Pompeii. Since its rediscovery in 1748, the buried city of Pompeii near Naples has exercised a powerful influence on the collective memory, with constant reminders of the frailty of human life and touching conservation of the accoutrements of daily life in the ancient Roman world. The 5–6 m (16–20 ft) of volcanic ash from the eruption of Vesuvius that entombed the ‘modest provincial town’ and many of its luckless inhabitants on 24 to 25 August AD 79 preserved a hitherto undreamed-of microcosm of Roman life.
Since the 18th century, the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum have been seen as significant precisely for the possibility of reconstructing entire cities and thus urban life. Public buildings vie in their decoration with private homes and tombs of the Pompeians. A glimpse of social realities results from the juxtaposition of massive residences of the wealthy with minute shops and squalid living quarters on the second storey for the less affluent in their street-fronts.
The private patron of art is most visible in the ruins of Pompeii. A culture of social climbing and grandiose political gestures was expressed visually in the decoration of domestic space with elaborate painted wall schemes, bronze and marble sculpture, and extravagant minor arts. The house of the Roman aristocrat was yet another stage for his political and social aspirations and domestic accoutrements had to match his actual or presumed social status.
The private patron of art is most visible in the ruins of Pompeii. A culture of social climbing and grandiose political gestures was expressed visually in the decoration of domestic space with elaborate painted wall schemes, bronze and marble sculpture, and extravagant minor arts. The house of the Roman aristocrat was yet another stage for his political and social aspirations and domestic accoutrements had to match his actual or presumed social status.
Recent scholarship suggests that house decoration reflected the hierarchy of Roman society with the ‘public’ atrium, tablinum, and peristyle of the house equipped with paintings and sculpture to impress the masses while the real ‘treasures’ of the private core of the house were accessible only to close associates.
The painted decoration at Pompeii may be divided into four styles. Although a loose chronology is evident in the development from one style to another, earlier styles of wall painting were renewed in later periods. Repairs after damage sustained in an earthquake traditionally dated to AD 62 have preserved precious evidence of workshop technique and materials.
The painted decoration at Pompeii may be divided into four styles. Although a loose chronology is evident in the development from one style to another, earlier styles of wall painting were renewed in later periods. Repairs after damage sustained in an earthquake traditionally dated to AD 62 have preserved precious evidence of workshop technique and materials.
Mosaic floors were, by comparison, relatively modest; most were black and white with an occasional coloured emblemata. A notable exception is the Alexander mosaic from the House of the Faun with its depiction of the historic battle of Issus between Alexander the Great and the Persian King Darius.
In sculpture, the norm at Pompeii was for under-life-size busts and statues in bronze or marble, Dionysiac figures for the garden, ancestor busts for the atrium, and images of the gods for the lararia (household shrines). The sole exception, a life-size copy of the Doryphorus of Polyclitus, comes from public space, the Samnite Palaestra. Minor arts are represented in large numbers by bronze and ivory attachments for furniture, dining services in precious metals, marble tables decorated at times with mythological figures.
Lori-Ann Touchette
Bibliography
Clarke, J. R. , The Houses of Roman Italy (1991).
Wallace-Hadrill, A. , Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994).
Ward-Perkins, J., and Claridge, A., Pompeii AD 79, exhib. cat. 1976 (London, RA).
How to cite this entry:
Lori-Ann Touchette "Pompeii" The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 25 August 2011
Lori-Ann Touchette
Bibliography
Clarke, J. R. , The Houses of Roman Italy (1991).
Wallace-Hadrill, A. , Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994).
Ward-Perkins, J., and Claridge, A., Pompeii AD 79, exhib. cat. 1976 (London, RA).
How to cite this entry:
Lori-Ann Touchette "Pompeii" The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 25 August 2011
