Pompeii No.24: Chairs for the Pompeii Room

The challenge of finding the right furniture for the Pompeii Room has been to find a set of chairs that are neoclassic — either klismos chairs or a style that was inspired by klismos chairs.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, here, my friend Sandy and I have been visiting a monthly brocante in our town of St. Petersburg, Florida. When we saw these chairs several months ago, Sandy agreed with me that they would be perfect for the Pompeii Room, so much so that she insisted on gifting me with them!!

The chairs came with this mustard yellow paint rubbed on them, which I suppose was meant to make them attractive in a "shabby chic" sort of way. The gaudy color probably worked in my favor because I guess that a lot of people could not see past it to recognize the chairs' wonderful details.

Each chair has a rope twist decoration and a handsome brass medallion, and therein lies a story:

www.neptunepictues.com

In 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar, destroying 22 ships of the Franco-Spanish fleet, and without losing a single British ship. It was Britain's greatest naval victory, and one in which the great admiral lost his life.

The victory, plus Nelson's heroic death, inspired a British craze of all things naval, and that in turn impacted the neoclassic style that was sweeping both Britain and the Continent at the time.

1stdibs.com 

The rope twist decoration (usually seen with elements called buttons) is actually a reference to the Royal Navy and the Battle of Trafalgar!

click to enlarge  |  1stdibs.com  |  wakefieldscearce.com  |  1stdibs.com

Here are three Regency chairs of similar design, each with the rope twist decoration and buttons that are also featured on my chairs. You can click on the image to see the details.

I'm getting my Regency chairs refinished, and I'll be showing them off at a later date, as all the elements of the room come together.

And now, back to the mural . . .

.

Pompeii No.12: A Griffin for the Entablature

modified for this posting from a more detailed engraving by Wenceslas Hollar, 1600s

This week I'm adding a griffin to the top of the entablature — I think an element is needed to break up the entablature's straight line.

The Pompeians used the griffin in their murals, but this mythical creature goes back thousands of years, to India, Assyria and Persia.

I'm starting the posting with this 17th-century engraving because it's true to what a griffin should look like. The creature is basically the combination of an eagle and a lion. The head and front of the body — including the front legs and wings — are represented by an eagle. In addition, the eagle head features long ears that are sometimes feathered. The rest of the body belongs to a lion. Altogether, the creature symbolizes strength and wisdom. Because the griffin traditionally guards treasure, he also symbolizes vengeance; I think he's perfect for my home security.

Mark D. Ruffner, 2014

Sometimes the griffin is represented more as a winged lion, as in this mirror detail from the Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. In that case it's not really a griffin, though it might be more aesthetically pleasing.

The griffin is going to be at the end of the entablature,

so that he can survey the entire structure.

I begin the painting by putting down a flat color, either a middle tone or the prevailing color. Note that I am conscious of making the griffin's base equal to the capital's cap, and that together they form a square.  I have two goals here — first, to have elements align so that as the composition becomes more and more complex, the eye unconsciously recognizes order. And second, though the griffin rests atop the entablature, there is a sense that he's also atop a column, not unlike the winged lion of Venice, below.

209postcards.files.wordpress.com

Here's the finished griffin. His front legs are from a lion and he doesn't look particularly vengeful, but I'm confident that he'll still be an effective guardian.

Next week we'll start working inside those auburn panels, and the room will take a big step towards looking more Pompeian!

.

Pompeii No.11: The Clipeus

Mark D. Ruffner

This week I'm adding a clipeus to the Pompeii Room.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin   |   Spring 2010

The clipeus was a shield that was hung by the Pompeians over their entrances for protection. Today, some people do the very same thing with horseshoes. This mural detail is from the house of P. Fannius Synistor, and can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Pompeii   |   Coarelli   |   Riverside

This is a detail of a mural from the Villa Poppea. Though it's not in P. Fannius Synistor's house, the clipeus looks as though it may have been painted by the same artist.

www.findamuralist.com

The late Garth Benton, who painted this clipeus on the south porch of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, probably looked to the first two images for reference. Notice that all three shields include the same star.

Mark D. Ruffner

It's a star found on many shields from antiquity. We know that the Romans borrowed heavily from the Greek culture, and this star can be traced to Macedonia, which was originally a Greek city state.

en.wikipedia.org

Appropriately, prior to 1995, this was the flag

of the Republic of Macedonia.

squarewithflair.blogspot.com

Having said all that, I decided to go a different route and decorate my clipeus with a lion's head. I was attracted to this Chanel logo — the photo originated from my blogger friend at Square With Flair.

Chanel, who was a Leo, loved the lion as an emblem, decorated her apartment with lions, and even incorporated the lion on buttons for her fashion creations. Terry was kind enough to send me additional reference of this particular lion.

And here is my own clipeus.

Next week I'll be adding a mythical animal to the mural,
one that represents both strength and wisdom.
.

Pompeii No.10: Painting the Frieze Scroll

Wallpaper: A History of Styles and Trends

Wallpaper: A History of Styles and Trends  |  Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz  |  Flammarion

I decided to decorate my frieze with a scroll, and this design caught my eye as the sort of look I wanted to achieve. It's a detail from an 1808 wallpaper design by the French company Dufour. Looking at the image below, you can see that the wallpaper design accurately reflects a Pompeian temple frieze.

Pompeii   |   Coarelli   |   Riverside

This was a small temple in Pompeii, dedicated to Aesculapius (Asclepius in Greek), the god of medicine and healing. Aesculapius was a son of Apollo and carried the snake-entwined rod that remains the symbol of medicine to this day.

Pompeii   |   Coarelli   |   Riverside

Here's a scroll from a Pompeian interior mural. It comes from the salon of the House of the Painters at Work, so called because evidence suggests that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius interrupted a mural in progress.

The Grammar of Ornament   |   Owen Jones   |   Portland House

Owen Jones published The Grammar of Ornament in 1856, and included this frieze design from Pompeii. He wrote of it, "We have here the acanthus-leaf scroll forming the groundwork, on which are engrafted representations of leaves and flowers interlaced with animals, precisely similar to the remains found in the Roman baths, and which, in the time of Raphael, became the foundation of Italian ornament."

Florid Victorian Ornament   |   Karl Klimsch   |   Dover

I settled on this scroll, which is simpler and more refined than the others I've shared. It's a design by the German artist Karl Klimsch (1867-1936), a portrait painter who is widely known today for his ornamental designs, reissued by Dover Publications.

Here's the Pompeii Room as it looks today.

In my next posting, we'll take a look at that brown circle on the far right of the photo above. A good Pompeian mural wouldn't be complete without it!
.

Pompeii No.9: Making the Entablature

This week I'm focusing on the structure that connects my columns, creating an entablature for the Pompeii Room.

Mark D. Ruffner

It's really easier to explain an entablature by showing you a diagram. The cornice is the topmost moulding, which can be quite elaborate. Cornice is also the word used for the moulding — inside one's house — that runs around the top of a wall, right below the ceiling. The frieze is directly under the cornice and takes up the greater part of the entablature. It's the surface that is often used for incised inscriptions. And finally, the architrave is a base moulding, and the space beneath it.

en.wikipedia.org

Many classical buildings, like the full-scale Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, have an entablature with an architrave almost equal to the frieze.

Jefferson's Monticello  |  photograph by Langdon Clay  |  Abbeville Press

My own preference is for a more generous frieze and a reduced architrave, as Thomas Jefferson used for his home, Monticello.

I suppose one could dispute whether my two top mouldings actually constitute a true cornice, but the proportions of my entablature are in keeping with many classical buildings.

This part of the project looks deceptively simple, but it took a lot of measuring, taping and retaping.

Notice the vertical shadow I've added to the entablature, as though the entablature is slightly behind the masonry.

Next week I'll be decorating the frieze. I haven't settled yet on any particular form of decoration, so I'm having fun looking through books on Pompeii for inspiration.

Check by next week!

.

Pompeii No.8: The Cobalt Door Surrounds

This week I'm painting two inset panels on either side of my hallway portal. I've looked at the space for years, thinking that it was a prime spot to make an interesting statement. I thought alternately of painted figures or three-dimensional totems. Ultimately, I chose the two panels that are featured in the painting below.

click to enlarge | The Art of the Italian Renaissance | Ullmann

This is a c. 1480 portrait by Melozza de Forlì of Francesco della Rovere, also known as Pope Sixtus IV. Sixtus is shown with his librarian and four nephews. It's appropriate that Sixtus IV is immortalized with the nephews because he was known for nepotism and, in fact, he made six of his nephews cardinals! Indeed, it is no coincidence that the word "nepotism" is derived from the Italian word for nephew, nipote. While the subject of this lovely painting established the Sistine Chapel, he was corrupt, and history remembers him unkindly.

Though he was a fine artist, little is known of de Forlì, in large part because he was overshadowed by the next generation of Italian artists, which included Michelangelo. We do know that de Forlì worked for Sixtus IV, and that he was responsible for the frescoes in the Vatican library.

click to enlarge   |   sources below

In the image above,

the center decoration is by Benozzo Gozzoli,

Benozzo Gozzoli  |  Scala/Riverside

The first and third pilasters are by

Filippino Lippi and Pinturicchio respectively,

Italian Frescoes  |  Abbeville Press

In my research, I've discovered a number of Renaissance frescoes that utilize cobalt blue pilaster decorations.

While the Egyptians were known to have developed a synthetic cobalt blue, the formula was lost to later cultures, who ground lapis lazuli to create the rich color. And so it is no wonder that Renaissance artists would concentrate the expensive color in a prominent yet narrow part of a fresco.

My approach to decorative art such as this mural — or the Egyptian door I shared earlier — is usually through draftsmanship. I like to carefully work out everything in advance, sometimes making multiple tracings. I then transfer a design by burnishing it from the tracing.

That way, as you can see, I have a record of my designs, should I need to refer back to them or reuse them.

click to enlarge

The finished doorway.

click to enlarge

Now I'm going to put away the masonry tools for a while and get back to that beam that unites all my columns. Next week we'll be adding a little dimension there to transform it into an entablature.
.

Pompeii No.7: Painting Hallway Masonry

Mark D. Ruffner

This week I'm concentrating on painting the masonry that will surround the doorway to my hall.

Originally, I had contemplated stonework that was aged and maybe even a little decayed, but in the end, I didn't want an element that would contrast with the freshness of the rest of the mural. Anyway, my Pompeii is not the one of ruins!

I realized, however, that the actual texture of the wall could be used to advantage, to create a rich, subtle underpainting of stone (limestone, perhaps). I started by putting light washes of earth tones on the wall. Then I rubbed away selected areas with a scouring pad.

Once that was done, I redrew the lines representing cracks, and repeated the process numerous times. While all this scrubbing created a pretty nifty stone texture, the look at this stage was not in keeping with the rest of the mural. Not to worry; I added several light washes to approximate limestone.

In making the stonework lighter, one of my goals was to make the stone and columns close in color value. Because the design is going to become increasingly more complex, it will be all the more important for each element to complement the next one.

The finished, more subtle result can be seen below.

Then it became a matter of adding the cracks, with their shadows and highlights. I did this several times. On my first try, I played around with chips and all sorts of unevenness in the lines (like the first photograph of this posting). I quickly discovered that the more regular I made my blocks, the more convincing they were. So most of my irregularities are small ones, at the corners of the blocks.

I'm not showing you the whole doorway surround for a good reason. Next week I'll be painting a panel on either side of the doorway, as though they're inset. They aren't Pompeian panels, but they'll complement the Pompeian design.

No, these are decorations that a man named Francesco della Rovere would have recognized.
.