9/13 Friday
One
of the most fun sights on the streets as we walk to the Archeology Museum is
the guys making a café delivery, diving into the traffic, onto a cobblestone
street, maneuvering the scooter with one hand, and balancing a tray full of
espresso cups and water on the other.
The
museum is not far from our place, a pleasant few blocks walk. It’s in a huge
building, once a cavalry barracks, but similar to the Metropolitan Museum in
NYC. A tour guide at the entrance warns us, urgently, that if we don’t hire
her, we won’t know what to see, but we take our chances with the museum audio
guide.
The
first great hall is filled with statues from Antiquity. It is interesting to
learn how much re-use and re-posing was going on in the statue market. Whenever
the powers changed hands, the literal “heads of state” on the statues would be
taken off and replaced with the new leaders. One large statue, presented as a
seated Apollo holding a lyre, had originally been of a woman, representing
Rome. The feet, hands and head were replaced to create a statue of Apollo,
albeit wearing a dress. Another great statue of Hercules is a terrific visual
companion to Michelangelo’s David. There are many large and impressive works in
the hall, overwhelming, really. We need to save some of our energy for the
Pompeii floor, so we move on.
At
the Pompeii exhibits, we see the artifacts of daily life uncovered at the site.
There are some amazingly delicate pieces of glassware and jewelry, ceramics and
tools. But for us, the best part of the museum is the mosaics.
The
collection of mosaics from Pompeii ranges from four massive, ornate columns
that once stood in a foyer, to a small ornamental image of a flower. The tile
pieces are tiny, ¼ inch squares or smaller, giving the works the complexity of
a pointillist painting. The breadth of the work reveals the remarkable level of
culture that was present in Pompeii. A large wall piece commemorating a great
battle represents a typical use of art, but the small scenes of a witch
tricking two young women is just fun storytelling in the mode of 19th
century genre painting, with a sense of space and dimension that seems very
modern. A portrait of a woman is beautifully natural, her eyes a little heavy
and puffy, making one think of Van Gogh, or Eakins. There are whole floor
pieces, with scattered scenes of animals and gods. Some works are just
decorative and amusing: ducks playing in a pond, a kitten catching a pigeon.
The still lifes of fish or flowers are incredibly realistic, showing off all
the varieties of seafood in the market, perhaps. It’s also interesting to note
the stylistic variety of the works as well. There’s a depth of creativity and
expression that only comes from having lots of artists working freely. It’s
almost a capsule view of art history in the themes and styles here. It’s all
just delightful.
In
a wing off to the side, we enter the “Secret Chamber” where the mosaics and
statues are all erotic. There are small pictures, more cartoonish than the
rest, that are presumed to be from a brothel, but otherwise in Pompeiian times,
these sex-themed pieces would have been part of the normal décor of the house.
They were removed from the public areas of the museum, with the result of
instantly creating a salacious notoriety and demand for the privilege of
viewing them. Now, the curators are trying to normalize the presentation, but
still keeping them in their own, discrete little room.
We go back downstairs to see “the mighty Toro
Farnese (Farnese Bull)” as Lonely Planet describes it. It’s a massive
sculpture telling the story of the execution of Dirce, Queen of Thebes, by her
resentful stepsons. It too, has been reworked through the years, with some of
the figures in the complex scene added at a later time. It’s gigantic.
After
the Museum, we walk on through the streets to find the Duomo. We’re not sure
what the Duomo is, but it’s in all the guidebooks, so we’ll try to find it. We
walk along, occasionally asking “Duomo? Doumo?” We get waved through the
streets in the generally right direction, until we arrive at the Duomo, a 14th
century Cathedral of Naples. It is exuberantly gorgeous, despite the electric
candle offerings.
1 Video Included
Naples Archaeological Museum
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