Tag Archives: museums

Getty Villa (review)

29 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by in Archaeology, Art & Art History, Classical history, Classics resources, Greek Classics, Greek history, Latin Classics, Roman history

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I reviewed the Getty Villa on Yelp. Although I have given it 4 out of 5 stars it I have two critiques of its collection from a professional standpoint, namely:

I think the Villa itself could be put to better use than as a merely beautiful container for the objects. The villa, being a replica Roman villa, could be better used to explained Roman social customs. The first thing to point out is the owner of the original villa was the Roman equivalent of J. Paul Getty: a very rich man. The structure of the Roman familia could be discussed; the roles of the paterfamilias, his wife and children, and the household slaves. It could go into the daily routine of the Roman household, etc. It could also be used to explain how Greek models of cultured life penetrated Roman life, for example, in the form of the peristyle garden. It also could at least have one interior room with the actual interior decoration of a Roman villa; rather than the heavily Georgian-period block colour models that it follows.

Last, I am not sure of the layout of the collection. Museum studies isn’t my area of expertise, on reflection I am sure that the thematic grouping of the objects could be improved. For example, in amongst the portraits (divided into men and women) there are a jumble of portrait heads and funerary monuments, Greek and Roman, with no explanation of the difference between burial practices and their evolution over time, and the social role of the portrait busts and monumental statues. I also had minor issues with some inscription translations put onto the cards.

Does anyone think these are unfair criticisms?

Getty Villa (photos)

27 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Archaeology, Art & Art History, Classical history

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I’ve been on holiday recently, not anyway classical or even European, but in Los Angeles. I actually quite like L.A., I wish my already-an-academic wife could move jobs to either UCLA (but they’re cash-strapped) or USC (and they’re a highly fancy private college); I think she’d enjoy it too. Enough of that.

In the meantime we went to the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades (on the way to Malibu, but not actually in Malibu, as its actually in the city of Los Angeles), in a magnificent setting overlooking the ocean. This has been my second visit there, I went the last time we were in L.A., but this time I managed to be able to cast a much-better-educated eye over the various artefacts. Tomorrow night, i.e Thursday, I am going to see a production of Euripides’ Helen at the Villa.

There are of course two Getty museums: one, the Getty Center, houses modern works of art (which apparently the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, with him famously conservative tastes, would have found repulsive); the other, the Getty Villa, houses his collection of antiquities. The Villa itself seems to me to be a 20th century version of the folly; a replica Roman villa built by Getty to house his art. It’s ostensibly based on the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum. On his death in 1976, the museum organisation (being the summation of both locations) inherited over $600 million. Thanks to this beneficence, entry to the museum is free, but limited in quantity (parking is $15 though, and, in typical Angelino fashion, driving is the only practical way to get to the museum).

The collection housed in the museum is pretty impressive, despite previously documented problems with the provenance of some of the acquired items in it. However, except for the Pompeii exhibition that was running in part of the Villa, photography is generally allowed in the museum, as long as you don’t use a flash, or exploit the photos commercially. So here’s some of my favorite photos of objects from the museum. If you’ve got the time, you see the complete set of photos that I took in this flickr set, or they could be visible on my tumblr.

Below is a selection of the most interesting objects or photographs. Clicking on the picture below will take you to the larger version on Flickr with more information about the object. Because of the Getty Villa restrictions, I must insist that the rights on these photos are all rights reserved; in other words they are not free for you to copy or to use in any way except in strictly educational contexts such as lecture slides.

Child with Satyr Mask Child with Satyr Mask (hand through mask)

This one we found the most interesting; it’s a child playing with a theatre mask. The child has its hand stuck through the mouth of the mask, which makes it most monstrous.

Polyhmnia Clio

These are muses. [L] Polyhymnia, the muse of mime. [R] Clio, the muse of history.

By Hercules! Satyr

[L] the Landsdowne Hercules. [R] Satyr pouring wine.

Apollonia daughter of Aristandos and Thebageneia

Monuments of children are very poignant. This one is the funeral monument of Apollonia, daughter of Aristandos and Thebegeneia.

Fertile Face

A Cypriot ‘fertility goddess’ from 2500 BC

Gaius Caesar (Caligula) Not as played by Joaquim Pheonix

Two famous Roman imperial crazies: [L] Caligula. [R] Commodus.

trium virum rei publicae constituendae creavit Roman General

Images of power: [L] Augustus. [R] The torso of a first century AD Roman general in parade armour.

Anyway there are a lot more photos of artefacts in the Flickr set, including some exquisite glass work, if you care to explore it.

Syria’s ancient treasures pulverised – Robert Fisk – The Independent

05 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in 21st century history, Archaeology, Classical history, Medieval history, News Items

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Of course this was going to happen. sigh

Robert Fisk: Syria’s ancient treasures pulverised – The Independent:

Reports from Syrian archeologists and from Western specialists in bronze age and Roman cities tell of an Assyrian temple destroyed at Tell Sheikh Hamad, massive destruction to the wall and towers of the citadel of al-Madiq castle – one of the most forward Crusader fortresses in the Levant which originally fell to Bohemond of Antioch in 1106 – and looting of the magnificent Roman mosaics of Apamea, where thieves have used bulldozers to rip up Roman floors and transport them from the site. Incredibly, they have managed to take two giant capitols from atop the colonnade of the “decumanus”, the main east-west Roman road in the city.

Brace yourselves for a outpouring of antiquities from these sites appearing on the market. Apparently there is a flood of objects already appearing in Turkey and Jordan.

What are museums for? – The Art Newspaper

17 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Academia, Archaeology, History

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What are museums for? – The Art Newspaper:

It has become a cliché to say that museums are today’s churches—special places for contemplation, separate from day-to-day concerns; conversely, there’s an argument that museums should aim to be commonplace, part of normal life. It is intriguing that museums were once talked of as places that reinforced cultural hegemonies, but now they are more often seen as democratising access to art, and even as politically correct when they attempt to include groups formerly omitted from history. While some believe museums have changed far too much, others think they haven’t been transformed enough. The books reviewed here reveal differing views about the role of museums.

(Via The Art Newspaper.)

Libya’s historic treasures, unscathed

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in 20th century history, 21st century history, Archaeology, Roman history

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Another article about antiquities in Libya and how relatively unscathed they were, this one from the BBC. Interesting bit at the end, about the vandalism of Gaddafi-themed exhibits in the museum, as the dead tyrant now undergoes damnatio memoriae.

BBC News – Libya’s historic treasures survive the revolution:

One day, in the not too distant future, visitors may flock to see the giant white marble statues of the Roman emperors, Claudius and Augustus, that grace Tripoli’s National Museum. Today the galleries that house them, and the ornate mosaics from the vast Roman site of Leptis Magna 120 km (75 miles) east of Tripoli, are completely deserted.
Outside the museum, at the edge of Martyr’s Square, a stall sells revolutionary souvenirs – necklaces and wristbands in the black, red and green of the new Libya. But the arched wooden door to the museum, now festooned with graffiti proclaiming Libya “free”, is firmly shut. “We don’t feel it’s safe enough yet to re-open,” says Mustafa Turjman, head of research at the national department of archaeology, as he shows me around. “We prefer to be patient rather than to open early and expose our precious things to any risk. We are not sure if our borders are safe and professional criminals could take advantage of this instability,” he says.