is usually depicting prostitutes or, at least, not wives. Therefore, a painting of a Roman male kissing a prostitute would be deemed socially unacceptable.

[Image - Erotic fresco from Pompeii I photographed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli.]

Donald Lateiner, a humanities-classics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, says that men kissed men on the cheek as a social greeting, while subjects of a king “abased” themselves by kissing the ground in front of him.

While speaking at a press conference in Chicago, he said that people who wanted to curry favour with someone of higher status would “kiss up” the person’’s hands, shoulders, and headin that order.

He revealed that poems, novels, and all kinds of art helped him parse out the history of the kiss.
Lateiner said that many Tuscan and Roman ladies” mirror cases sported erotic scenes “from the world of myth, (or) sometimes from the world of daily life.”

However, on Athenian vases and Pompeian frescoes, romantic smooching is quite rare.
“(Instead) there’’s a whole lot of sex,” National Geographic quoted him as saying.
He said that that might be because artists of the era preferred to depict full bodies, and a “Hollywood close-up” of people kissing would be too small a detail to feature.

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Nice video clip of Roman Art From The Louvre Exhibit

Here's a nice video clip of some of the pieces included in the exhibit, "Roman Art from the Louvre", that is now on display at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. I was fortunate to see the exhibit when it opened in the US at the Seattle Art Museum in February.

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