| Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption | |
| A Special Exhibition Review by Gail S. Myhre |
About the show:
Francesca Madden, Projects Manager for the exhibition Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption, is a vivacious and passionate guide, enthusiastic about her museum's focus and happy to point out the difference in context between how this exhibition is presented by the Field Museum and how it would and will be presented by and for an art museum and its patrons. I recently had the very good fortune to be escorted through this exhibition by Ms. Madden personally, and am pleased to recall the experience here.
As the exhibition title suggests, a distinct emphasis has been placed on the "human story" of the towns buried in the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The exhibition is seen in the light of a sociological and anthropological study rather than one of art and art history, as it has been and will be viewed in other venues. This emphasis manifests itself mainly in two ways.
Kantharos
Roman (ca. 50 B.C.)
Silver
© Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali -
Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii
The first is in the display of the objects themselves. An art museum might show the more decorative items, such as the Strongbox found in the Villa of Lucius Crassius Tertius, beautifully topped with watchdog finials, fronted with a lion's head handle and inlaid with a comic mask of Bacchus, in the round. It might also showcase the Kantharos, with its delicate olive branch decorations, elevated to eye level. In this exhibition, such objects are positioned against walls, shown with collections of other, more everyday objects such as spoons and coins, or placed at table height. In the case of the Strongbox and two of the frescoes, they're juxtaposed with casts of the eruption's victims found nearby. A clear emphasis is placed on their use and utility.
The second way in which the emphasis on the "human story" manifests itself is by how the casts of the victims have been presented, as mentioned briefly above. Those of us who recall the last great exhibition of Pompeiian art (Pompeii: AD 79) will remember only a few of these casts being present, placed by themselves, dramatically lit by spot and arranged in tableau at the very end of the exhibit – the art museum's concession to the scientific aspect of the exhibition being to show the casts almost as if they too were art. Here the casts of the victims almost deliberately obscure the art. In fact, those from the Villa of the Golden Bracelet are placed directly in front of the fresco from that building, effectively preventing closer viewing of the wall painting. This forces the viewer to see it only in the context of the humans who inhabited and died in these rooms.
With this show, there is an unprecedented opportunity to view several beautifully preserved frescoes. Yet because of the show's emphasis in this venue on the everyday use of the objects being exhibited, there is very little examination of the artistic context of the works, both in the catalogue and in the captioning. There is the briefest discussion of the First through Fourth Styles of Roman fresco painting in the captioning of the lovely Second Style Wall Painting from the House of the Cryptoporticus. The recorded tour identifies the Muses shown in the fresco from the West Triclinium of Moregine by name and in connection with the objects they hold. Yet the description of both of these frescoes is, I feel, incomplete without further background that is barely touched upon or ignored completely here.
Wall Painting
From the House of the Cryptoporticus
Roman, Second Style (40-20 B.C.)
Fresco
© Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali -
Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii
The Cryptoporticus fresco contains scenes of Dionysian worship which would have been important in such a wine-rich community. They're barely mentioned. And the Triclinium fresco has a connection with the Emperor Nero – possibly, though not certainly, depicting him in the guise of Apollo Citheroedus – that would have given insight into the political uses of Roman art, and which is given only the most oblique mention in the catalogue, and none in the caption and audio tour. This is a peculiar omission given the emphasis placed on the political connection in that portion of the recorded tour which treats the Marble Statue of a Standing Woman (Later Remodeled as Livia Augusta) found in the Villa of the Mysteries.
Two lovely frescoes from Boscoreale, treasures belonging to the Field Museum, would have been a pleasant inclusion in this venue's showing of the exhibition but for their loan to the Art Institute a short distance away. They're sadly missed in this exhibition. But according to Ms. Madden, the "human story" is adequately told without them.
Wall Painting
(detail: Nero as Apollo Citheroedus)
From the Triclinium of Moregine
Roman, Second Style (First Century A.D.)
Fresco
© Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali -
Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii
Roman rooms had little furniture and few windows by comparison with our own. And so Romans often favored a trompe l'oeil effect in their wall frescoes, creating the illusion of a visual expansion of the space and sometimes providing a "view" of a supposed exterior occasionally naturalistic, but more often idealized. These more fanciful views would frequently include scenes from mythology that were intended to be edifying, entertaining or simply allegorically descriptive, as with the fresco found in the House of the Centenary, unfortunately not present at this venue. Befitting the home and workplace of its final head of household or dominus, a wealthy vintner, this fresco vividly depicts Bacchus at the foot of Vesuvius, clad in fist-sized grapes as though he himself is one large cluster. Ms. Madden specifically mentioned this particular fresco as one which she regrets being unable to include in the Field's showing of the exhibition, though it was included in the European venues. I must agree with her disappointment, as it is an iconic image and beautifully illustrative of this attitude. At least we can view the piece in the exhibition’s catalogue. But it's one more odd gap in an exhibition that has too many, at least from an art-historical perspective.
Many of the objects in the show's catalogue are absent from this showing. Present instead are only a few of the Field's very fine bronze castings, notably a bathtub and a round table with lion's feet, and these are shown not for their marvelous craftsmanship so much as for their obvious utility – again, the much-referenced emphasis on the "human story."
As for the body of the catalogue itself, its somewhat late production relative to the opening of this exhibit at the Field Museum determined that the Field was not given the opportunity to add to it. Nor was it edited so that text and images would match the objects being displayed. This has resulted in omissions which will baffle the American viewer. Moreover, the catalogue assumes a familiarity with ancient art and mythology that the average American visitor to a natural history museum will not possess – though the average European visitor to an art museum will understand perfectly. Finally, there are specific errors in matching text to images and in the sequential labeling of illustrative figures which might have been remedied in a later editing for the non-European venues. But this opportunity is now lost.
Standing Woman (Later Remodeled as
Livia Augusta)
Roman (First Century A.D.)
Marble
© Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali -
Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii
The lack of a more extensive treatment of the art and mythology behind the objects is unfortunately not remedied in the captioning of the exhibition. I have mentioned this above with reference to the frescoes, but there are other examples. One particularly striking juxtaposition of statues, pointed out to me by Ms. Madden herself as a view she especially enjoys, places a strongly Eastern-influenced Statue of Apollo (dating from the First Century A.D., and found in the House of Julius Polybius) directly behind a distinctly Hellenistic bronze of a Satyr with Wineskin, found in the House of the Centenary and dating from the same period. The contrasting styles are an object lesson in the varying tastes of the society that produced them. Yet the view is merely serendipitous; the lesson is not drawn. By and large, objects are labeled solely with reference to their functions, and only rarely is their decoration or artistic value mentioned, as with the Strongbox referenced above or the elegant Silver Cups and Mirrors. This ignores the distinct pleasure the Romans took in their enjoyment of the decorative arts, one we happen to share with them.
Produced separately from the exhibition, a CGI movie reconstruction of the villas and gardens of Pompeii as they might have looked deserves mention here as well, since it is, by the evidence of the traffic it gets, possibly the most popular aspect of the exhibit as shown by the Field. In fact, Ms. Madden informed me that it was necessary to shorten the duration of the film; in a longer version, it created bottlenecks due to the crowds it drew. As mentioned, it was produced separately, without sanction by the Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei (under whose auspices the rest of the exhibition has been produced) and will not appear in any other venue's presentation of this show. Its interpretations and descriptive language are exceedingly poetic. While it adds nothing specifically to the appreciation of the objects on view, it does indeed further the Field’s stated emphasis – that oft-mentioned "human story." I assure you that I do not mention this particular phrase more often than Ms. Madden herself did. The distinct and pointed direction toward this anthropo-sociological approach and away from any tendency toward exhibiting the artifacts as art is clear and strong.
Apollo (detail)
Roman (First Century A.D.)
Bronze, ivory and glass paste
© Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali -
Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii
All this being said, the exhibition is nevertheless a marvelous exploration of the sensibilities, both artistic and mundane, of ancient Roman society. Moreover, the Field Museum has really made this exhibition work as a natural history exhibit. Ms. Madden and the curators understand and anticipate their visitors' tastes and interests admirably, and have neatly adapted to science an exhibition which would seem to lend itself preferentially to art. The three main holdups in the traffic flow of this well-laid-out show occur at predictable places: before the rather colloquial fresco from the Caupona of Salvius; at the case containing the gladiatorial equipment found in the Quadriporticus of the Theaters; and at the CGI reconstruction theater.
Though the exhibition itself is indeed a success, it's the gaps and omissions noted above that will disappoint those of us wishing to view the show from an art history perspective. With this in mind, the enthusiast on a budget may wish to wait until this exhibition returns to the U.S. from the Asian leg of its tour, at which time it will be shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. I plan to return to it then myself. But I certainly do not regret having seen it in this venue, for the objects tell their own story. They would be beautiful anywhere.
Special thanks to Ms. Francesca Madden, Project Manager for Exhibitions and Kristin Guiter, Public Relations Coordinator, The Field Museum.
"Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption" is on view from October 22, 2005 through March 26, 2006 at The Field Museum, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605-2496 (Telephone: 312-922-9410; Website: www.fieldmuseum.org). The museum is open daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with last admission at 4:00 PM. Suggested admission is $19.00 for adults, or $17.00 for Chicago residents. Advance tickets to this special exhibition, including museum admission, are available for purchase on the museum's website. Paid parking is available in two garages and the Adler Planetarium lot, all within the Museum Campus.
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From your Guide: Gail S. Myhre has been studying Roman history and art for twelve years. Her eclectic range of interests includes the surrealism of Dalí and Magritte, the post-modernism of Warhol and Lichtenstein, and the Ukiyo-e prints of Hasui and Toshida, among others. Gail resides in New York City and has a young son.
