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8.1 Initiation in the Villa of the Mysteries
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Do curso por Yale University
Roman Architecture
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Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls
Painted renditions of special subjects inserted into Second through Fourth Style Roman wall paintings. These include mythological, landscape, genre, still life, and history painting, as well as painted portraiture. Highlights include the Dionysiac Mysteries paintings and the Riot in the Amphitheater, both from residences in Pompeii.
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Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
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 Pompeiian 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 is, attempts to imitate marble incrustration
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 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 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 showed to you again.
And you'll recall the design of the, of the, 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 has dropped down, we
do have substantial columns with projecting entablatures.
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 five.
Room five 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 five, 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 it's on, 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'll find, that we find in there.
This small entrance way.
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 re, and the, and the location of the windows into
great consideration when he painted the scenes on this wall.
This is a view of the, room five as it looks today.
It's often also referred to as the 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 width, 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, 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 not like, 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 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.
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