Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide: “The Last Days of Pompei Decadence. Apocalypse. Resurrection.”
“Eruption of Vesuvius with Destruction of a Roman City” (1824), by Sebastian Pether. Photograph ©2012 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston “Pompeii is as much the name of an event as a place,” we read in the catalogue for the current exhibition at the Getty Villa. “It is the most famously dead of all ancient cities, yet the one that comes most vividly alive to us today.” Our fascination is more of a fixation, which is unlikely to cease any time soon. Most of us know the story: Mount Vesuvius erupted one day in 79 A.D., spewed pyroclastic cluster bombs into the air, and rolled out a red carpet of steamy lava that cloaked surrounding towns for 16 or 17 centuries. What was destroyed for all time was, ironically, largely preserved for all time as well. “The Last Days of Pompeii,” which takes its title from the influential Bulwer-Lytton novel of 1834, explores the obsession that visual artists over the past three centuries have had with the ruined city. The presentation is divided into three parts: “Decadence” goes the Sodom and Gomorrah route, implying that pride went before the fall (think: the golden calf), and that divine wrath punished the citizens of Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae, and…
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