The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-04-28
1870
ART.
THE PAINTINGS OF PoMPEI1.

The first visit to Pompeii is an event
in life. Nothing in nature or art sur
prises and fascinates like this close
glimpse of Graco-R Roman life, unfolded
as if by enchantment in all it's details.
To the classical scholar it is a vivid
illustration; to those whose minds are
a blank page on the subject, it opens
a new horizon, it imparts a new en-
thusiasm which has all the freshness
of first love.
Everything at Pompeii is beautiful,
even the commonest kitchen utensil.
The genius of Greece had pervaded
every industry. In luxury and in
dustry, says Nissen, Pompeii was
probably much in advance of Rome,
where the conservative tendency of
State institutions retarded progress.
The Pompeians learned Greek at an
early age. There is every reason for
believing that the letters of the Greek
alphabet found on the walls two or
three feet from the ground, were witten
there by the children on their way to
and from school.
Of all the remarkable things found
at POmpeii, none r more important
than the pictures, on account of the
light they throw on ancient painting.
While many masterpieces of Greek
sculpture and architecture have come
down to us, the Greek paintings, from
the fragility of their nature, have
persisted, and it is chiefly in the Ro-
man ruins that we find some tradition
of them left. At Pompeii every house
and every room was decorated with
f~rescoes. The best of these were at
first removed for their preservation to
the museum at Portici, which was
incorporated with the Naples museum
early in this century. Descriptions
can hardly give an idea of the charm
of these pictures, of their rich har-
monious coloring, which many who are
critics have compared to Titan, of the
serene, joyous conceptions of human
life, of the grace and dignity of the
figures. Stately gods and g~oddesses,
sporting cupids, bacchantes, fauns,
centaurs, dolphins, a~rabesques are
multiplied in infinite variety. Most
of the subjects are taken from Greek
mythology; but some represent scenes
from the daily life of the Pompeians,
and throw much light on their habits
and occupations. With few exceptions
the subjects are treated with taste and
delicacy. In a civilization where, to
the gods themselves were ascribed the
passions of mortal men, it is not to be
wondered that art sometimes minis
tered to the licentiOus ideas of the
day; but those pictures, which have
been removed from the public view,
are few compared with those which
mustdelight even the severest moralist.
The period of Greek art to which the
compositions a be specially traced is
that of Alexander the Great and his
successors. It was in his time that the
Athenians began to ornament their
houses, which in the days of Pericles
had been of an austere simplicity.
While hitherto all the splendor of art
had been bestowed on the temples and
the public buildings, the painters now
began to paint small panel pictures for
the private houses. At a later period
these were replaced by limitations in
troduced into the wall-deccration itself,
such as we, see at Pompeii, a much less
costly process, which was very gen
orally adopted.
The technical part of the Pompeian
paintings has been a matter of dispute
for more than a century, The painter
Bonner, in an interesting treatise, has
gone very fully into the arguments.
The question was whether the paint
ings were done in fresco, in tempera,
or after the old method of the Greeks
in encaustic. Carcani, with all the
authority of a member of the Acca-
demla E~rcOlaneuse, maintained that
there was indisputable proof that the
pigments were, with few exceptions.
mixed with size, and that therefore the
pictures were done in tempera. En-
~caustic, with the Greeks, was the near
est equivalent to modern oil-paintings,