Day 56 - Boscoreale garden fresco
June 13, 2018
The air outside is heavy with humidity, exhausting just to be in, and I promise myself that if my skipped galleries aren't open, I will go home and maybe take a nap. But they are open, and I couldn't be more delighted, because Gallery 165 (which I initially misidentified as 163) is the "cubiculum nocturnum" (bedroom) from Boscoreale, about a mile from Pompeii and, like Pompeii, buried with the eruption of Vesuvius. It's one of the Met's great treasures, and I am especially happy to see it after our time in Pompeii and the archaeological museum in Naples.
The room is perhaps 21 feet long and 14 feet wide -- my estimates are inexact -- and dates from about 50-40 B.C.E. The detail and vivid color of the frescoes are really fabulous. Each of the long side walls is divided into four panels by three painted trompe-l'oeuil columns, two Corinthian and one Ionic. The first and third panels in from the entrance show fanciful, multi-storied architectural structures that recede into space, although they don't seem to employ the single vanishing point that was such an innovation in the Renaissance. The second panels depict what appear to be shrines: painted images of goddesses meant to represent sculptures sit atop pedestals, with offerings of fruit placed on altars before them. The fourth panels show entryways topped by pediments (is that the right term?); the doorways frame little round "tempietti," which remind me of Bramante's San Pietro in Montorio.
What's wonderful is that the two corresponding panels on either side are very similar, but not identical. On one side, for example, a building might have four windows facing out; on the other side, the corresponding building has only three. And the goddesses are different from one another. I think it must have been so much fun to be the bedroom's occupant and to look at leisure for points of similarity and difference--like the "Can you find the differences?" puzzles in newspapers or magazines that we did as kids.
My favorite part of the room, shown above, is the back wall. It depicts a garden, complete with a grotto whose opening is shaded by boughs on which birds perch and with benches on which strollers can take a break. In contrast to the Pompeiian red that dominates the rest of the room, the colors in this area, where the bed was situated, are soothing shades of green and earth tones, promising sweet dreams, and a large window at the center of the wall lets in light. The wall brings the outside in.
The room is perhaps 21 feet long and 14 feet wide -- my estimates are inexact -- and dates from about 50-40 B.C.E. The detail and vivid color of the frescoes are really fabulous. Each of the long side walls is divided into four panels by three painted trompe-l'oeuil columns, two Corinthian and one Ionic. The first and third panels in from the entrance show fanciful, multi-storied architectural structures that recede into space, although they don't seem to employ the single vanishing point that was such an innovation in the Renaissance. The second panels depict what appear to be shrines: painted images of goddesses meant to represent sculptures sit atop pedestals, with offerings of fruit placed on altars before them. The fourth panels show entryways topped by pediments (is that the right term?); the doorways frame little round "tempietti," which remind me of Bramante's San Pietro in Montorio.
What's wonderful is that the two corresponding panels on either side are very similar, but not identical. On one side, for example, a building might have four windows facing out; on the other side, the corresponding building has only three. And the goddesses are different from one another. I think it must have been so much fun to be the bedroom's occupant and to look at leisure for points of similarity and difference--like the "Can you find the differences?" puzzles in newspapers or magazines that we did as kids.
My favorite part of the room, shown above, is the back wall. It depicts a garden, complete with a grotto whose opening is shaded by boughs on which birds perch and with benches on which strollers can take a break. In contrast to the Pompeiian red that dominates the rest of the room, the colors in this area, where the bed was situated, are soothing shades of green and earth tones, promising sweet dreams, and a large window at the center of the wall lets in light. The wall brings the outside in.
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