Pompeii No.27: The Olive Branch

The Pompeians regarded the olive branch as a symbol of peace and prosperity, because of course the olive was one of their primary crops.

en.wikipedia.org   |   sandiegofreepress.org

The founders of the United States, who adopted much symbolism from ancient Greece and Rome, incorporated the olive branch into the Great Seal of the United States of America, shown above as it appeared in 1782, and as it appears today.

I decided that the Pompeian Room should include an olive branch for my own good luck, and that I would hang it from a substantial blue satin ribbon.

I bought blue satin for reference and enlisted my friend Sandy to sew the cloth as it appears above. (I've looked at any number of murals with delicate ribbons and decided I wanted something with a little more gravitas.)

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As luck would have it, Sandy also has an olive tree in her yard, and that provided great reference, at least for the leaves.

The center panel "window" is now complete, and I'm satisfied that there is some sense of depth.

Next week I'll add some elements to the foreground, and that should help accentuate that sense of depth. What would you put in the foreground?

Join me next week!

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Pompeii No.26: The Ideal City

This week, I'm painting a cityscape in that blue portion of the mural that suggests a window, but which so far has looked very blank and flat. My intention is to create fantasy architecture as the Pompeians would, and also to add some depth to the mural.

L'Ornement Polychrome, Series I & II   |   Auguste Racinet, 1873

During the Third Style of Pompeian mural painting, which I described here, a unique depiction of architecture evolved. At a glance one sees buildings, but upon closer inspection, the structures are usually simply multi-layered facades with elongated, spindly columns, much like stage settings. The Pompeians were avid theater-goers, and it is as though they desired theatrical backdrops in their homes, for the drama of their own lives.

Before I started painting my urban area, I deliberated over what colors to use. I initially considered using blues and grays, which would have given the impression of distance. In the end, though, I decided to use golds and greens to complement the Muse of Architecture, the garlands, and the trophy walls.

michiganexposures.blogspot.com

The caryatids that I've incorporated into my city's grand arch were designed by Henry Hering for Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.

click to enlarge  |  Karl Friedrich Schinkel: A Universal Man

The city's striated green marble was inspired by the red marble panels of the Altes Museum in Berlin, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel between 1822-1830.

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The pediment of my mural temple

is the same proportion and design as

the pediment of my house, seen below.

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Above is the finished city.

Note that the temple is open to the front and back,

and that the temple door is

a portal, within a portal, within a portal, within a portal.

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I hope you'll join me next week

when I include an element above the city's grand arch!

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Pompeii No.25: Adding Coral For Good Health

This week I'm adding coral branches to the mural!

Coral, once believed to be a sea plant, is actually the cumulative skeletal remains of living animals called polyps. For thousands of years, many cultures have viewed coral as a decorative gem as well as protection against disease.

In Ancient Rome, coral was believed to protect against childhood disease and to avert evil, and it's still seen as good luck in Mediterranean countries and places like India, Tibet and Japan.

Piero della Francesca  |  Rizzoli

Piero della Francesca portrayed the Christ Child with this necklace of coral, and hanging from it, a coral branch. The painting dates to circa 1475.

Mantegna: I Maestro del Colore  |  Fratelli Fabbri

Mantegna (one of my favorite artists) hung a huge branch of coral above the Madonna and Child in this painting, which dates about 20 years later than della Francesca's. Below is a detail.

Mantegna: I Maestro del Colore  |  Fratelli Fabbri

I'll be using della Francesca's and Mantegna's coral as models, but . . .

PubHist.com

. . .  I wanted to include later images of coral to illustrate how the gem was revered through the ages. The painting above, by Jan Claesz, dates to circa 1609, and shows a girl who has both a coral necklace and a rattle that incorporates pink or white coral at its tip.

Christie's auction

Such rattles often doubled as whistles. Above are English rattles dating to the early 20th century, a full 400 years after the rattle in Jan Claesz's painting. My blogging friend Rosemary, of Where Five Valleys Meet, says of these rattles, "The coral section of the English Victorian rattles was there to sooth the baby's gums when teething. Coral did not chip or splinter, and is cool to the touch. The coral also provided some comfort and reassurance to parents because of its mystical protection, as you have mentioned."

Incidentally, these four rattles recently sold at auction for approximately $2200, total, which I imagine would make a collector of such items very happy.

I'll be hanging the coral branches

over the mural's three smaller garlands.

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Above are the finished corals. As you can see, I scoured the seas for three branches that were similar in shape as well as size.

Pompeii No.23: The 4 Styles

Pompeian murals fall into one of four styles of decoration, and I thought this would be a good point in the Pompeii Room project to stop and talk about them. I'll do an abbreviated description of the four styles, and then you can determine for yourself how my own mural would be characterized (bearing in mind that it's still a work in progress).

The earliest Pompeian murals were meant to appear as a rich masonry, though they were in fact faux granite and marble in stucco relief. The wall below was scored in three dimensions, and what remains of the trompe l'oeil marble is almost lost.

studyblue.com

Below is another example of the First Style (also called Masonry Style).

www.accla.org

Grand Illusions  |  Phaidon  |  Cass  |  Leighton  |  1988

Above is a detail of a 1982 Art Deco wall by the great contemporary muralist, Richard Haas. Some of Pompeii's First Style surfaces probably looked a lot like Haas' rendition of marble.

The Second Style (also called Architectural or Illusionist Style) was an artisitic revolution. The Pompeian rooms, which usually did not receive a lot of light, were now painted to bring the outdoors inside, and to give the illusion of opened space. The home of P. Fannius Synistor (which is the inspiration for my own room) included a bedroom (cubiculum) with an imaginary cityscape, below.

click to enlarge  |  Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, spring, 2010

You can see a landscape in the background of Synistor's room, and some of the Second Style murals carried that one step further, with lovingly detailed gardens, like the one below.

click to enlarge  |  Pompeii: The Last Day  |  Wilkinson  |  2003

An important element throughout the Second Style was trompe l'oeil details. Bowls of fruit, vases of flowers and musical instruments abounded. Below, the scroll, ink pot, wax tablets and piles of coins were a not-too-subtle reminder of the homeowner's education and wealth.

click to enlarge  |  The Art of Pompeii  |  Magagnini  |  de Luca 

Another facet of the Second Style was the depiction of monumental figures, and there's no better or more famous example than the Salon of Mysteries, in the Villa of the Mysteries, below.

sites.davidson.edu

The Third Style (also called Ornate Style) was a reaction to the open vistas of the Second Style. The Pompeians were ready to reclaim and flatten most of the wall space that they had once opened up.

Pompeii   |   Coarelli   |   Riverside  |  2002

Typical of the Third Style were pictures mounted on candelabra, small paintings centered on blank panels, and fantasy architectural details that were thin and elongated — all shown above.

click to enlarge  |  www.boundless.com  |  monm.edu

Walls of the Third Style were often barer and more stylized than my first example, such as these two. In the Third Style, the colors red, black and deep yellow predominated.

The Fourth Style is the culmination of all the previous styles, and probably because so much of Pompeii was rebuilt after an earthquake in 62 A.D., it's the style most often found in Pompeii.

Pompeii   |   Coarelli   |   Riverside  |  2002

The Fourth Style incorporated all three previous styles. Walls were usually divided into three or five panels of flat colors, but some vistas opened up, revealing fantasy architecture with elongated forms. Both of these handsome rooms are from the House of the Vetti, and in the bottom room you can see a wainscoting that's a nod to the First Style.

Pompeii   |   Coarelli   |   Riverside  |  2002

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Pompeii No.22: The Muse of Architecture

In contrast to the Muse of Sculpture, my greatest departure from the Bürkner etchings is with the Muse of Architecture.

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I omitted the small angel, in part because I thought it cluttered the composition, and in part because I reckon that a muse really doesn't need anyone to whisper direction into its ear. I also simplified the architectural model from six columns to four columns.

My biggest change was in the figure of the muse itself. I think the Muse of Architecture should be more elegantly dressed than Bürkner's version, and have a softer face. My friend Yvonne, whose Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin inspired this mural, made an astute observation. She looked at the muse's face and asked, "Is this one of your friends, because the face is a more modern depiction of beauty?"

Well, she was half right, because I based the face on that of Isabella Rossellini, whose beauty I've always admired. Now Ms. Rossellini can add to her list of many accomplishments that she is also the Muse of Architecture.

The muse's attendant bears watching.

I fear that he is a bit of an imp.

The finished Muse of Architecture is below.

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