Wednesday, May 22, 2013

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII

DECADENCE, APOCALYPSE, RESURRECTION



LONDON is not the only city with a big Pompeii show right now ... Cleveland has a major exhibit focusing on the reverberations in art and popular culture through the ages from the cataclysm of 79 AD.

This hot show runs through July 7th at the CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART.

Pompeii and the other ancient cities destroyed and paradoxically preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ad79 are usually considered the places where one can best and most directly experience the daily lives of ancient Romans. 

Rather than presenting these sites as windows to the past, this exhibition explores them as a modern obsession. 

Over the 300 years since their discovery in the early 1700s, the Vesuvian sites have functioned as mirrors of the present, inspiring artists—from Piranesi, Ingres, and Alma-Tadema to Duchamp, Rothko, and Warhol—to engage with contemporary concerns in diverse media. 

The 1880 painting above, part of the exhibit, is entitled "After a Gladiator Fight at a Banquet in Pompeii" by Francesco Netti.

This international loan exhibition is co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

For more information, follow @LastDaysPompeii on Twitter.

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