Day 60 - Boscotrecase bedroom fresco


June  22, 2018

Gallery 167 brings together wall paintings in a reconstruction of a bedroom in the Villa Boscotrecase. It's called the Black Room with good reason: The bottom and top sections of the walls are painted Pompeiian red, while the middle ground is black, divided into different areas by thin, attenuated columns. It's all very dark, and at first I find it really uninteresting.

 Then I notice  the refinement and delicacy with which the ornamenting details in this middle section are painted. On the lefthand wall is what seems to be a door or window flanked on either side by two thin columns. It's the beauty of these columns that grabs me: They are interrupted at intervals by fanciful forms and by exquisitely painted flowering plants that grow out of them. Atop the outside column on either side perches a bird; the orange underwing of the bird on the right is clearly visible. Between the inner columns is a larger space topped by an ornate shelf or lintel on which several objects stand. I'm not sure what they are-  they seem to include representations of masks and glass cups - but they smack of luxury. Still, it's the plants to which I most respond - another example of bringing the outside in.

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