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Pompeii
#15
Those are beautiful photographs of ''the grandeur that was Rome''. My dear mother was in Pompeii some thirty years ago, and her accounts of her and my aunt's travels around the Mediterranean (Rome, Delphi, Athens, Neapolis, Epidauros -- school and university holidays, cheap fares, will travel!) were my favourite fare as a little budding classicist building altars out of stones and looking for fauns in the woods (I believe I saw them) but modern camera equipment really does bring it to life.

The sheer sophistication of Classical society is a favourite theme of mine (I grieve immensely for its fall and think post-Classical society has only started to approach near to it in the nineteenth century, though Victorian taste, religion and culture were considerably poorer) and one which is illustrated very well by these photographs -- extensive and masterful use of trompe-l'oeil, exquisitely fine detailed work, subtle gradation of colour, and in the subjects abundant evidence of an elegant, erudite and refined society, from the charmingly designed jardiniere to the beautifully accurate bird or the fine tracery of flowers around the painted column.

I am especially fond of the photograph of the PERISTYLIVM and portico with the lawn and sycamore (? I did take Botany but I have always been hopeless with trees!). It is tremendously evocative of pleasant coolness on a hot day, gently rustling leaves and the ideal of austerely scholarly CVM DIGNITATE OTIVM (Cicero), -- quiet afternoons reading in Greek or in lost Sabine or Etruscan, composing a history.
Patrick J. Gray

'' Now. Close your eyes. It's but a short step to the boat, a short pull across the river.''
''And then?''
''And then, I promise you, you'll dream a different story altogether''

From ''I, Claudius'', by J. Pulman after R. Graves.
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Messages In This Thread
Pompeii - by Graham Sumner - 09-28-2016, 01:47 AM
RE: Pompeii - by Robert Vermaat - 09-28-2016, 01:47 PM
RE: Pompeii - by richsc - 09-28-2016, 04:40 PM
RE: Pompeii - by janesill - 05-16-2017, 03:00 AM
RE: Pompeii - by Alanus - 05-16-2017, 01:42 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Creon01 - 05-16-2017, 04:25 PM
RE: Pompeii - by halstein - 09-25-2017, 07:57 PM
RE: Pompeii - by RoyceSep - 09-24-2017, 02:03 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Iverson - 10-26-2017, 06:10 AM
RE: Pompeii - by D B Campbell - 10-29-2017, 05:38 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Gunthamund Hasding - 10-30-2017, 07:38 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Graham Sumner - 12-09-2017, 12:05 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Creon01 - 12-15-2017, 02:50 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Josip199 - 01-19-2018, 07:45 PM
RE: Pompeii - by Clavdivs - 01-20-2018, 04:31 PM

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