Ancient luxuries

Since their discovery in the 1700s, the ruins of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum have been continuously excavated and exhibited. Yet another show of the antiquities sounds tired and “Pompeii and the Roman Villa” barely refreshes the subject through its focus on ancient luxury and leisure.

This sumptuous exhibit at the National Gallery of Art concentrates on the possessions of the powerbrokers who vacationed on the Bay of Naples before A.D. 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted to bury the region. So immediate was this hellish disaster that entire buildings and their contents were preserved intact below layers of pumice and volcanic ash.

The entrance to the exhibit, which was organized with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, provides a reminder of how Pompeii might have met its apocalyptic end. It features a 14-foot-high photomural of Joseph Wright’s dramatic, mid-1770s painting, “Vesuvius from Portici.”

Wright’s canvas appears in the concluding, least interesting part of the show, a grouping of 18th- and 19th-century works devoted to the enduring influence of Pompeian archaeology. This section, which merits an exhibition of its own, seems tacked on to jazz up the antiquities with fiery scenes of the erupting volcano. The tragic human dimension of the cataclysm is barely touched upon.

The bulk of the exhibit boils down to an impressive home and garden show, providing the opportunity to imagine how wealthy Romans decorated their seaside estates. Among about 150 artifacts on display are table bases, wine cups, lamps, murals, outdoor sculptures, fountains and decorative figurines created between the first century B.C. and first century A.D.

Sculpted portraits of famous emperors, from Julius Caesar to Nero, and unknown citizens line the first gallery to remind us of the patrons of such designs. Most notable is a streamlined head of Livia, the wife of the first emperor of Rome, Augustus. Made of a black stone called basanite, it looks as though it was sculpted in the 20th century.

On a nearby wall, several small frescoes depict the type of mansions owned by these rulers. The terraced retreats were designed with porches and docks, much like waterfront homes today. Two huge photomurals, reproduced from 1903 Beaux-Arts watercolors, depict cross sections through an excavated Pompeian house to reveal how the rooms inside the villas might have looked.

Their richly colorful decor is recalled in the striking installation created by exhibit designer Mark Leithauser and his team to recall the procession through a Roman house. Stenciled walls, scarlet-banded columns between galleries and reproductions of floor mosaics (with some missing sections digitally reconstructed) re-create the bold flavor of Pompeian interiors.

The ancient Romans would have approved of such illusionary effects. Within their Pompeian homes, they relied on trompe l’oeil murals and garden courtyards to create the appearance of more space and blur the distinction between indoors and outdoors.

One of the showstoppers is such a wall painting, found by accident in 1959 during the construction of highway south of Pompeii. Its vivid red background is adorned with images of Apollo and the muses within an architectural setting of frames and doorways.

The fresco was once part of a dining room, which is re-created in the exhibit to provide visitors with an idea of its original size and bench seating.

Nearby, an outdoor scene of plants, birds and statuary was meant to extend a garden inside a room. Painted with naturalistic detail, the fresco looks like it was completed recently but comes from the House of the Golden Bracelet, an ancient Pompeian residence excavated between 1978 and 1983.

The gallery installation establishes a playful relationship between the painting and real versions of the objects represented within its borders. Surrounding the artwork are stone theatrical masks and posts topped by heads similar to those in the mural.

A scalloped birdbath nearly identical to one in the picture is set within a garden of live plants, including boxwood, laurel and a strawberry tree, all corresponding to those in the ancient fresco.

One of the more interesting aspects of the show is its realistic sculpture, reflecting the Romans’ obsession with Greek art. After the Romans conquered Greece in 146 B.C., they went crazy for pieces created during the golden age of Athens and commissioned copies of these masterpieces.

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