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  • Prof: Good morning.

  • The title of today's lecture is "Exploring Special Subjects

  • on Pompeian Walls."

  • And that's exactly what I'm going to do today,

  • to explore a number of scenes: a frieze of figures,

  • a landscape scene, portraits on Pompeian walls,

  • and also still life painting.

  • And we're going to look at them both in the context of the

  • architectural style walls that we've been discussing thus far

  • this term, especially the Second,

  • Third, and Fourth Styles, but we'll also look at them as

  • interesting in their own right.

  • We ended last time with a discussion of Fourth Style Roman

  • wall painting, and I want to show you again

  • what I consider the quintessential Fourth Style

  • wall.

  • It's the Ixion Room in the House of Vettii,

  • in Pompeii, and you see it here once again in all its garish

  • glory.

  • It's an amazing painting.

  • We talked about the fact that it is a kind of compendium of

  • all the styles that went before.

  • We described, for example,

  • the socle, which attempts to imitate

  • marble incrustation in paint, which of course makes reference

  • to the First Style of Roman wall painting.

  • We talked about the fact that the Second Style elements could

  • be seen in the substantial columns that are located in the

  • second tier, or in the main tier of the

  • painted wall -- columns that support a lintel

  • above and a coffered ceiling.

  • We see those here; we see them over here as

  • well--those, again, elements of the Second Style.

  • We talked about the Third Style features in this particular

  • painting, the mythological landscape in

  • the center that has a frame, a black frame around it,

  • to make it abundantly clear that this is not a window to

  • something else but rather meant to look as if it is a flat panel

  • painting hanging on the wall-- Third Style element.

  • Over here, another Third Style element,

  • the floating mythological figure, in the center in this

  • case, of a white panel with a border

  • that is made up of floral or vegetal motifs--

  • again elements of the Third Style.

  • With regard to Fourth Style, the introduction of

  • architecture, once again, on either side of

  • the main panel in the main zone.

  • These are not representations of complete buildings but

  • rather, as we discussed,

  • fragments of buildings depicted in illogical space,

  • and then in the uppermost tier we see the architectural cages

  • that we also described as characteristic of the Fourth

  • Style.

  • So all of these elements, as I said,

  • a compendium of all of these painting styles,

  • all in one place, is where Roman painting ends up

  • right before the destruction of Mount Vesuvius.

  • We also have looked--in fact, I want to return at the

  • beginning of today's presentation to the Villa of the

  • Mysteries in Pompeii.

  • We've looked at it twice already.

  • We looked at it from the standpoint of its architectural

  • evolution.

  • We looked at the two phases, first and second phases,

  • of the Villa of the Mysteries, and you'll remember the plan.

  • This is the second phase plan, which I show to you again,

  • and you'll recall the design of the villa, where you enter at

  • the top.

  • You enter into the peristyle, then into the atrium,

  • then into the tablinum; this unusual sequence of rooms

  • that is more in keeping with villa design,

  • according to Vitruvius, than to house design.

  • And we looked at a room, a Second Style wall painted

  • room, called Cubiculum 16, and I can show you where

  • Cubiculum 16 is on this plan.

  • You see it right over here.

  • And you'll remember that this was an outstanding example of

  • mature Second Style Roman wall painting --

  • this idea of opening up the wall illusionistically.

  • Remnants of the First Style wall still here.

  • That wall is dropped down.

  • We do have substantial columns, with projecting entablatures,

  • a coffered ceiling above and, in this case,

  • a lintel, and then an arcuated lintel;

  • all of these elements typical of the Second Style,

  • and especially the opening up of the wall to see a vista that

  • lies beyond, in this case a tholos or

  • round shrine, surrounded by blue sky.

  • So quintessential Second Style, in Cubiculum 16.

  • The room that I want to turn to today, also in the Villa of the

  • Mysteries, is Room 5.

  • Room 5 is located over here.

  • You see it right to the right of the tablinum,

  • and close to the southern side, close to the great bay window

  • that was added in Phase Two to provide magnificent views out

  • over the sea.

  • Room 5, it's a plain rectangular room,

  • or so it looks in plan, fairly large in scale--not as

  • large as the atrium but fairly large.

  • And while the plan is on the screen,

  • I just want to point to the entranceway,

  • to the room, this very small entranceway

  • here-- it's actually very important in

  • terms of our decoding of these paintings that we find in

  • there-- this small entranceway.

  • And then what you see in plan here are actually windows,

  • rather than additional doorways.

  • And we're going to see that the designer of this particular

  • room, the painter,

  • took the corners, took the location of the door

  • and also the corners of the room,

  • and the location of the windows, into great

  • consideration when he painted the scenes on this wall.

  • This is a view of Room 5 as it looks today.

  • It's often also referred to as the room with the Dionysiac

  • Mystery Paintings, mystery paintings that we'll

  • see feature the god of wine, Dionysus.

  • You can see from looking at this general view that the

  • paintings are quite well-preserved.

  • We'll see that they cover all four walls of the room,

  • except for the space--except for where the windows are,

  • obviously.

  • And you can also see that this is like nothing we've looked at

  • thus far this semester, in that what we have here are a

  • series of very large, monumental figures that seem to

  • walk around the room in a kind of procession,

  • and you see those extremely well here.

  • With regard to the style of wall that it is,

  • I show you another view over here where you can see those

  • same large figures walking from the doorway along the side of

  • the left wall.

  • But you can also see the design of the wall as a whole,

  • and if you look at it carefully you will note that the figures

  • are, of course, placed against these

  • large red panels.

  • Between those red panels, what look -- they're clearly

  • not columns, but kind of like flat pilasters here;

  • that resting on a socle, down below;

  • and then above, a meander pattern frieze;

  • and above that another, a course that represents,

  • in paint, what looks like variegated marble --

  • variegated marble, the implication being again it

  • would have been very expensive to bring from somewhere else.

  • So as we look at this, we think, "Well it's kind

  • of like a First Style wall."

  • But you can see that it's not a relief wall, it's not built up

  • in stucco, it's flat, because it was done entirely in

  • paint.

  • And yet, as you look at these very large figures,

  • you see that they are standing on a ground line that projects

  • into the spectator's space, and that suggests to us that

  • what we are dealing with here-- if we have to categorize this

  • and put it into First, Second, Third,

  • or Fourth Style -- we're going to call it a Second Style Roman

  • wall painting, because it has,

  • again, residual from the First Style,

  • but it's done entirely in paint, but it has this

  • projecting element at the bottom,

  • this baseline on which the figures stand and on which the

  • figures process.

  • So a Second Style Roman wall painting with monumental

  • figures.

  • And those monumental figures tell a story,

  • and it's a very interesting, very intriguing,

  • very mysterious story indeed.

  • And it is from the mystery scenes here, by the way,

  • that the Villa of the Mysteries got its name.

  • This is a view over here, an excellent view of the small

  • doorway that you need to take to enter into the room.

  • And as you enter into the room and you make a sharp left--

  • well first, of course, you enter in the room and you

  • get a glimpse of the entire space --

  • but as you turn to your immediate left,

  • you begin with the beginning of the story.

  • And the artist again has orchestrated this in such a way

  • as to make it look like this woman,

  • who is standing here, has actually entered through

  • the doorway of the room, and is now beginning to process

  • from that doorway, along the side of the room.

  • If we look at the woman, we see that she is wearing

  • quite a heavy garment, over here.

  • But it's a very jaunty representation of this woman,

  • because you can see she has her right hand on her hip,

  • in an interesting way.

  • And then, most interesting of all, is the fact that she wears

  • a veil over her head, and it's a kind of diaphanous

  • veil, as I think you can see.

  • It's over her head, protects her hair,

  • and then it wraps around her--she wraps it around her

  • chest.

  • She's holding one corner of it, with her left hand,

  • and the rest cascades down her back.

  • The artist has paid a great deal of attention to that veil,

  • because he wants to identify her for us, and to tell us that

  • she is a bride.

  • Brides were often depicted with voluminous veils,

  • like that, as you see her here.

  • And she is a bride--as we're going to find out as we

  • interpret these scenes-- she is a bride,

  • probably a young Pompeian woman,

  • who is about to enter- who is about to participate in these

  • religious rites that are going to allow her--

  • it's kind of like a fraternity or sorority initiation that

  • she's about to undergo: let's say a sorority initiation

  • that she's about to undergo, because she's about to go

  • through something that's going to enable her ultimately to

  • enter into a mystical marriage with the god of wine,

  • Dionysus.

  • She enters here.

  • Then she comes upon two other figures.

  • There's a seated woman, as you can see,

  • who holds in her left hand, a scroll.

  • She has her right hand on the shoulder of a little boy.

  • Note that the little boy is completely naked and completely

  • oblivious to the fact that he is naked.

  • He holds in his hand a scroll, which he has--

  • another scroll--which he has unfurled,

  • and it looks as if he is--well there's no question,

  • he's very intent on looking at the text on that scroll--

  • and it looks as if he is reading from the text of that

  • scroll.

  • And we interpret that scroll, or we interpret his

  • participation in this scene, as probably the fact that he is

  • reading the liturgy, the liturgy that has to do with

  • this cult of Dionysus and with the mystical marriage of women

  • with the god Dionysus.

  • It's a wonderful depiction of that boy.

  • And I also show you here the rest of that particular side of

  • the room.

  • We're going to look at all the figures in order,

  • but I just wanted you to get a sense of the rest of the wall as

  • it unfurls -- this left wall as you first

  • come into the room.

  • And I wanted to point out, using this image,

  • that again about how sophisticated this particular

  • artist was, because he takes into

  • consideration, as I mentioned before,

  • the corners of the room, and they become part of the

  • narrative.

  • As you can see here, there's an empty space,

  • but the story line, as we'll see,

  • continues across the corner, and the figures over here

  • interact with the figures on the other side of the bend in the

  • wall, in again a very,

  • very sophisticated and interesting way,

  • and we'll follow that through.

  • Before we do though, I just want to show you a head

  • detail of the seated woman, to give you a sense of the

  • extraordinary talent of this artist,

  • whose name, unfortunately, has not come down to us.

  • We see this head here, and you can see the way in

  • which the artist has captured the moment: what this woman is

  • going through, what she's thinking about.

  • She's seated.

  • She's listening to the liturgy that's being spoken by this boy.

  • You can see that the artist has paid a great deal of attention

  • to her eyes, which are wide open and very nicely painted.

  • But one gets the sense, or at least I get the sense as

  • I look at this, that she is not only wide eyed

  • at what's going on, but you also have a sense that

  • she's kind of almost jaded.

  • She's kind of seen it all.

  • She has a sense of what the moment is and what is about to

  • occur.

  • Notice also the way in which her lips are slightly parted,

  • and especially the hair.

  • The artist, as we'll see, who was responsible for

  • painting this--and it may have been more than one artist;

  • it may have been a designer who worked with obviously others in

  • a workshop.

  • But whether it's a single individual or several,

  • it is very clear that this person or persons have a very

  • good sense of what hair, real hair, is actually like.

  • It's the same as I mentioned when we talked about the

  • gardenscape of Livia, and I said that that artist had

  • clearly looked at nature and was actually depicting what he saw

  • and knew about nature.

  • Here is somebody, I believe, who has really

  • looked at human beings, who has really looked at the

  • way in which hair grows from the scalp,

  • because you can see the way in which he has shown that hair

  • growing from the scalp, and he understands that when

  • you part your hair in the middle,

  • there may be a certain part of the scalp that you actually see

  • through the hair, and he has represented that

  • extremely realistically here.

  • So although we don't know the name of this particular artist,

  • we can acclaim his talent here, as we look at details such as

  • this one.

  • The story continues from the boy reading the liturgy to the

  • figure that you see here.

  • It is a figure, again, of a woman.

  • She is holding some kind of a dish,

  • and she has on that dish probably--it's very hard to

  • identify exactly what's there-- but she has probably some items

  • that have something to do with this cult,

  • with this mystical marriage of these Pompeian women with

  • Dionysus.

  • She is dressed in--she has a light colored top and a purple--

  • there's a lot of purple in this scene--

  • a very vividly purple skirt, as you can see down here.

  • She is the first woman of the group to wear a laurel wreath

  • over her head, as you can see.

  • And she and all of them, by the way, wear bracelets.

  • You can see bracelets around her lower arm.

  • Some of them wear these arm bracelets up higher on their

  • arms, as we'll also see.

  • And she's one of the only figures that actually looks out

  • at us, the spectators.

  • She really is basically confronting us.

  • We link eyes with her when we look at this particular

  • painting, and the artist is obviously

  • trying to establish fairly early on a connection between the

  • viewer and what is happening in this scene.

  • The beginning of another scene here, with a series of

  • women--and I have a better view of it here--where you can see

  • what's happening next.

  • Here we have three women who are standing at some kind of a

  • table, and one of the women,

  • the woman on the right, has a pitcher from which she's

  • pouring some kind of liquid.

  • Whether it's water or wine or what, we're not absolutely sure.

  • It might well be wine, given that this is the

  • Mysteries of Dionysus.

  • She may be pouring wine.

  • But whatever it is, it has been interpreted as a

  • purification scene, in which something--and we

  • can't see what it is that's underneath this purple piece of

  • cloth that one of the women is holding up and revealing.

  • They are purifying that or either an object or a series of

  • objects on this table.

  • It's a wonderful depiction of these three women,

  • one woman holding the edge of the table over here,

  • and looking to her compatriot who is pouring the liquid on

  • this side.

  • And a real tour de force--it's not so easy to depict a figure

  • from the rear and make it work, but this artist has done so.

  • A very monumental woman, seated on a wonderful throne

  • here, with a purple hem, as you can see down below.

  • But look at the way he's depicted her garment.

  • It's tight in some places and molds her body,

  • and cascades in others.

  • She's also wearing a scarf that's tied back behind her

  • head, and she too wears a laurel wreath over that scarf.

  • This woman has a laurel wreath as well.

  • So they're purifying; as part of this rite,

  • they are purifying.

  • Women, three women, are participating and purifying

  • this object or objects here.

  • This woman has her--she's not really looking as you--well she

  • isn't looking at what she's doing, as you can see.

  • She's doesn't seem to be watching the purification,

  • but rather is looking at this fellow over here,

  • and given what he looks like, I guess that's not surprising.

  • Her glance is caught by him.

  • Now who is he?

  • He is what we call a Silenus, S-i-l-e-n-u-s,

  • and a Silenus is an older satyr, s-a-t-y-r.

  • Who were the satyrs?

  • The satyrs were the compatriots of Pan, P-a-n;

  • compatriots of Pan.

  • And so a young Satyr grows up into an old Silenus,

  • and you see that Silenus here, and he's a very interesting

  • figure.

  • You can see that he's completely naked,

  • and in fact, well there are naked men and

  • naked woman in this, as we'll see.

  • But it's interesting to see which ones are and which ones

  • aren't.

  • He is, and you can see that this great purple mantle that he

  • had draped around his body has completely, or almost

  • completely, fallen off.

  • He is playing a lyre, as you can see here,

  • and probably singing, along with his lyre playing.

  • And not only has his garment fallen off,

  • but you can see that he is not--one foot is on the

  • pedestal, on which the--or on a base,

  • on which the pedestal that supports the lyre is located.

  • But another leg has slipped off that pedestal.

  • Why is that?

  • He's quite tipsy.

  • We know that the Silenuses and the satyrs did a lot of

  • drinking, very serious drinking.

  • He has clearly imbibed, and he is not very much in

  • control of himself any longer.

  • So he's probably pretty oblivious to the fact that his

  • clothing has fallen off and that he too has slipped off the base,

  • as he sings.

  • So it's not surprising that this woman casts her glance

  • towards the goings on next to her.

  • Here are the--I mentioned the satyrs, and we see two of the

  • young satyrs right next to that older man.

  • And the satyrs again are associated with Pan.

  • And goats are also associated with Pan, and you can see one of

  • them is feeding the goats here.

  • These young boys--and it's true of the men too;

  • I neglected to mention it--all have sort of Pan or animal ears,

  • as you can see very clearly here, the pointed animal ears.

  • And this one is playing a flute.

  • So one playing a flute, one feeding the goats,

  • both of them seated on a kind of rocky area over here.

  • This figure is of particular interest.

  • It's a woman clothed with a white garment that is

  • sleeveless.

  • She has one of these bracelets on the upper part of her arm.

  • It is clear that she is afraid and she is fleeing from

  • something.

  • You can see that she holds up her left hand,

  • she holds up her left hand, as if she is trying to ward

  • something horrific off.

  • And you can see that she is -- by the way,

  • while she's holding up her hand to ward it off,

  • you can see that she's absolutely mesmerized by

  • whatever it is that she's seeing.

  • Her eyes are staring straight ahead--

  • wide eyed, staring straight ahead--to look at whatever it is

  • that is on one hand fascinating, and on the other horrific.

  • She is clearly in a rush, because you can see that the

  • purple mantle that she wore has been caught in the breeze;

  • as she tries to escape, the breeze is caught in that,

  • and it almost serves the purpose of a kind of parachute

  • that's about to rescue her from whatever it is that she has seen

  • and that has frightened her.

  • We are now at the first corner of the room.

  • So again, the artist has taken the corner into consideration

  • and created this dramatic interaction between this woman

  • and whatever it is that she's afraid of on the other side of

  • the corner.

  • And before I show that to you, I just wanted to show you a

  • close-up of her face, to again give you a sense of

  • how talented, how extraordinarily gifted this

  • artist was in capturing the moment,

  • in capturing the feelings that this woman must have been going

  • through.

  • Once again, the very wide eyes, fascinated by what she sees,

  • but seemingly all knowing.

  • She's seeing something that she doesn't quite expect,

  • but you get the sense that perhaps she did know all along

  • that she was going to see something of this nature.

  • The parted lips, once again, and the expert way

  • in which the artist has shown the way hair naturally grows out

  • of the scalp of the head, again achieved magnificently in

  • this head detail.

  • Now the object of her fear is what we now see over here.

  • Here again we see the corner itself, an empty red space,

  • the woman fleeing on this side.

  • What is she fleeing from; what is she afraid of?

  • This horrific mask that is being held by one of the satyrs.

  • We see another set of two young satyrs here,

  • and an old Silenus again, and one of the satyrs holding

  • up this horrible mask, and that seems to be what has

  • put fear into the eyes of this particular woman.

  • With regard to the scene of the satyrs,

  • you can see that--the Silenus and the satyrs--

  • the Silenus is seated on some kind of marble block,

  • as you can see here.

  • He looks very similar to the one that we saw before.

  • An older man with those animal ears, as you can see,

  • one of the satyrs holds a mask.

  • All of these figures, by the way, do not have

  • any--are semi-naked.

  • You can see that they have bare chests, in all cases,

  • and the mantle's only covering the lower parts of their bodies.

  • And the Silenus, while looking back toward the

  • woman, is holding a large cup from which one of the satyrs is

  • drinking.

  • It's a kind of--I always think of this as a kind of Mory's

  • cup--and you see that the Silenus is holding it,

  • the younger satyr is drinking from it.

  • So again, this has a lot to do with drinking and getting drunk,

  • this mystery and--at least from the male point of view,

  • because it actually seems to be the men who are drinking,

  • and not the women who are drinking,

  • in this particular instance.

  • It's a wonderful--let me also show you a detail of the young

  • satyr drinking out of the cup, and you can see how gifted

  • again this particular artist is.

  • I don't think this artist always gets the hands right.

  • He tries.

  • They're sometimes a little bit awkward,

  • but on the other hand he really has made an effort to show the

  • way in which hands and fingers grip something,

  • both from the bottom and also from the top.

  • He's very good with the eyes.

  • Again you get--it's just wonderful the way he has

  • achieved showing this satyr on one hand greedily drinking from

  • the cup, but at the same time with one

  • eye--you can see one eye, and that one eye is very much

  • on what it is that he's doing.

  • He's looking at that liquid quite intently,

  • as he drinks it, and I think that's very well

  • achieved here.

  • And again this extraordinary way in which the artist has

  • depicted the hair of this young man as it grows out of his

  • scalp.

  • Particularly talented; you don't see that very often

  • in Roman painting.

  • The center--we're now on the back wall;

  • we've turned the corner, it's the back wall,

  • the wall that you face when you come into the room and look

  • ahead.

  • And we see that the scene that follows the Silenus and the

  • satyrs with the mask is the scene that you see here,

  • and it is the most important scene in the painting,

  • because it is a scene that represents Dionysus himself,

  • this man with whom all of these Pompeian women are anxious to be

  • initiated into his rites, and to enter into mystical

  • marriage with him.

  • Here he is, and he is wasted, clearly.

  • Look at him.

  • Despite the fact that he's about to enter into marriage

  • with all these attractive young women, he's completely out of

  • it.

  • He is lying in the lap of Ariadne, his mortal lover;

  • you see her here.

  • And look at his eyes, they're sort of rolled up into

  • the top of his head.

  • He couldn't possibly support himself, without Ariadne's help.

  • His arms are outstretched behind him;

  • in fact, she has to put her arm around his chest in order to

  • protect him.

  • And I think it's interesting to see the way in which women are

  • represented as protective beings, in these paintings.

  • The woman earlier on who puts her hand around the boy who's

  • reading from the liturgy, and now Ariadne who drapes her

  • arm around Dionysus: Dionysus,

  • the god of wine.

  • You can see again that he had a mantle--and that's about it--on,

  • but that is slipping off.

  • And you can also see that he's so drunk that although he's kept

  • one sandal on, he's lost the other sandal.

  • You can see his bare foot over here.

  • You're looking at the bottom of the foot.

  • That sandal is gone, and if you look for it,

  • you can find it; here it is, it has fallen off

  • and it is located closer to Ariadne.

  • Look also at the staff that Dionysus usually carries:

  • the thyrsus, t-h-y-r-s-u-s,

  • the thyrsus of Dionysus.

  • It's there and it helps to identify him,

  • as does the ivy wreath that he typically wears.

  • Note the yellow ribbon that is tied around the thyrsus.

  • But one wonders how that thyrsus is being

  • supported, because you can see I guess

  • it's just leaning slightly against the chair on which

  • Dionysus sits, but one wonders how it is being

  • supported.

  • But it crosses his body here, and is meant again as an

  • identifying attribute for the god of wine.

  • The fact that we see Dionysus in this state and also on the

  • lap of Ariadne is interesting, especially the lap of Ariadne.

  • Because again, she was his mortal--she herself

  • was a mortal--his mortal lover.

  • And I think one of the ways of interpreting this as--

  • a scene like this--seeing that Dionysus could unite with a

  • mortal woman gave hope to the women of Pompeii who were hoping

  • to be initiated into this mystical religion,

  • and to embark on a mystical marriage with Dionysus.

  • This gave them hope that if another mortal woman was allowed

  • to enter into a relationship with Dionysus,

  • then they too would be able to follow in Ariadne's footsteps.

  • And so this is a very important message, I think,

  • of hope to those women who were hoping to become initiates of

  • this particular cult.

  • The next scene that we see is also a very interesting scene

  • and a very important one.

  • It's the one that comes right to the right of the scene of

  • Dionysus and Ariadne.

  • And we see here the discovery of the most important cult

  • object in this scene, which is the phallus.

  • We see a woman kneeling.

  • Her arms are wonderfully depicted, as they seem to barely

  • touch whatever it is that lies beneath this purple cloth.

  • We see down below a basket that is certainly the basket in which

  • the phallus, the secret ritual--the most

  • important but secret ritual item in the Dionysiac religion--

  • was kept.

  • And there's been a lot of speculation, what was behind the

  • purple cloth.

  • Is it an erect phallus?

  • Very possibly, that's exactly what it is,

  • that would have been kept again in this basket,

  • but is underneath here.

  • Although the speculation has been so wild that we even have a

  • scholar who has written an article suggesting that the

  • profile of this particular cloth here is so similar to the

  • profile of Mount Vesuvius that what we have here is a reference

  • instead to Mount Vesuvius and to the fact that this scene takes

  • place in Pompeii.

  • It's a very intriguing idea.

  • I can't imagine that it's correct, but nonetheless it

  • gives you some sense of the kind of scholarship and some of the

  • speculation there has been about what is actually going on here.

  • But it seems to be the covering, in this particular

  • case, and possibly about to reveal the secret--the most

  • important secret item in this cult.

  • Over here we see another fascinating figure.

  • We've gotten to another corner and we can see that she

  • straddles the empty red space in that corner.

  • A figure of a woman who is winged;

  • the only winged figure that we see in these scenes.

  • You can see her large outstretched wings behind her.

  • She is naked from the waist up.

  • She's wearing a fantastic skirt--I love this skirt--

  • with purple around the waist and purple at the hem,

  • and then a wonderful--it flips out,

  • it's brown, and it flips out, and it matches these great tall

  • boots, brown boots,

  • that she also wears.

  • And she's sort of on her tippy-toes as she herself puts

  • up one of her hands, perhaps again to ward something

  • off; we don't know what.

  • But with the other hand what's most important,

  • she has her hand behind her back and she's about to bring a

  • whip, which you can see,

  • down on the back of one of the initiates.

  • And as we look across the corner--again the artist

  • masterfully taking the corner into consideration in his design

  • vis-à-vis the content and the execution--

  • we see the way in which that whip is about to come down on

  • the back of one of these initiates who's kneeling and has

  • her head in the lap of a woman who protects her.

  • Here is the scene.

  • So again we see the figure, the winged figure with the

  • whip.

  • We see the object of the whipping, this initiate here.

  • She is kneeling.

  • She is in the lap, in part, of a woman who seems

  • to protect her, or try to protect her.

  • The woman who is trying to protect her, her eyes are very

  • wide.

  • She is staring up at the winged figure, imploringly it seems,

  • almost imploring her, "Please,

  • enough, enough, please stop."

  • And she is very nurturing to the young girl who is undergoing

  • this initiation, as she pats her on the head,

  • as you can see here.

  • An incredible view of this woman, the way in which the

  • upper part of her body is exposed for the whipping,

  • the rest of it covered in a voluminous purple mantle,

  • as you can see here.

  • Also figures to her right, a naked woman who is placed in

  • front of, interestingly,

  • a very heavily clothed woman, in a dark garment,

  • which only serves to accentuate the lightness of this woman's

  • flesh.

  • This sort of contrast or tension between clothed and

  • unclothed also seems to play a very important part in this

  • particular painting.

  • But this woman is incredible.

  • Again, the artist has enjoyed trying to represent figures from

  • the rear, as well as from the front.

  • And you see he has also shown her on her tippy-toes,

  • as she is--well she has cymbals above her head and she's

  • crashing those cymbals, and then she is dancing on her

  • tiptoes, down here.

  • But it's an incredible feat because she also has this gold

  • mantle that is over her shoulder and between her legs,

  • and somehow she's keeping this mantle balanced as she is

  • dancing and as she is playing her music.

  • And then there's another thyrsus of Dionysus that

  • seems to be located-- that is located between these

  • two women, and one wonders again how in

  • the world that thyrsus is being held up,

  • as this woman is participating in this dance and music-making

  • over here at the right.

  • To get back to this figure, I just want to show you a

  • detail, because I think in this detail

  • you really get, almost more than anywhere else

  • in this painted frieze, the extraordinary talent of

  • this particular artist.

  • Here the artist gets these hands really right.

  • You can see this, the limp hand of the woman

  • being whipped almost says it all--

  • it's an incredible detail--as does the more nurturing hand of

  • the woman who is trying to protect her.

  • And I think you can get a sense of what she must be going

  • through by the way in which the artist has represented her face.

  • He has cast her eye--her eyes are--this is one of the only

  • closed eyes; it may be the only closed eye

  • in the scene-- her eye is closed,

  • or almost closed, and it is sunken,

  • it seems to be sunken in a darkness here,

  • that gives you some sense of the pain that this woman must be

  • going through: pain that she obviously feels,

  • however, is worth it.

  • And look also at the way in which the hair has been depicted

  • here.

  • You really get the sense of sweat drenched hair,

  • of this woman again who's going through what is almost certainly

  • the most difficult moment in her life,

  • but one that she hopes is going to be well worth it,

  • at the end of the day.

  • It's an incredible detail, I think.

  • After that scene, there is a window,

  • and then at the very end of that wall--

  • we're now facing the room on the right wall of the room--

  • there is one last corner, and we see here what is

  • represented across that one last corner.

  • It is a very young woman, seated on a kind of a throne

  • here.

  • She has an attendant standing next to her,

  • and then there's a small winged cupid at the left,

  • and then across the corner we see another cupid,

  • standing on a base, leaning on a pedestal,

  • winged again, his head resting on one of his

  • hands, and he is looking across the

  • corner at what is going on, on the other side.

  • And he looks very, very admiring.

  • And in fact whom is he admiring?

  • He's admiring another one of these young initiates,

  • a young woman who seems to be readying herself to become a

  • bride, who's getting ready for her

  • initiation.

  • She wears a glorious golden garment that is wrapped,

  • and wrapped around her waist is a purple tie,

  • a purple ribbon or tie, as you can see here.

  • She is again accompanied by another woman,

  • an attendant, and the two of them together

  • are actually fixing her hair, to get her ready again for her

  • mystical marriage-- I have a detail of her to show

  • you in a moment.

  • And then this wonderful anecdotal detail here,

  • where we see the other cupid, winged again,

  • holding up a mirror in his hand, a rectangular mirror.

  • And if you look very, very closely--

  • and you can study this detail on your own as well--

  • if you look very closely you can see that there is a

  • reflection of the young woman's face in that mirror.

  • So a lot of attention being paid to the readying of this

  • woman, to be a bride, to enter into the mystical

  • marriage with Dionysus.

  • And we see a detail here where we can see her;

  • see how pretty she is; see how her--again the artist

  • has shown this extraordinary ability to depict hair as it

  • really is, growing out of her scalp.

  • You can see the part of her hair, the scalp showing through,

  • the way in which the hair grows from that.

  • And then you can see that not only is she working on arranging

  • it, but she's getting help from the attendant.

  • The attendant also has a section of her hair in her hand,

  • and the two of them together are trying to get her ready for

  • her mystical marriage.

  • Her arm is up.

  • You can see both of her bracelets: one around her wrist,

  • and then another bracelet up on the upper part of her arm.

  • Then we have another window, and then the last figure that

  • we see is this woman here, a woman who is seated on a very

  • elaborate throne.

  • She too is veiled.

  • She has again a combination gold and purple garment:

  • bracelets, she's wearing bracelets.

  • But she is veiled.

  • So again the implication is she too is a bride.

  • She seems very placid.

  • She seems somehow a little bit older than some of the other

  • brides.

  • And what has been speculated--she's very pensive;

  • you can see she leans her chin on one of her hands.

  • She seems to be sitting there, right at again the doorway of

  • the room.

  • She seems to be seated there, basically surveying everything

  • that's happening in front of her.

  • And because she looks a little bit older,

  • because she looks a little bit wiser,

  • because she is looking out at the panorama of what's happening

  • in front of her, it has been speculated,

  • and I think quite convincingly, that the woman we see here is

  • probably the matron of the house --

  • probably the wife of the man who owned and built the Villa of

  • the Mysteries in Pompeii, who was herself an adherent to

  • the cult of Dionysus, and has set aside this secret

  • room in her house for the cult of Dionysus in which she can

  • help initiate other young women into this mystery cult.

  • Just one, a couple of quick words about religion and cults

  • during this period.

  • The Roman religion was the Roman state religion.

  • Everyone essentially adhered to the Roman state religion,

  • which was very closely allied with the government of Rome.

  • So Church and State very closely allied in Roman times.

  • But as time went on, a number of religions had

  • emanated from other parts of the Empire, especially the Eastern

  • Empire.

  • The cult of Dionysus, the cult of the Egyptian

  • goddess Isis, began to take hold,

  • both for men and women.

  • Women had a particular predilection for the Egyptian

  • goddess Isis and for the Dionysiac mystery religions.

  • And initially, because they were not accepted

  • by the state-- the only religion that was

  • considered legitimate was the Roman state religion--

  • since they weren't accepted by the state--

  • and this included Christianity--these religions

  • had to be celebrated in, or the rites had to be done in

  • secret.

  • And so we see underground rooms, underground buildings

  • being built for this purpose-- I'll show you one a bit later

  • in the course-- but we also see rooms in houses

  • being set aside for these kinds of rites.

  • And that seems to be what happened here.

  • The woman of the house, the matrona,

  • the materfamilias of this particular family,

  • who lived in the Villa of the Mysteries,

  • has set aside Room 5 as this secret chamber in which she can

  • practice the Dionysiac rituals, and she can also encourage

  • other women, in Pompeii, to partake of those

  • same rituals.

  • I put on your Monument List, you'll see an image,

  • a drawing of all of these scenes that I've now gone

  • through, in order, and I think it's

  • helpful for you to have that as a reference,

  • just to be able to follow along again the narrative and where

  • each of the scenes that we've described comes up.

  • And then just one last view of the room as a whole.

  • I bring it back because I just wanted to end our discussion of

  • this particular monument with the point that this is really

  • quite unique in terms of the paintings that we've seen thus

  • far this semester; that is, to have a painting

  • with such monumental figures that tells the story that this

  • particular painting does.

  • And it's such a famous set of paintings that I think because

  • people know it so well, they think, "Well that

  • must be comparable to other things from Roman times."

  • But this is the only painting that we have like this.

  • It doesn't mean that there might not have been others,

  • but I think it probably means that there weren't a lot of

  • others, that this was truly an

  • exceptional work of art, that is preserved in the Villa

  • of the Mysteries at Pompeii.

  • I want to show you in the half an hour that remains a number of

  • other paintings, in much less detail,

  • but paintings that also are of special subjects,

  • that also belong to Second, Third or Fourth Style walls,

  • and are particularly interesting in a variety of

  • ways.

  • The first of these is also mythological in subject matter.

  • I'm going to show you the so-called Odyssey paintings.

  • We're moving back to Rome.

  • These are located in a house on the Esquiline Hill,

  • one of Rome's original Seven Hills, in Rome.

  • And while--I think I neglected to give you a date for the

  • Mystery paintings, but those are 60 to 50,

  • and these paintings are a little bit later,

  • 50 to 40 B.C.

  • They are also extremely interesting, because they seem

  • to represent scenes from the tenth and eveventh books of

  • Homer's Odyssey.

  • And Vitruvius, the architectural theorist,

  • writing in the age of Augustus, Vitruvius tells us that the

  • Greeks were particularly interested in representing the

  • wanderings of Odysseus in landscapes.

  • So he tells us--that's very important for us to know because

  • it means that the Greeks painted paintings like this,

  • illustrations of Odysseus' wanderings.

  • And yet we see one of these paintings in this house on the

  • Esquiline Hill in Rome, between 50 and 40 B.C.

  • Books X and XI focus on Odysseus' coming upon the

  • Laestrygonians-- I put that name on the Monument

  • List for you-- the Laestrygonians,

  • and what happens when he meets the Laestrygonians.

  • And we see one of the scenes here.

  • We see, in fact, that several scouts,

  • working for Odysseus, get off their boats on an

  • island and they come across this beautiful young woman who has

  • just fetched-- you can see she's holding a

  • pitcher-- she has just fetched water from

  • a well, and she's walking down this

  • mountain and she comes upon these scouts of Odysseus.

  • And being a friendly sort, she says to them:

  • "I'd like to invite you back to my father's house for

  • dinner."

  • Well her father is a man-eating giant, as are the other

  • Laestrygonians.

  • And the scouts fall for it, and they come with her to meet

  • her father, and the father immediately cooks up one of the

  • three for dinner.

  • And various other adventures happen on this island,

  • but what's particularly interesting for us is the fact

  • that these scenes again are from a well-known work of literature.

  • But the figures are very small in relation to the landscape.

  • It's clear that the artist, whether originally Greek

  • artists were particularly interested in the landscape and

  • the telling of a narrative across that landscape,

  • a landscape that is magnificently rendered,

  • as you can see, by these artists.

  • There are a number of scenes still preserved.

  • After that dinner, by the way, where one of the

  • scouts gets consumed, after that the Laestrygonians

  • decide that they don't want any more of Odysseus and his crew.

  • And they take boulders, as you can see in this scene

  • here, and they begin to attack the

  • ships of Odysseus, destroying most of them,

  • and only the one with Odysseus himself is able to escape,

  • and he makes his way, at that point,

  • to another island, to meet up with the enchantress

  • Circe.

  • So we see all of this very carefully described here.

  • But as we look at these scenes, I think we're particularly

  • struck-- or at least I'm particularly

  • struck, and I would imagine you'll

  • share this-- by the interest of this artist

  • in depicting the landscape.

  • We have an artist again, whether it's the original Greek

  • artist, but certainly copied here by an

  • artist in Rome, we see an incredible interest

  • in landscape, by someone who is clearly not

  • only looking at earlier models, but looking at landscape

  • itself, and is very interested in depicting all kinds of

  • anecdotal details: inlets of water,

  • as you can see here; rocks and the way in which the

  • rock is cast in shadow on one side and is lighted on the

  • other; the way in which branches bend,

  • both when people pull on them, or when they are buffeted by

  • the breeze or by the wind, as you can see with that tree

  • at the uppermost part of the peak.

  • So again the artists here are particularly interested in

  • nature and in the display of nature,

  • and in that way very comparable to what we saw in Livia's

  • gardenscape at the Villa at Primaporta.

  • I mentioned already that it is believed that these paintings on

  • the Esquiline Hill are based on Hellenistic Greek models that

  • probably were made in about 150 B.C.

  • So a copy, and in that regard should strike you as very much

  • the same trend, as we've seen so often in the

  • beginning of this semester, of the Romans looking back and

  • admiring Greek art, and incorporating it -- a kind

  • of Hellenization of Roman art and architecture,

  • because of this reverence and because of this incorporation of

  • earlier Greek scenes and prototypes.

  • And so we see that here.

  • And there are three reasons that scholars believe that what

  • we're looking at here is based very closely on a Greek model.

  • One of those is that passage in Vitruvius that I already

  • mentioned.

  • Vitruvius tells us that the Greeks were particularly

  • interested in representing scenes from the Odyssey against

  • a landscape background.

  • So that certainly tells us that it's likely these are based on

  • earlier Greek originals.

  • The second has to do--you've probably noticed this--

  • with the fact that many of the figures in these paintings are

  • labeled, and those labels are--if you

  • look very closely you will see-- in Greek, and not only are they

  • in Greek, but some of the words are

  • misspelled.

  • So since those words are misspelled,

  • it has been speculated--and I think again quite convincingly--

  • that those who are misspelling them don't really know Greek,

  • and may be Roman artists, who are not familiar with that

  • language, are copying it and making

  • mistakes in the process.

  • So that also suggests to us that earlier Greek models are

  • being looked at, absorbed, and even copied here.

  • But most interesting of all, for us aficionados of the

  • Second Style, is the fact that very

  • careful--the archaeologists, who have looked at these with

  • great care, have determined that the

  • landscape scenes that we've studied are continuous beneath

  • the columns, that when they copied these,

  • they copied-- perhaps they had a scroll that

  • they had from somewhere else, a Greek scroll,

  • that came from a library that had images on it,

  • and they unfurled that scroll and they copied it here.

  • They did that first, they copied--so we had a

  • continuous landscape scene, and it was only after that

  • landscape scene was painted that the artists went back and

  • painted the columns on top.

  • They put these Greek paintings, or copies of these Greek

  • paintings of Odysseus' wanderings,

  • based on this Greek prototype of the mid-second century B.C.,

  • they put it into a Roman context by providing these

  • Second Style columns or pilasters--

  • pilasters, I believe--pilasters,

  • by creating these Second Style pilasters and making this into a

  • vista or panorama that would have been seen through the

  • window, in a sense, of a Second Style

  • painting.

  • So it's a Romanization of an original Greek painting,

  • in an extraordinary way that tells us a good deal about how

  • the Romans were thinking about these Greek prototypes at this

  • particular juncture.

  • I showed you last time the Villa at Oplontis,

  • the Caldarium 8, and we looked at the soffit of

  • Caldarium 8, and we saw these floating

  • mythological figures, and we saw women in niches with

  • shells at the top.

  • And I pointed out to you, at that time,

  • that we also have a number of small panel pictures,

  • representing still lives, with fruit and the like.

  • And these in a sense get lost in the overall scheme of these

  • Second, Third, and Fourth Style walls,

  • but they're very interesting, if we look at them in greater

  • detail.

  • And I want to show you just two examples today.

  • This is a--it's blown up, obviously, way beyond the size

  • that it was--but it gives you some sense of what these look

  • like in detail.

  • It's a still life painting that comes from the Villa of Julia

  • Felix, in Pompeii, which dates to around 50 B.C.

  • And it probably--we do believe that it is a detail from a

  • Second Style wall.

  • And we look at that detail here, and we see that these--

  • for those of you who enjoy modern art,

  • for example, I think you'll agree that this

  • is- tends to be as modern as Roman Art gets,

  • because we see it has a very contemporary appearance,

  • I think, this particular still life painting.

  • We see that the artist has shown a striking penchant for,

  • or a sensitivity for composition, for light,

  • the way in which light falls on objects that are made of

  • different materials, be it metal or stone.

  • The artist has shown that kind of sensitivity,

  • I think, here, as well as to composition,

  • the way in which a group of objects are composed in

  • relationship to one another.

  • If we look at this painting, I think we'll agree it's quite

  • a tour de force.

  • We see some interesting things, which are not that easy to

  • decipher.

  • We see over here, for example,

  • a cloth with fringe that hangs on a nail on the wall.

  • We see over here, also hanging on the wall,

  • four dead birds.

  • We see a plate, an oval plate of what seem to

  • be eggs.

  • We see a pitcher over here, which again looks like a metal

  • pitcher, bathed in light on one side, with a handle.

  • And then we see here what looks like some kind of a beaker,

  • with something that may have been used to stir whatever

  • liquid was inside.

  • All of this on a stone pedestal.

  • And then leaning against that stone pedestal we see one of

  • these clay vessels, which seems to have an

  • inscription on that clay vessel.

  • So what is this still life painting?

  • Is it just meant to be a mix of objects that would be found in

  • the kitchen of a house?

  • Or is it something more than that?

  • Do these have meaning beyond that?

  • Is there some religious symbolism here,

  • for example?

  • This is not easy to decipher, and no one really has done that

  • satisfactorily, up to this point,

  • but it's something that one would want to keep in mind,

  • as one thinks about the meaning of these still life paintings.

  • And keep in mind again, if you think back to a room

  • like the Ixion Room, there are a number of these

  • small panel paintings in the Ixion Room.

  • When you look at the room as a whole, these are not easy to

  • see.

  • They're so small that they're lost in the overall scheme.

  • So you'd really have to go up very close to these,

  • if you could even reach them, if they're way up in the top it

  • would be difficult, but if they're down below,

  • go up close, look at them,

  • and try to figure out for yourself exactly what is going

  • on here.

  • Another one from, in this case,

  • from Herculaneum, which is not so ingeniously

  • called Still Life Painting with Peaches and Glass Jar--

  • but that's very descriptive, that's exactly what it

  • depicts-- which is later in date,

  • around 62 to 79, and probably was a panel in

  • either a Third or a Fourth Style Roman painting.

  • We see two tiers here.

  • We indeed do see peaches, and the artist again has really

  • looked at peaches to depict this--

  • shows the peaches on the vine, with the leaves,

  • as you can see here--and wants to make sure that we know what a

  • peach looks like inside, as well, so has cut a section

  • off one of these and shows the pit inside,

  • just to make sure that we get a full sense of how peaches grow,

  • and of what happens when you open a peach.

  • And then down here, below, a glass vase,

  • and you can see that the artist has filled that vase halfway

  • with water, so that he can explore the

  • effects of light on that water, and the reflection of that

  • water on the glass vase itself.

  • So clearly again artists that--there may be other reasons

  • that they juxtaposed these particular items,

  • reasons that may be beyond our comprehension today.

  • But while they may do that for ritual or other reasons,

  • they also are clearly very concerned with just exploring

  • composition, light, and so on and so forth,

  • as I said before, which is a very modern thing to

  • do.

  • We also see among the paintings that I've called "Special

  • Subjects" today,

  • genre scenes, scenes that represent daily

  • life in Pompeii or Herculaneum.

  • I'll show you just one of those here.

  • It is a painting of--it's usually called Painting of a

  • Magistrate Distributing Free Bread,

  • and it comes from House VII.3.30 in Pompeii,

  • a wall painting from VII.3.30 in Pompeii --

  • dates to around A.D. 70.

  • And what's depicted here--whether the magistrate is

  • distributing free bread or it's bread being sold,

  • we're not absolutely sure--but what you can see here is piles

  • and piles of round breads that are being distributed to those

  • who stand in front of the bread stand.

  • And I can show you a detail also of the same,

  • where you can get a better sense of the shape of the

  • breads.

  • You remember the petrified bread that we looked at from

  • Pompeii, and the division into shapes that make it resemble

  • pizza.

  • The same kinds of breads can be seen here, and it's that bread

  • that is being distributed to these people down below.

  • While this painting comes from a house, and it may have just

  • referred to the particular profession of someone who lived

  • in that house.

  • But paintings like this we believe--

  • and it may or may not have been the case with this one--

  • could also have--were also used as shop signs,

  • to advertise what was being sold in one of those

  • tabernae, that often opened off houses in

  • places like Pompeii and Herculaneum,

  • and that may have been the case here as well.

  • Just a few words about what we might call history painting,

  • among the Romans.

  • This is a fascinating and very famous painting of the

  • Amphitheater at Pompeii.

  • You see it on the left-hand side of the screen.

  • It comes from House I.3.23 in Pompeii, and dates to between 59

  • and 70 A.D.

  • And it purports not only to represent the Pompeii

  • Amphitheater, which I remind you of here,

  • and you'll recall the very distinctive staircase of the

  • Amphitheater at Pompeii, and you can see how carefully

  • that is rendered here by the artist to make sure that we know

  • this is indeed the Amphitheater at Pompeii.

  • It purports to represent a very famous historical event,

  • at least in terms of local history,

  • and that is a brawl that broke out between the Pompeians and

  • another group of individuals who lived in the area called the

  • Nucerians, N-u-c-e-r-i-a-n-s.

  • The Pompeians and the Nucerians, a brawl broke out

  • between them.

  • You can see that brawl being represented in the oval arena

  • there.

  • The brawl was so serious that the local magistrates decided to

  • punish both the Pompeians and the Nucerians,

  • and they did something quite extraordinary,

  • and that is that they decided to close down the Amphitheater

  • in Pompeii, for ten years: count them.

  • Can you imagine the city of Pompeii without an amphitheater

  • for ten years?

  • That was a very brutal punishment.

  • But it seems to have happened, and it is memorialized,

  • that very event is memorialized in this painting,

  • in this house at Pompeii.

  • This painting is also very valuable--

  • I think I've mentioned this to you before--

  • is also very valuable, not only for showing us the

  • shape of the amphitheater-- which, of course,

  • as you know, still survives--

  • the oval shape and the seating, but for a detail that doesn't

  • still survive, and that is the awning.

  • I mentioned to you that in amphitheater design,

  • they put poles at the very uppermost part of the

  • amphitheater, and they were able to put an

  • awning on those poles to protect people in inclement weather.

  • And we see the representation, our only preserved

  • representation in paint, of one of these awnings.

  • So again, it is very valuable in terms of helping us

  • understand amphitheater design.

  • The last two paintings I want to show you today are both

  • portrait paintings, and you have to think of these

  • portrait paintings, like the mythological panel

  • pictures, as paintings that were inserted

  • into walls, inserted into probably mostly

  • Third and Fourth Style Roman walls.

  • And when those treasure hunters hit Pompeii and Herculaneum,

  • these were the ones they went to first,

  • and they cut a fair number of these out of their original

  • contexts and made off with them.

  • But some of them fortunately have found their way into,

  • especially into the Naples Archaeological Museum.

  • This is the first one that I want to show you,

  • an absolutely fetching portrait of a young woman from Pompeii,

  • that dates to around the middle of the first century A.D.,

  • that is, 45 to 50 A.D.

  • And we see it here, and it's an incredible painted

  • portrait by clearly once again a very talented artist who's done

  • an extraordinary job of capturing this woman.

  • It's a very appealing portrait.

  • We see her, she's a quite attractive young woman,

  • with wide, sort of hazel colored eyes,

  • sharp, straight brows, straight nose,

  • sort of Cupid's lips.

  • As you can see down below, the hair is magnificently

  • rendered.

  • You can see that she has a bevy of corkscrew curls.

  • Those in the front, toward the front of her face,

  • are highlighted, and match very well the color

  • of her eyes.

  • She wears gold hoop earrings that also mimic the curlicues of

  • her locks.

  • And then you can see also that she wears something that appears

  • to have been fashionable to wear,

  • among Roman and Pompeian women, and that is a gold hairnet,

  • at the very apex, which adds shine and glimmer to

  • the hair; but also you can see the hair

  • beneath it through that.

  • Down below you can see she wears a green garment and a sort

  • of purple or brownish mantle over her shoulder,

  • and she holds a stylus to her lips.

  • And she has in her other hand, as you can see,

  • a tablet, in front of her, and it is clear,

  • as she puts that stylus to her lips,

  • she is deep in thought, very pensive,

  • figuring out what it is that she's going to write on her wax

  • tablet, because these were wax and they

  • would write into the wax tablets.

  • Because she is caught in this moment of deep thought,

  • a number of scholars have suggested that she must

  • represent the Greek poetess Sappho;

  • which is why I've put that painted portrait of Sappho on

  • your Monument List.

  • But you can see I've put Sappho in quote marks.

  • I think this is almost certainly not Sappho.

  • It is probably a Pompeian woman, and she may not be

  • thinking about the poetry that she's about to write,

  • but perhaps the shopping list that she's putting together

  • before she makes her way down to the central market of the city

  • of Pompeii, or sends her slave to go down

  • to the central market of the city of Pompeii.

  • But it may also be that she was literate, and that she wants to

  • underscore the fact that she was literate.

  • It may also be that this was just a set way of representing

  • women in portraiture in Pompeii.

  • Because this is not the only portrait we have of a woman with

  • her stylus to her lips and her tablets in her hands.

  • Here's another portrait that we have, also from Pompeii,

  • with a woman represented in exactly the same way.

  • This portrait is from House VII.2.60, and dates to around 62

  • to 79 A.D.

  • -- the portrait of a woman, and presumably her husband by

  • her side.

  • She again has the stylus to her lips;

  • she has the tablet down below.

  • You can see that he holds a scroll, which has a red place

  • marker up above.

  • So this portrait of the two of them may either allude to the

  • fact that they are both literate, that they can both

  • read and write.

  • It's also possible that the scroll that he holds may

  • indicate that he's a magistrate.

  • Or lastly, and one of the more popular solutions,

  • is that this may--he may be holding the marriage

  • certificate, the marriage between the two.

  • The portraits are very interesting.

  • You can see that she isn't quite as gorgeous as her other

  • counterpart.

  • Her hair is not arranged in those wonderful golden locks,

  • but is kind of fizzy over her forehead and down her neck.

  • As you can see here, her ears stick out.

  • She has a uni-brow.

  • But she's more than happy to be represented, as she was,

  • preserved for posterity, as she was, along with her

  • husband over here.

  • And if you look at the portrait, you will see again

  • that it has a black frame around it,

  • and then a maroon frame, which tells us again that this

  • was inserted into a wall, a Third or Fourth Style wall,

  • just like the mythological paintings were inserted into

  • those walls, as a painting that was located

  • in the center of that wall, and in this case emphasized the

  • owners of this particular house, and their undying love for each

  • other-- their relationship honors their

  • marriage-- and served as a kind of

  • counterpart to a portrait of the loving couple that one might put

  • on a mantelpiece, or on a piano,

  • in one's house today.

  • So you have to think of it as quite comparable to that.

  • Again, when you wander through Pompeii,

  • you don't see many of these portraits in situ,

  • in large part because they were so popular with treasure

  • hunters.

  • But fortunately we do have a few preserved from both Pompeii

  • and Herculaneum, and those can be seen in

  • museums like Naples today.

  • Thank you.

Prof: Good morning.

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B1 中級 美國腔

8.龐貝城牆上的特殊課題探索 (8. Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls)

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    Sofi 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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