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Considerations of Roman Painting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Alexandre Grandazzi

Extract

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“The first thing discovered in the excavation begun on the Tower of the Annunciation was a painting eleven hands wide and four and a half hands high. It depicts two large festoons of fruits and flowers, a man's head, which is very large and jovial, a ram, an owl, various birds and other things. It seemed to me to be one of the greatest paintings found to date. Having stopped in with me to see it this morning, the sculptor ordered it removed on Tuesday …

“April 10: Detached from the wall and placed on a cart this morning, the great painting arrived at the royal palace in excellent condition.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 42 , Issue 167 , September 1994 , pp. 57 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. Report of colonel Alcubierre to S.M., the king of Naples and the Two Sicilies, April 6, 1748. The original text (in Spanish): G. Fiorelli, Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia (Naples, 1860), 2.

2. Letter VI, 16 and 20; see translation into French by A.M. Guillemin, Collection des universités de France 1927, 1967, Vol. II, 113-118 and 122-126.

3. Among the many "works of art" on this subject, see P. Grimal and E. Kossakowski, Pompéi/Demeures secrètes (Paris, 1992).

4. Reprinted in 1978, Ed. d'Aujourd'hui, Plan de la Tour, Vol. I, 166.

5. Letter to Henriette Renan, Jan. 10, 1859, book IX of the Calmann-Lévy Edition, edited by H. Psichari, 1251.

6. See André Chastel, La Grottesque (Paris 1988).

7. See texts 2a and 2b (Vitruve II, 8, 9, and Pliny, NH 35, 49) in: Recueil Milliet by A. Reinach (reprinted A. Rouveret (ed.)in Textes grecs et latins relatifs à l'his toire de la peinture ancienne (Paris, 1985).

8. "Lettre au Comte du Bruhl" (Paris, 1764), 30.

9. According to the statistics of Ch. Grell, Herculaneum et Pompei dans les récits des voyageurs français du VIIIeme siècle, (Naples, 1982).

10. First of all, that of Mario Praz, Histoire de la décoration d'interieur: la philosophie de l'ameublement (Paris, 1990), 159 (repr.).

11. (Paris, 1750).

12. All of this is carefully documented in the contribution of M. De Vos in Vol. II (p. 353-380) of the collective work Memoria dell'antico nell'arte italiana (Turin, 1985).

13. Description historique et critique de l'Italie, 1766, in: Ch. Grell, op. cit., 159.

14. Rome, Naples et Florence en 1817 (Del Litto, 1973), 56.

15. Diderot, Oeuvres complètes, Vol. XIV (Paris, 1984), 279.

16. Judgment passed in November 1763 (p. 193), reported in Diderot, Oeuvres com plètes, Vol. XIII, (Paris, 1980) 362.

17. See the chapter "Les antiquités d'Herculanum" in Goût neoclassique de Mario Praz, (Paris, 1989), 97-119 (repr.).

18. Correspondance inédite du Comte de Caylus, quoted in Ch, Grell, op. cit., 163.

19. Voyage en Italie, quoted in Karl Schefold, La peinture Pompéienne. Essai sur l'évolu tion de sa signification (Brussels, 1972), 20.

20. "Lettre au Comte de Bruhl."

21. Voyage en Italie, op. cit. Baudelaire would draw quite different conclusions from this smallness, "The lodgings at Pompeii are as big as a hand; the Indian ruins which cover the coast of Malabar bear witness to the same system. These great sensuous and wise peoples well knew the situation. Intimate sentiments are gathered at ease only in very narrow spaces." "La Fanfarlo," Oeuvres complètes (Paris, 1961), 508.

22. Part III, second section, book VII, 17, ed. Levaillant (Paris, 1982) 368.

23. Notably on sites at Olynthus, Delos, Lafkadia, and, recently, Vergina and the Agora in Athens; see A Rouveret, Histoire et imaginaire de la peinture ancienne (Paris, 1985), 166.

24. E. Panofsky, La perspective comme forme symbolique et autres essais (Paris, 1975).

25. See A. Rouveret, op. cit, p. 96.

26. Point of view found in A. Rouveret, op. cit., 212-219 (in reference to the second style).

27. See the handsome book by Ph. Heuzé, Pompéi ou le bonheur de peindre (Paris, 1990),37.

28. Les Jardins romains (Paris, 1984), 98.

29. "The last day of his life […] having gathered his friends around him, he asked them ‘if they thought they had played the farce of life to its limits,' and added the well known conclusion: ‘If the play pleased you, give it your applause. And, all together, let us know your joy."' Sueton, Vie d'Auguste, 99. Nietzsche made the following comment on this episode: "An actor's vanity! An actor's chatter! The perfect counterpoint to the dying Socrates!" in: Le Gai savoir, 36 (Paris, 1982), 80.

30. Quoted in K. Schefold, op. cit., 20.