Art History 382 - Great Themes in Art
Spring
2017
01
3.00
Laetitia La Follette
TU TH 1:00PM 2:15PM
UMass Amherst
21200
21201,21780,22199
Changing treatment of central themes, issues, and problems in art history. Topics change; offerings usually available in Modern and Islamic. List of current offerings available in Art History Office, 317B Bartlett.
Leisure and Luxury in Roman villa culture: the villas at Oplontis near Pompeii
A spring 2017 exhibition at the Smith College Art Museum allows the extraordinary opportunity to study closely the material remains of Roman villa life at Oplontis, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. Like the neighboring towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Oplontis was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This preserved its architecture, painted and sculptural decoration, and extensive gardens along with those unfortunate inhabitants, rich and poor, who did not manage to escape in time.
The show presents the results of ten years of excavations, both of the luxurious villa A, long thought to belong to the Roman empress Poppaea, Nero?s second wife, and its adjacent commercial complex, Oplontis B, that provides insight into the life of Roman lower classes such as merchants and slaves.
Using as our guide the show and its catalogue (Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero. The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii) this course will explore Roman villa architecture, the layout and landscaping of formal gardens and their sculptural decoration (human portraits mixed with mythological representations), the exquisite frescos of garden and other wall paintings, as well as the imported marbles used for the floors and wall panels.
We will also examine the infrastructure that allowed such luxury, turning to the Roman wine industry in the area, its reliance on slaves, and what the skeletons found here, several of whom were carrying extensive jewelry, can tell us. The study of human skeletal remains preserved by Vesuvius? eruption offers a more intimate picture of the lifestyles of Romans at this time, when Roman bones are rarely found due to the widespread practice of cremation. Finally, we will discuss issues of display, of skeletal and other material, using the Smith show as our point of reference with the aim of designing a virtual exhibition.
A spring 2017 exhibition at the Smith College Art Museum allows the extraordinary opportunity to study closely the material remains of Roman villa life at Oplontis, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. Like the neighboring towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Oplontis was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This preserved its architecture, painted and sculptural decoration, and extensive gardens along with those unfortunate inhabitants, rich and poor, who did not manage to escape in time.
The show presents the results of ten years of excavations, both of the luxurious villa A, long thought to belong to the Roman empress Poppaea, Nero?s second wife, and its adjacent commercial complex, Oplontis B, that provides insight into the life of Roman lower classes such as merchants and slaves.
Using as our guide the show and its catalogue (Leisure and Luxury in the Age of Nero. The Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii) this course will explore Roman villa architecture, the layout and landscaping of formal gardens and their sculptural decoration (human portraits mixed with mythological representations), the exquisite frescos of garden and other wall paintings, as well as the imported marbles used for the floors and wall panels.
We will also examine the infrastructure that allowed such luxury, turning to the Roman wine industry in the area, its reliance on slaves, and what the skeletons found here, several of whom were carrying extensive jewelry, can tell us. The study of human skeletal remains preserved by Vesuvius? eruption offers a more intimate picture of the lifestyles of Romans at this time, when Roman bones are rarely found due to the widespread practice of cremation. Finally, we will discuss issues of display, of skeletal and other material, using the Smith show as our point of reference with the aim of designing a virtual exhibition.