Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica
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0:00 - 0:04All right, so more audience participation,
but I'm not going to make you stand up: -
0:04 - 0:07How many of you have been to Pompeii?
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0:07 - 0:08Raise your hands.
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0:09 - 0:13So, maybe about a quarter of you, right?
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0:14 - 0:16But you all know the story, don't you?
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0:18 - 0:221,933 years ago tomorrow,
-
0:22 - 0:23(Laughter)
-
0:23 - 0:24yeah,
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0:24 - 0:28August 24, AD 79,
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0:28 - 0:34Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples
in central Italy suddenly erupted -
0:35 - 0:38and buried not only the city of Pompeii
-
0:38 - 0:42but Herculaneum, Stabiae
and the whole region -
0:42 - 0:49under tons of ash, gas,
mud and volcanic debris, -
0:49 - 0:52totally obliterating them.
-
0:53 - 0:57Now, we know a lot about this disaster
-
0:57 - 1:01that's really become
part of our own civilization. -
1:01 - 1:05We know a lot about it
because a young man named Pliny -
1:06 - 1:09was on the northern edge
of the Bay of Naples -
1:09 - 1:11and witnessed the eruption,
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1:11 - 1:15and he wrote an account of that event.
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1:15 - 1:19And central to his story
was the story of his uncle, -
1:20 - 1:23conveniently also named Pliny,
-
1:23 - 1:26who was the admiral of the Roman fleet,
-
1:26 - 1:30and he was really interested
in natural history, the elder Pliny, -
1:30 - 1:35and he was setting out to observe,
at closer range, the volcano, -
1:35 - 1:38when he got messages
that people needed rescuing. -
1:38 - 1:44So what began as a scientific expedition
ended up as a heroic rescue mission. -
1:45 - 1:50And Pliny the Elder sailed south
into the volcanic cloud -
1:50 - 1:53and eventually died there.
-
1:54 - 1:58And that's what we see
in this painting by Jacob More - -
1:58 - 2:00now in the National Gallery of Scotland -
-
2:00 - 2:02we see Vesuvius erupting,
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2:02 - 2:05the lava flowing down the hill,
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2:05 - 2:06and in the foreground,
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2:06 - 2:11the elder Pliny succumbing, falling,
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2:11 - 2:14collapsing in the arms
of two of his slaves -
2:14 - 2:17while other refugees are moving off.
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2:18 - 2:22So we have this eyewitness account
-
2:22 - 2:25that makes it really vivid
exactly what happened there, -
2:25 - 2:27and, of course,
-
2:27 - 2:31from the early 18th century,
we have actual remains -
2:31 - 2:37because well diggers discovered Pompeii
and the other Vesuvian cities. -
2:37 - 2:42And unlike other ancient sites,
like Rome or Athens or Jerusalem, -
2:42 - 2:46that have been overbuilt for years
and years and years, centuries, millennia, -
2:46 - 2:52Pompeii was buried,
sealed by the volcano and all that ash, -
2:52 - 2:55like - we seem to think,
we hear over and over again - -
2:55 - 2:57a time capsule, frozen.
-
2:57 - 3:01And we find there not only cooking pots
and houses and buildings - -
3:01 - 3:04things that we find in Rome
and Athens and Jerusalem - -
3:04 - 3:06but actual perishable materials:
-
3:06 - 3:11eggs, carbonized bread loaves,
food stuffs, medical instruments - -
3:11 - 3:14the daily life of antiquity.
-
3:14 - 3:18We can experience it directly
when we go to Pompeii, -
3:18 - 3:20have this unmediated experience
-
3:20 - 3:23of what life was like
in the ancient world, -
3:23 - 3:25and we have the whole city here,
-
3:25 - 3:29spread out before, now, the ruined,
collapsed cone of the volcano -
3:29 - 3:31that was so much larger.
-
3:31 - 3:36We have the city plan, we have paintings,
we have houses, we have sculptures. -
3:36 - 3:39Now, I'm trained
as a classical archaeologist, -
3:39 - 3:43which means I have to go
to the Mediterranean to do my work -
3:43 - 3:44and go to the Greek islands,
-
3:44 - 3:47and it's really tough and yeah, yeah -
-
3:47 - 3:48(Laughter)
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3:48 - 3:50That's the way it is.
-
3:50 - 3:54And like all of my colleagues,
I've studied Pompeii, -
3:54 - 3:57but I never really worked on it
until a few years ago -
3:57 - 4:00when I was asked
to collaborate with LACMA -
4:00 - 4:02when they had their exhibition
-
4:02 - 4:03"Pompeii and the Roman Villa:
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4:03 - 4:05Art and Culture
[around] the Bay of Naples." -
4:05 - 4:07Did any of you see that show?
-
4:07 - 4:08A few of you saw it.
-
4:08 - 4:12And my job, really,
was to translate this exhibition - -
4:12 - 4:14which opened at the
National Gallery in Washington - -
4:14 - 4:16to LACMA's space,
-
4:16 - 4:18and working with the designers there,
-
4:18 - 4:20especially Victoria Behner,
who is wonderful, -
4:20 - 4:24we made this show look
really beautiful in LACMA's space. -
4:24 - 4:27And it was all about art and culture,
-
4:27 - 4:30although most of this stuff
wasn't about art. -
4:30 - 4:33As an archaeologist,
I deal with old and broken stuff. -
4:33 - 4:37Some of it's very beautiful,
but it wasn't created as art; -
4:37 - 4:41it was created to decorate houses
or to commemorate important people. -
4:41 - 4:44But we did a nice job at LACMA,
and I was very happy with it, -
4:44 - 4:46although I have to admit,
-
4:46 - 4:50I wasn't responsible for its placement
in the Art of the Americas building. -
4:50 - 4:51(Laughter)
-
4:51 - 4:53That was LACMA's choice,
-
4:54 - 4:58and I don't know what they did
to a whole generation of schoolchildren -
4:58 - 5:01who now are going to think
Pompeii's somewhere in South America. -
5:01 - 5:03I don't know.
-
5:03 - 5:04(Laughter)
-
5:04 - 5:08I was very happy with the exhibition,
but it was in many ways traditional -
5:08 - 5:10because it perpetuated
-
5:10 - 5:14what I've come to think of
as the myth of Pompeii, -
5:14 - 5:17that we can go and recover the past,
-
5:17 - 5:19and the ruins and the finds
-
5:19 - 5:23give us insight directly
into the lives of ancient people. -
5:23 - 5:26And, of course, as an archaeologist,
that's what I live by, -
5:26 - 5:28that is to some degree true.
-
5:28 - 5:32But at the end of the LACMA show,
like so many exhibitions, -
5:32 - 5:34as a coda, as an add-on,
-
5:34 - 5:36there was a little section
on the afterlife of Pompeii, -
5:36 - 5:39and there were more
of these volcano paintings. -
5:39 - 5:40This is another one, by Valenciennes,
-
5:40 - 5:42from the museum in Toulouse, France,
-
5:42 - 5:45and it's similar to the one by Jacob More:
-
5:45 - 5:48the volcano is exploding,
the sea is roiling, -
5:48 - 5:51and Pliny the Elder
is collapsing in the foreground -
5:51 - 5:56as per the letter his nephew wrote
to the historian Tacitus. -
5:56 - 6:00And you've got more architecture
collapsing in front. -
6:00 - 6:03Now, what's important here
-
6:03 - 6:07is that when Jacob More
painted in the 1780s -
6:07 - 6:11and Valenciennes
painted this 40 years later, -
6:11 - 6:14they weren't eyewitnesses
like Pliny the Younger -
6:14 - 6:16to the ancient eruption,
-
6:16 - 6:18but Vesuvius was erupting again;
-
6:18 - 6:21it was continually erupting
until about 1944, -
6:21 - 6:22which was the last eruption.
-
6:22 - 6:27And what these painters did
is they took contemporary eruptions, -
6:27 - 6:29which they witnessed and painted -
-
6:29 - 6:31here's one by [Joseph Wright] -
-
6:31 - 6:34and they superimposed the ancient past.
-
6:34 - 6:36You'll notice it looks very much the same,
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6:36 - 6:38except the sea is calm
because it's a smaller eruption -
6:38 - 6:40and there's a lot of lava.
-
6:40 - 6:43There was more lava in the modern
eruptions than the ancient one -
6:43 - 6:45because the ancient one was explosive,
-
6:45 - 6:48and that's why all that ash
came down and buried everything. -
6:48 - 6:49If there had been lava,
-
6:49 - 6:52it would have burnt everything
and we wouldn't have anything left. -
6:52 - 6:57But this is Volaire,
which looks like Valenciennes. -
6:57 - 7:00This is by Joseph Wright,
-
7:00 - 7:03and you see, it's painted
about the same time as Jacob More - -
7:03 - 7:05here's Jacob More's painting.
-
7:05 - 7:07He just added some guys in togas
in the foreground -
7:07 - 7:10and some ancient ruins in the background,
-
7:10 - 7:11and you get antiquity.
-
7:11 - 7:12(Laughter)
-
7:12 - 7:18And I came to realize that so much
of what we think about Pompeii today, -
7:18 - 7:22where we think we're having
this direct connection to the past -
7:22 - 7:24when we go and we can experience the past,
-
7:24 - 7:30it's not as much a window to the past
as it's a mirror of the present: -
7:30 - 7:35We're superimposing what we expect,
what we know and what we see -
7:35 - 7:37onto the past.
-
7:38 - 7:42Andy Warhol never saw Vesuvius erupt,
-
7:42 - 7:46but he did a whole series
of Vesuvius in 1985, -
7:46 - 7:50when the AIDS crisis
was ravaging his community, -
7:50 - 7:56to symbolize the catastrophe,
the apocalypse, that was happening. -
7:56 - 8:00And Pompeii has become
a kind of ground zero for us, -
8:00 - 8:03the type site for any disaster,
-
8:04 - 8:07whether it's the Lisbon
earthquake of 1755, -
8:07 - 8:10the San Francisco earthquake of 1906,
-
8:11 - 8:16whether it's Katrina or Haiti
or the Fukushima earthquake, -
8:16 - 8:18all those natural disasters,
-
8:18 - 8:20or man-made ones -
-
8:20 - 8:25the Civil War, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 9-11 -
-
8:25 - 8:28Pompeii is always invoked,
-
8:28 - 8:29and it's invoked
-
8:29 - 8:35because it's become for us
the foundational disaster of all time. -
8:37 - 8:38And that it was,
-
8:38 - 8:44but again, the idea that we
can really experience this -
8:44 - 8:47is what I think of as the myth of Pompeii.
-
8:47 - 8:53And this has been promulgated most greatly
after Valenciennes and after Jacob More -
8:53 - 8:56by Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
-
8:56 - 8:59the guy who did "The Dark
and Stormy Night" novel. -
8:59 - 9:01He did another novel
that was much more famous, -
9:01 - 9:03"The Last Days of Pompeii."
-
9:03 - 9:06Published first in 1834,
-
9:06 - 9:08this was the bestseller
of the 19th century. -
9:08 - 9:14It was The Da Vinci Code,
the Twilight series, Harry Potter -
9:14 - 9:17all rolled into one, right?
-
9:17 - 9:23And it came to inspire
theatrical plays, operas, -
9:24 - 9:26pyrodrama re-creations
-
9:26 - 9:28as well as, eventually, films.
-
9:28 - 9:32It revolves around
two interlocking love triangles, -
9:32 - 9:37people really intersecting
with each other in intrigue -
9:37 - 9:39just before the eruption of Vesuvius,
-
9:39 - 9:41which, of course,
is the climax of the novel -
9:41 - 9:45when the poor, blind
flower girl, Nydia, is able - -
9:45 - 9:48as you see on the right hand slide -
-
9:48 - 9:50to lead her people out
-
9:50 - 9:53because she alone can see
or find her way in the dark -
9:53 - 9:55because she knows
the city in its darkness. -
9:55 - 9:58And it's this title,
"The Last Days of Pompeii," -
9:58 - 10:01that we've taken as the title
for an exhibition -
10:01 - 10:04that will open in two weeks
in the Getty Villa, -
10:04 - 10:06but we've added the subtitle
-
10:06 - 10:10"Decadence, Apocalypse and Resurrection."
-
10:10 - 10:11(Laughter)
-
10:11 - 10:14Not just because these are great words
that are very exciting, -
10:14 - 10:15but they are -
-
10:15 - 10:18we didn't focus group this,
but we thought hard - -
10:18 - 10:19(Laughter)
-
10:19 - 10:24because we bring these ideas
to the ancient city. -
10:24 - 10:26Why was Pompeii destroyed?
-
10:26 - 10:29Not just because a volcano
happened to erupt -
10:29 - 10:32but because they were decadent
and they deserved it. -
10:32 - 10:35Was that because they didn't
accept early Christianity? -
10:35 - 10:37Pat Robertson would have you believe so:
-
10:37 - 10:38he said that about Haiti,
-
10:38 - 10:41he said that about
Greenwich Village on 9-11. -
10:41 - 10:47Whether it's religious decadence,
sexual decadence, gluttony, -
10:47 - 10:50the violence of the arena
or something else, -
10:50 - 10:54Pompeii was destroyed
because it deserved to be destroyed. -
10:54 - 10:56That's one of our ideas.
-
10:56 - 11:01Apocalypse - we can't think of the city
without thinking of its destruction. -
11:02 - 11:05The daily lives of its inhabitants
that we reconstruct -
11:05 - 11:08we think we experience
when we go there or go to an exhibit - -
11:08 - 11:11we know the ending: it's the eruption.
-
11:11 - 11:13Well, they didn't know the ending.
-
11:13 - 11:17And then resurrection has to do
with the fantasy of archaeology, -
11:17 - 11:20the fantasy that we can
somehow recover the past. -
11:20 - 11:25So quickly, I want to run through
just a few objects in the exhibition -
11:25 - 11:27and talk a little bit more
about these three themes. -
11:27 - 11:29Decadence - a painting like this,
-
11:29 - 11:32by John William Godward
in the Getty's own collection. -
11:32 - 11:35We see these women
in very sheer garments - -
11:35 - 11:38I mean, we really see these women -
-
11:38 - 11:41and they're in an archaeologically
correct interior: -
11:41 - 11:46luscious, colored marble veneers,
mosaic floors in the corner, -
11:46 - 11:47tiger skins, bear skins.
-
11:47 - 11:51They're playing with each other,
or one's teasing the other, -
11:51 - 11:56with little bone hairpins
with carved figures on them. -
11:56 - 12:00These are all things taken from Pompeii
and the Naples Archaeological Museum. -
12:00 - 12:02It's foundationally accurate;
-
12:02 - 12:05there's the support system
that's totally credible, -
12:05 - 12:07but the scene is a Victorian fantasy.
-
12:07 - 12:08(Laughter)
-
12:08 - 12:11It's the fantasy of a Victorian male
-
12:11 - 12:15who's imagining what a pair
of courtesans is doing all day, -
12:15 - 12:18waiting for their lovers
to come in the evening. -
12:18 - 12:23This is, again, the past being used
to mirror the present, -
12:23 - 12:24to see what's forbidden.
-
12:24 - 12:27And, of course, Godward
couldn't paint this in contemporary terms; -
12:27 - 12:29it wouldn't have been acceptable.
-
12:29 - 12:32But he can dress it up in classical garb
and make it Pompeian, -
12:32 - 12:35and it's okay for his audience.
-
12:35 - 12:39We're very pleased to get this painting,
The Gladiator at the Banquet, -
12:39 - 12:42from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples,
-
12:42 - 12:44the masterpiece of Francesco Netti,
-
12:44 - 12:46which, again, I've researched this.
-
12:46 - 12:49Archaeologically, it's perfect.
-
12:49 - 12:52The building, the mosaics,
the frescoes on the wall, -
12:52 - 12:54the helmet of the gladiators -
-
12:54 - 12:59everything can be traced back
to remains on site in Pompeii -
12:59 - 13:02or in the Naples museum
where most of the finds went. -
13:02 - 13:04And Netti, we know, studied those finds,
-
13:04 - 13:10and yet the overall scene
is a fantastic invention. -
13:10 - 13:12Gladiators at a banquet?
-
13:12 - 13:15Now, if you watch gladiator movies
on TV or something, -
13:15 - 13:17you might just think this happened.
-
13:17 - 13:20But gladiators were highly trained
and very expensive. -
13:20 - 13:21They didn't perform at dinner parties.
-
13:21 - 13:23They performed in the arena,
-
13:23 - 13:27and they were rarely killed,
because they were too expensive. -
13:27 - 13:31So this scene of drunken,
murderous, dissolute Romans -
13:31 - 13:35falling over themselves,
literally, into the dirt, -
13:35 - 13:40or swooning, the women
offering wine to the victorious gladiator -
13:40 - 13:45as these emaciated slaves drag his victim
out through the bloody sand. -
13:45 - 13:49This is not only an indictment
of Ancient Rome; -
13:50 - 13:52we know that Netti was a social reformer.
-
13:52 - 13:54He wrote copiously
-
13:54 - 13:57about the terrible conditions
of peasants in Southern Italy. -
13:57 - 14:00This is an attack on contemporary
aristocrats and landowners -
14:00 - 14:03translated into the past.
-
14:03 - 14:07Again, Pompeii as mirror, not window.
-
14:07 - 14:09I've spoken a lot about apocalypse.
-
14:09 - 14:11We have lots of volcano
paintings in the show. -
14:11 - 14:13I just want to talk briefly
about this one, -
14:13 - 14:14which is one of my favorites.
-
14:14 - 14:18Sebastian Pether, a poor, British artist,
never made it to Naples, -
14:18 - 14:20copied other people's paintings,
-
14:20 - 14:23and that's why there's confusion
about this architecture in the middle - -
14:23 - 14:26Roman architecture with cupolas - un huh.
-
14:26 - 14:27(Laughter)
-
14:27 - 14:28The sea is calm,
-
14:28 - 14:30but what I really love are two things.
-
14:30 - 14:36There are figures in the painting
in 19th century dress, -
14:36 - 14:40collapsing the time between now and then.
-
14:40 - 14:42They're spectators
to this ancient disaster. -
14:42 - 14:44But what I really love is this frame,
-
14:45 - 14:51the gilt frame with chunks
of lava set in and gilt. -
14:51 - 14:57So we have here physical proof
of the veracity of the scene, right? -
14:57 - 14:58Chunks of Vesuvian lava.
-
14:58 - 15:00This really happened.
-
15:00 - 15:02And this is what all the literature said.
-
15:02 - 15:05But we went to the Boston Museum
of Fine Arts to examine the painting, -
15:05 - 15:08and we got it down,
and we started looking at it, -
15:08 - 15:10and one of my colleagues there
is a woodworker. -
15:10 - 15:14He said, "This isn't lava;
it's shaved wood burl." -
15:14 - 15:19So even the foundational testimony
to the truth of the image is fake. -
15:19 - 15:21(Laughter)
-
15:22 - 15:25And that's true of a lot
of what we see at Pompeii. -
15:25 - 15:29Many, many people,
many specialists, my colleagues, -
15:29 - 15:33don't know that Pompeii
was very badly bombed -
15:33 - 15:36by the Allies in the Second World War,
-
15:36 - 15:38collateral damage.
-
15:38 - 15:40There were no smart bombs,
-
15:40 - 15:42and Pompeii is located
very near major supply routes, -
15:42 - 15:44roads, bridges, railway lines,
-
15:44 - 15:49and after the invasions
of Salerno in 1943, -
15:49 - 15:52the Allies needed
to cut off German resupply. -
15:53 - 15:58Over 160 bomb strikes are recorded;
I'm sure there are many, many others. -
15:58 - 16:02And many of these buildings
that were so badly bombed out -
16:02 - 16:06were quickly restored
in the late 1940s and '50s. -
16:07 - 16:12So what we see at Pompeii
isn't what Vesuvius left; -
16:12 - 16:14it's part of an ongoing process.
-
16:14 - 16:18Our experience there isn't
a direct connection to ancient Rome; -
16:18 - 16:20it's one that's highly mediated.
-
16:20 - 16:26And that's true of the most famous
and familiar "artifacts" from Pompeii, -
16:27 - 16:29the bodies.
-
16:29 - 16:31The bodies aren't petrified,
-
16:31 - 16:33they're not calcified,
-
16:33 - 16:35they're not ossified -
-
16:35 - 16:37they're modern sculptures.
-
16:38 - 16:41They were created first in 1863,
-
16:41 - 16:45when archaeologists
who had long found hollows in the ash - -
16:45 - 16:50where people who had died from suffocation
had been buried by the falling debris -
16:50 - 16:53and then their bodies
disintegrated, leaving hollows. -
16:53 - 16:56Archaeologists realized they could
pour plaster into these hollows -
16:56 - 16:58and create forms
-
16:58 - 17:03that were modern casts of the lost voids
of the disappeared victims. -
17:03 - 17:05And that's what you see
if you go to Pompeii -
17:05 - 17:08in cases around the site.
-
17:08 - 17:11But if you go to exhibitions
in Malibu or San Diego or New York -
17:11 - 17:14or Denver or Cincinnati
or anywhere else in the world, -
17:14 - 17:15you don't see those plasters -
-
17:15 - 17:19I always have to catch myself
that I don't call them original plasters, -
17:19 - 17:22because they're not original,
they're already one removed - -
17:22 - 17:25you see second-generation resin casts,
-
17:25 - 17:29after those first-generation
plaster casts, -
17:29 - 17:33after the empty voids
of the disappeared victims. -
17:34 - 17:38So we're three or more times
removed from those victims. -
17:38 - 17:40That doesn't mean
these aren't powerful images -
17:40 - 17:42that affect us emotionally,
-
17:42 - 17:45and that doesn't mean
that they've inspired artists since then, -
17:45 - 17:47generations of artists.
-
17:47 - 17:51Just as More and Valenciennes
and Piranesi and others -
17:51 - 17:54were inspired in the 17th
and 18th century, -
17:54 - 17:57in the 19th and 20th
and 21st centuries, -
17:58 - 18:02artists have been inspired
by Pompeii and the bodies -
18:02 - 18:06and the calamity
that befell the inhabitants. -
18:06 - 18:09On the top, I show you
a sculpture by Arturo Martini, -
18:09 - 18:12an Italian sculptor of between the wars,
-
18:12 - 18:14who deliberately rejected
-
18:14 - 18:19the beautiful neoclassicism
of Mussolini's fascist era -
18:19 - 18:24to carve in this rough stone
a figure he called "The Drinker," -
18:24 - 18:26modeled on the Pompeian bodies.
-
18:26 - 18:29And we'll have in the exhibition
this figure on the bottom, -
18:29 - 18:32by our contemporary, Anthony Gormley,
-
18:32 - 18:37who uses his own body
to image, in this case, -
18:37 - 18:41what he calls "The End
of the Human Project." -
18:41 - 18:44We also have a modern work,
a contemporary work, -
18:44 - 18:48that reflects the most famous
of the casts, the dog of Pompeii. -
18:49 - 18:50Allan McCollum,
-
18:50 - 18:56to emphasize our distance
from the original loss and sorrow -
18:56 - 19:02and yet how it's still with us, although
in this very mitigated, mediated form, -
19:02 - 19:05has created a work based on multiples,
-
19:05 - 19:08to remind us that we're
not seeing the dog; -
19:08 - 19:12the dog is gone, and we're seeing
a reflection of it. -
19:13 - 19:16Now, there's a lot more in the show,
but I have to move on quickly. -
19:16 - 19:18Resurrection - the fantasy of archaeology.
-
19:18 - 19:21This French painting
by Sain, in the Orsay, -
19:21 - 19:23which is coming to the Villa in two weeks,
-
19:23 - 19:25shows this happy scene
-
19:25 - 19:31of peasant women
carrying dirt and revealing finds. -
19:31 - 19:33That's not how it was.
-
19:33 - 19:37The earliest excavations we know
were done by convicts -
19:38 - 19:40in chains.
-
19:41 - 19:43In the 19th century,
they were done by poor peasants, -
19:43 - 19:45and notice in the front here,
-
19:45 - 19:50the guard with a switch
to make sure the work kept going. -
19:51 - 19:56I'm very pleased that from the Vatican
we'll have this object. -
19:56 - 19:58How many of you
have seen the Sistine Chapel? -
20:00 - 20:01I'd say most of you.
-
20:01 - 20:03Then you've all walked past this
and not seen it. -
20:03 - 20:05(Laughter)
-
20:05 - 20:06I did several times.
-
20:06 - 20:09It's in the room
right after the Sistine Chapel, -
20:09 - 20:11and you walk by in a daze,
and you don't see it. -
20:11 - 20:14This is a monumental, beautiful vetrine,
-
20:14 - 20:15almost a reliquary,
-
20:15 - 20:18with a Latin inscription
in gilt lettering -
20:18 - 20:22saying these are objects
that were excavated at Pompeii -
20:22 - 20:23in the presence of Pope Pius IX
-
20:23 - 20:24in 1849
-
20:24 - 20:27and given to him by the King of Naples.
-
20:27 - 20:29Archaeology has always been
-
20:29 - 20:32the sport of kings
and the stuff of politics. -
20:32 - 20:33But think for a minute.
-
20:33 - 20:36If you're running the excavations
and the Pope is coming to visit -
20:36 - 20:39and you're going to put on
an excavation for him, -
20:39 - 20:41are you going to leave it to chance
what you might turn up? -
20:42 - 20:43No way.
-
20:43 - 20:45The case is full of wonderful finds:
-
20:45 - 20:49bronzes, terracotta, glass, marbles.
-
20:49 - 20:52The marble relief on the bottom
was thought to be Alexander the Great. -
20:52 - 20:53Spectacular things.
-
20:53 - 20:58There's no doubt that
these excavations were staged, -
20:58 - 21:01and scholars today debate
the degree to which they're salted - -
21:01 - 21:04that the pieces were deliberately
buried to be found -
21:04 - 21:05rather than prepared.
-
21:05 - 21:07In fact, some people think
-
21:07 - 21:11that relief of the horseman
comes from a different site altogether. -
21:11 - 21:16So even what you excavate at Pompeii
might not be Pompeian. -
21:17 - 21:20We'll have screens
for film clips, in the show, -
21:20 - 21:23from the earliest silents
through the great epics -
21:23 - 21:26because the moving picture
has mightily shaped our view -
21:26 - 21:30and they follow this arc of decadence,
apocalypse and resurrection -
21:30 - 21:33up to the present day,
-
21:33 - 21:36where the Simpsons
-
21:36 - 21:37(Laughter)
-
21:37 - 21:41go to Pompeii, and they find themselves.
-
21:41 - 21:43Right? It's the mirror.
-
21:43 - 21:46And Doctor Who - I love this.
-
21:46 - 21:49The eruption of the volcano
and the destruction of thousands -
21:49 - 21:50isn't enough.
-
21:50 - 21:52They have to add space aliens.
-
21:52 - 21:53(Laughter)
-
21:53 - 21:55How does that reflect upon us?
-
21:56 - 21:57Now, a few months ago -
-
21:57 - 22:01and I've been working on this show
with colleagues for years - -
22:01 - 22:05in April, it was the anniversary
of the sinking of the Titanic, -
22:06 - 22:10and I was struck to see this photo
of half a Titanic, full-scale, -
22:10 - 22:11in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
-
22:11 - 22:12It's bizarre.
-
22:13 - 22:14But you'll remember
-
22:14 - 22:20there were all these celebrations
and parties and reenactments -
22:20 - 22:21of the sinking of the Titanic.
-
22:21 - 22:22And I started to think,
-
22:22 - 22:27How does it happen
that a calamity on this scale -
22:27 - 22:32becomes the subject
of entertainment and celebration? -
22:32 - 22:35It happened in Pompeii very early,
-
22:35 - 22:38not only with paintings
but with operas and stage productions. -
22:38 - 22:43In 1906, you could dance
The Last Days of Pompeii twostep march -
22:43 - 22:45for an evening's entertainment.
-
22:45 - 22:47Today, taking a little more risk,
-
22:47 - 22:51you can go to Reno or Las Vegas
and play the Pompeii slot machine, -
22:51 - 22:55and if you win, the volcano
will erupt with gold coins. -
22:55 - 22:56(Laughter)
-
22:56 - 23:00And if you have the occasion
to travel to Williamsburg, Virginia, -
23:00 - 23:01and visit Busch gardens,
-
23:01 - 23:05you can take the Escape
from Pompeii water ride. -
23:05 - 23:07It's fun, especially on a hot day;
-
23:07 - 23:09I did it once.
-
23:09 - 23:14But I submit to you,
we can't really escape from Pompeii, -
23:14 - 23:19because we've come to carry it
around with us wherever we go. -
23:19 - 23:25But it escapes us,
the real, the historical Pompeii -
23:25 - 23:27because the Pompeii we know
-
23:27 - 23:33is the one that we're continually
reinventing and recrafting -
23:33 - 23:38to suit our own preoccupations,
needs and desires. -
23:38 - 23:41And that's what
this exhibition is all about. -
23:42 - 23:45It opens in three weeks, September 12th,
-
23:45 - 23:46runs through early January.
-
23:46 - 23:51There's another show,
more documentary, of photographs, -
23:51 - 23:52at the Italian Cultural Institute
-
23:52 - 23:53in Westwood.
-
23:53 - 23:56Please come visit it at the Getty Villa.
-
23:56 - 23:57Thank you very much.
-
23:57 - 23:59(Applause)
- Title:
- Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica
- Description:
-
The legacy of Pompeii fascinates us. But is it because it's a reflection on the past or a mirror of the present?
Kenneth Lapatin is an antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Villa in Malibu. He holds graduate degrees from Oxford University and the University of California, Berkeley. A Fulbright Scholar at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and a fellow of both the American Academy in Rome and the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts in Washington, D.C., he was a professor at Boston University before joining the Getty in 2002. He is the author of "Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World" and "Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the Forging of History," as well as the guide to the Getty Villa and other books, articles, and reviews.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 24:01
Peter van de Ven approved English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Peter van de Ven edited English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Peter van de Ven edited English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Amanda Chu accepted English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Amanda Chu edited English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Amanda Chu edited English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Amanda Chu edited English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica | ||
Amanda Chu edited English subtitles for Pompeii: an archeological fantasy | Ken Lapatin | TEDxSantaMonica |