For those of you who’ve not read Richard Harris’s brilliant historical novel “Pompeii,” allow me to spoil the ending: In 79 A.D., Mt. Vesuvius erupts, burying the titular resort town, along with its sister city, Herculaneum, in pumice and ash for 1,600 years.
You already knew that, of course. But as always in art, it’s the telling, not the tale, that matters. And like Harris’s book, an exhibit on view in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art until next spring recounts these ancient events with force and vivacity, bringing them firmly into the here and now.
“Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples” is a sort of “MTV Cribs” for the sandals and togas set, featuring about 150 paintings, frescoes, sculptures, lamps and knickknacks from homes in the seaside paradise where the Roman elite came to play. Julius Caesar had a place there, as did his successor, Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. So did Nero. And Caligula, the ruler whose name has become synonymous with decadence and cruelty. (You’ll find marble busts of all four notorious Roman A-listers here.)
Naturally, their seaside villas were not modest. Think Graceland on the water. Sixty-five thousand square feet. An atrium with portraits of your ancestors. Guest rooms overlooking the sea. Wall-frescoes of (other) architectural masterworks, or of the sky itself, or of sea-nymphs.
Our own waning empire is often likened to that of the Romans, and this exhibit bears out the likeness to an uncomfortable degree. For one thing, it hammers home that the Romans were as obsessed with Greek culture circa 1100 B.C.-100 B.C. as we are. (Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, was only about a century older to the Romans who witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius than Shakespeare is to us.) Greeks had previously settled the region, and reproductions of iconic Greek sculptures such as Phidias’s “Athena Lemnia” were much in vogue among the wealthy Romans who lived there later. The well-educated Roman upper class actually spoke Greek to one another in private, and they commissioned images of Greek figures and gods like Theseus, the Minotaur-slaying king, and Dionysus, diety of wine and partron of drama. Graven images of the latter are ubiquitious here.
Aside from the ancient Roman artifacts, the show includes paintings and reproductions dating from the 19th century, when news from the excavations of of Pompei and Herculaneum — and Edward Bulyer-Lytton’s 1834 novel “The Last Days of Pompeii,” a copy of which is also on view — spurred a Victorian-era resurgence in interest in ancient Rome.
One such painting, Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s 1874 “A Sculpture Gallery,” depicts the first-century equivalent of a visit to IKEA: A mother, accompanied by her two children, stares at a giant fountain — perhaps mulling over how she’ll justify its cost to her husband — while a laborer waits to move it for her.
Verily, the first century A.D. was an age of conspicuous consumption on the Bay of Naples. Thanks in no small part to this engrossing show, it’s a time and place that’s managed to escape being consumed itself.
If you go
“Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples”
Where: Through March 22, 2009
When: National Gallery of Art, 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Info: Free; 202-737-4215 or www.nga.gov
