The Last Days of Pompeii

Blogging again from 37,000 feet, I have come to the conclusion that air-stewards/esses fall into two types, much like nannies. On the one hand, there are those who exude brisk, efficient and wholesome concern (and, while affectionately liberal with the goodies, don’t encourage too many second helpings). In my experience, this is the British Airways/Air New Zealand type.

On the other are the “double dose of Calpol all round, rock the little ones  to sleep, so the nannies can put the kettle on and chat about their latest dates” type. This is what I have just experienced on American Airlines, from Los Angeles to Boston. We piled on at 3.00 in the afternoon and got force-fed vast quantities of alcohol (OK – it was what is euphemistically called a “premium” cabin), lunch was delivered and taken away at lightning speed. And then it was blinds down and lights out, while the cabin crew spent the rest of the six hours engrossed in chat and doing their nails. Woebetide any passenger who didn’t go to sleep. In fact, on the flight out to LA, they actually barricaded their area with one of those little trolleys and anyone daring enough to try to pass by to get to the loo was firmly told to use the one at the back.

I wouldn’t have minded the lights-out, snuggle-down routine quite so much in other circumstances, but when you are going West to East, LA to Boston, in the middle of the day, the way to avoid jet lag is to STAY AWAKE not go to sleep.

But anyway this was the only blot on my trip to the Getty Villa and Center, where it was a nice 80 degrees and sunny, the lecture went well, plenty of books were sold, lots of friends came – and (when I wasn’t self-promoting) I had enormous fun as part of a “brain-storming” group making plans for a Getty exhibition on the “Last Days of Pompeii”.

The idea is to have a show that explores not the life of Pompeii but how writers, artists and tourists have responded to the Vesuvian catastrophe, from the eighteenth century to now. The material is amazing, and it stretches from Joseph Wright of Derby’s fantastic eruption painting (on the left) to Andy Warhol’s version of the same scene (which I put at the start of this post); from romantic Victorian sculptures of Nydia (above right), the blind heroine  of Bulwer Lytton’s Last Days novel to Alan McCollum’s 1990’s “Dog from Pompeii” (an installation consisting of rows and rows of multiple copies of the famous dead dog, found as he died, still tethered at his post, pulling at his collar).

This first stage of exhibition planning is always especially fun – because you still haven’t come up against any of the practical problems about what you can actually borrow, from where. So it’s like inventing the perfect show in your head. Though not quite in this case. It was already pretty clear that, even if St Petersburg would lend it, this vast cataclysmic painting of The Last Day by Karl Briullov (and one of the  inspirations for Bulwer Lytton -- in miniature on the left) was simply too big. Certainly too big to get into the galleries at the Getty Villa, and probably too big to fit into a plane.

But perhaps the best bit was looking at the Pompeian material the Getty itself has in its “Special Collections”. American “rare books rooms” tend to seem rather over the top to the average Brit. I mean there is something faintly ludicrous about washing your hands or putting on gloves and going into a climate controlled room to read a book that in Cambridge you’d be able to borrow from the open shelves of the library, dump in your bicycle basket and read at home. All the same, the Pompeii stuff in the Getty is stupendous, and includes unique notebooks with sketches of the site by eighteenth and nineteenth century travellers, as well as the rarest of printed books. On this occasion, it was the ephemera that most intrigued me – in particular, a nineteenth-century peep-show of the Neapolitan countryside, with frolicking peasants and Vesuvius smoking ominously in the background. Smoke was de rigueur for the volcano – so much so that early photographers had to insert it, we were told, with the Victorian equivalent of photo-shop.

After this it was back to Boston, for the big launch party (really nicely done by the Press…hope the damn book sells after all this) and the discussion with Niall Ferguson. In case you’re wondering, he was very cute!

Now it’s a BA daytime flight back to the UK. We’re just south of Greenland – and yes, the blinds are up and the lights are still on.

Comments

[dr venables preller]

Paulo: You may need to distinguish between the putting forward of a point of view and the non sequitur of commitment by the writer exclusively to that belief.

Many scientists are aware that scientific theories which enable fabrication of wonders and mystery do not need to be exclusive of other belief systems in order to be useful.

In any event, Information Theory, which has helped in development of self-organising feedback systems (read adaptation to change) predates the acronym of wysiwyg in popular usage by several decades.

[paul potts]

Dr Preller. Information Theory is clearly in the grips of "wysiwyg" School of philosphy ("What you see is what you get"). Well. if you'll beleiver that, you'll believe anything.

Paulo

[dr venables preller]

“But for Plato, nature itself, “reality” was itself an imitation, a creation of our own imaginings or dreams”

In the tenets of Information Theory “reality” can only be in accordance with the perceptual world of the beholder.

In the case of humans, that would include colours attributed to light wavelengths visible to the human eye, visual definition related to the retina and sound generally in a range up to about 25 kHz or less in the case of the old. Different animals perceive different segments of these spectra and some are far more sensitive to scent.

Perhaps “Ars est celare artem” covers the wider art thingie.

[Tony Francis]

Paulo, Some years ago when I was a student on Pediatrics, there was a professor who was an adherent of Chinese Communism. (He wasn't from China, but Wisconsin - and was of Euro ethnicity.) He got into a discussion with a Pediatric resident (who was a Literature Major) about the meaning of art. The Wisconsin Chinese Communist said the only reason for art to exist was to advance the goals of the state. The Literature Major said "Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth." I guess this was an appropriate response from a Literature Major:
http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odeonagrecianurn.html
At the time, the Chinese Communist's definition didn't seem all that good to me. But, as I came to understand in later years, his was one which is perhaps more in line with many classical Greek philosophies. Perhaps this is more satisfying:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics
It is said that photography freed the artist to become abstract. The invention of recording equipment has made great performances last for generations. Technology has changed the definition of art- and has democratized it, as well. Even movies can be art. For instance, I would classify "Dr. Zhivago" and "Citizen Kane" as works of art. Following the idea of the Wisconsin Chinese Communist, is it possible to make a work of art which is not political in some way?

[paul potts]

Tony, I remember a filming of the Warhol studio long ago on TV. In it, he employed two women who applied the paint using their wobbly bits. Now that was a work of art in my view, not the “painting” as product, how could it be, but the painting as process. Presumably the eventual lucky purchaser has a video of all this, but it’s that that is the reality: Warhol the slave driver, the sadist. Perhaps the kind of thing that Pompey or his generals would have got up to after the Triumph.

As for art, reality and imitation, that question goes back to Plato, who was much exercised in his “Republic” by its role in education. He, or Socrates, concluded that it should be cut out altogether. Especially some kinds of music. Perhaps he had Warhol in mind, or The Rolling Stones, but he would also have banned Homer, as a form of lying about men and Gods. But he had a point: the undereducated of his day would have revered the works as “true”. Why even today, many seem to think that Helen of Troy actually existed, whereas we know, don’t we, that she did not. But for Plato, nature itself, “reality” was itself an imitation, a creation of our own imaginings or dreams. And surely that too is worth considering, even if we do not have to take too seriously his theory of Forms any more than Aristotle did. That there is such a thing as reality is undoubtedly true but it is an unwise superstition to confuse that with our own feelings about it. Part of a necromantic, I mean neo-Romantic belief system. So, for example, Catholics tend to remain Catholics, Muslims Muslims, secularists likewise. That’s how they see the world, and there does not seem much to be gained by “inter-faith dialogue” except to cast a new perspective on our own beliefs. There may be nothing to talk about, not really. As John Henry Cardinal Newman once wrote (his “Apologia” I think), you can no more argue a man (sic) into Faith than torture him into it.” Or something like that. Quite how “art” fits into this I am not sure, but one of its functions, at its best, is to make us see and hear and feel the world anew. At its worst, it really is a form of confounded lying.

[Tony Francis]

"Art is not merely the imitation of the reality of nature..."
http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=102&q=20
Is Warhol art? Is Warhol an imitation of the reality of nature?
(Is the Family Circus art?) Paulo, you decide.

[Tony Francis]

Concerning the question: what is art? Norman Rockwell always called himself an illustrator, and not an artist. He seemed like an artist to me:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Rockwell
For dozens of his "illustrations" (not "works of art"):
http://www.normanrockwell.com/

[Tony Francis]

Paulo, I'm not really sure what Warhol did to produce his works. I think it was some kind of silk screen process, based on photographs- whatever. Is that art? or real art? I guess some would say so. It reminds me of something I read about the concert pianist Vladimir Horowitz after he lost all his money in the 1929 Wall Street crash, "I only buy paintings, now." It has always been hard for me to believe a Rembrandt was a Rembrandt, and so on. It is just too easy to fake a painting. I go to local high schools, and am amazed at all the talent there is for drawing, even among the unwashed masses. I have never been all that impressed with Warhol. But he seems to have captured a portion of the public eye. He was a silly enigma, amusing to read about. Are block printings by, say, Dali, art, or real art? You decide.

[paul potts]

For Tony Francis

Thanks, Tony. Very interesting. But what I was asking, I think, was that even if Warhol had something to do with the manufacture of a paining, sorry I meant painting, does that make it "real"?

Paulo

[bingley]

@ Anthony Alcock. A search for Pompeii at the Internet Movie Database gives the following results:

http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Pompeii&x=18&y=6

[Richard]

"Bred in the Bone," the second novel of the Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies, has a wonderful plot involving the faking/ tarting up ("pimp my painting?") of late medieval and renaissance paintings for sale to the Nazis...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_Davies
The main character is an artist whose own idiom is of the renaissance; although he had no intention to fake, his greatest painting ends up exhibited as an old master.
Strongly recommended...
Best wishes,
Richard

[Tony Francis]

Dearest Friend Paulo, In regard to the authenticity of the original Warhols: I have no reason to think they are real. Based on Andy Warhol's written notes and diary, it is clear that he tried to collect the fees from sales of fake Warhols in his life time. I heard a Warhol went for $25 million recently. The person who bought this painting has more money than sense, in my book. As my mother exclaimed back in the 1960s at seeing Warhol paintings: "My gosh, I could do something like that!" In short, I wouldn't pay 50 cents for a Warhol painting. But then, that is just me. Of more interest is the story of Han van Meegeren who painted a bunch of phony Vermeers and sold them to the Nazis in WW II Holland. Now that's a guy with brass!:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Van_Meegeren
http://www.geocities.com/hanvanmeegerencollectie/indexenglish.html
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer
Or Victor Lustig who sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Lustig

[Tony Francis]

If the Celebrity/Helen-of-Troy/Woman-of-Sparta exemplars aren't available, there is always Paris:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton

[Tony Francis]

Using the example of Andy Warhol, you could send out fake "Mary Beards" to various events. They could read a prepared script, refuse to answer questions, retire from the room, then re-emerge as a celebrity to endorse the book. Following the pattern of Celebrity/Helen-of-Troy/Woman-of-Sparta theme, the most logical fake Mary Beard could be Maria Sharapova:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sharapova
Another could be Anna Kournikova, who never won anything, except when she was paired with Matty Hingis:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Kournikova
Michelle Wie earned $19 million last year, despite never making the cut in any golf tournament:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Wie
And the race car driver, Danica Patrick, who earned millions while never winning a race:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danica_Patrick

[paul potts]

For Tony Francis

Yes, but what makes you think the original Warhol paintings are authentic?

Paulo

[Xjy]

I hope you include the Wilhelm Jensen story on Gradiva, the one that inspired Freud's analysis, and later Swedish poet and Cambridge don Göran Printz-Påhlson's Pompeian Fantasy of the same name. Or at least the bas-relief of Gradiva herself.

Some links:
http://www.amazon.com/Gradiva-Delusion-Wilhelm-Jensens-Classics/dp/1557131392
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=1338&kapitel=1
The Gutenberg link is Jensen's text in German.
A very brief comment on Printz-Påhlson's Gradiva is at:
http://www.swedishbookreview.com/article-2001-1-graves.asp

(GPP was also an accomplished classicist and the sort of scholar who could read Finnegans Wake like the rest of us read Mary's blog.)

[anthony alcock]

Has anyone ever made a movie set in Pompeii, last or any other days ? As a sort of holiday resort, did it also become a centre of the porn industry ?

[Tony Francis]

There is a lot of skepticism about the authenticity of many Warhol works. A soi-disant board rules on the "realness" of the Warhols. They don't reveal their methods, or much of anything else; only declare a work authentic, or not. This has rubbed people the wrong way, all over the world. (Read the links in German, and from the UK):
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol_Art_Authentication_Board
When Andy was alive, he discovered many phony works attributed to him:
http://www.warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/warhol1c/warhol1cl/68fake.html
Of course, Andy sent fake Andy Warhol's who impersonated him at speaking engagements. One involved an actor who would star in "Lonesome Cowboys" a few weeks later. He looked nothing like Andy Warhol, and intended to collect the $1000 speaking fee:
http://greg.org/archive/2007/04/06/the_fake_warhol_lectures.html

[Tony Francis]

The Wiki article on Mount Vesuvius shows several images, photographic and painted:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesuvius
This article in interesting, and gives links to several other wiki sites:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii
The mosaic of the couple from the house of Julia Felix is nearly as erotic as Nolo Cum Myrtale. For more suggestive images, go to the site listed under Pompeii links. I am not posting it. You are on your own finding it.

[Michael Bulley]

For another modern interpretation of the last days of Pompeii, there is the radio drama "The Streets of Pompeii" by the poet Henry Reed. It consists of scenes from the present, of groups of people going round the archaeological site, interspersed with impressions of the day of the eruption. I had the good sense to make a tape recording of it. I don't know whether it can be commercially obtained now. I hope so, as it's a top class work of art. There's even a part for a speaking lizard!

[Mary]

Dear all... just in case you get the wrong impression about the Getty!!
It pays (me at any rate) Economy Class... MB herself pays the difference between Economy and First (it's my knees at my age which demand it), Mary

[Sophie]

Here's one for your exhibition: Edward Poynter's "Faithful Unto Death", which shows a Roman soldier standing at his post, even as Pompeii and its inhabitants are destroyed in the background. It is a wonderful, very Victorian picture, showing powerfully the virtues of loyalty and bravery. My grandfather owned the oil sketch for it, and I was delighted to find the full-sized picture is on display in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

[Richard]

Dear Mary,
Fancy a date? Meet you at the BL tea-room - I'll be wearing a red carnation and carrying a copy of "Flashman in the Great Game".
Love,
Niall Ferguson

No, not really, it's Richard (that was a counterfactual). I'm glad the Getty millions extend to paying your first class as well as all the stolen statues, the fake kouros (if it is) etc...

All best,
Richard