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Representation of Pompeii & Herculaneum over time From Neo Classicism to Virtual Reality
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The Oldest Image of Vesuvius This painting of Vesuvius was discovered in 1879 on a wall in the Casa del Centenario, one of the largest houses in Pompeii. Bacchus is pictured standing before the mountain; at the time Vesuvius was covered in vineyards.
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Representations The fact of expressing or denoting by means of a figure or symbol; symbolic action or exhibition of an idea Since the discovery of Pompeii in the 18 th century, poets, authors, artists and filmmakers have sought to represent aspects of these cities of Vesuvius Early representations have focused on the neoclassical aspects of art and architecture. As discoveries continued 18 th and 19 th century representations focused on the human disaster In the 21 st century, with the addition of further archaeological discoveries and technology the focus has been on virtual reconstructions of the physical and human elements. Fiorelli’s plaster castes have become the iconic symbol of the Vesuvian disaster
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Novels
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Bulwer-Lytton, E. (1834). The last days of Pompeii. Bulwer-Lytton's story is by far the most famous novel set in Pompeii. However, his story isn't really concerned with Roman people, in spite of the Pompeii setting. His hero and heroine were Greek; his villain was Egyptian; only a few relatively minor characters were Roman. The evil priest Arbaces schemes to win the beautiful Ione by destroying his romantic rival Glaucus; events reach a climax when Vesuvius erupts and only the blind girl Nydia, who is also in love with Glaucus, can find her way through the darkness. There have been numerous film versions; many of them have little in common with the novel except for the title. This is a novel in the grand Victorian tradition; the language is vividly descriptive. Bulwer-Lytton based many of the details of his story on information obtained from the excavations. The sight of the preserved skeletons in Pompeii inspired him to write the novel. He structured the novel like a crime story -- as an account of people's last moments of life, based on deductions about their activities from the physical evidence (and a substantial dose of imagination, of course). He was particularly impressed by a skull which he identified with his fictional character Arbaces; according to Leppman, Bulwer-Lytton kept this skull on his desk.
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Robert Harris Pompeii - A Novel : All along the Mediterranean coast, the Roman empire’s richest citizens are relaxing in their luxurious villas, enjoying the last days of summer. The world’s largest navy lies peacefully at anchor in Misenum. The tourists are spending their money in the seaside resorts of Baiae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. But the carefree lifestyle and gorgeous weather belie an impending cataclysm, and only one man is worried. The young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct that brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay of Naples. His predecessor has disappeared. Springs are failing for the first time in generations. And now there is a crisis on the Augusta’s sixty-mile main line—somewhere to the north of Pompeii, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Attilius—decent, practical, and incorruptible— promises Pliny, the famous scholar who commands the navy, that he can repair the aqueduct before the reservoir runs dry. His plan is to travel to Pompeii and put together an expedition, then head out to the place where he believes the fault lies. But Pompeii proves to be a corrupt and violent town, and Attilius soon discovers that there are powerful forces at work—both natural and man-made—threatening to destroy him
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Neo Classical Art Mid-18th Century to Early-19th Century Neoclassical Art is a severe and unemotional form of art harkening back to the grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome.
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Francois Mazois, Ruins of Pompeii 1812
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi-1804
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Jacob Phillip Hackert View of Pompeii 1799
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Romanticism Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. It stressed strong emotion (which now might include trepidation, awe, and horror as aesthetic experiences). Romanticism is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individuals and artists.
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Writing on "The Impact of Pompeii on the Literary Imagination," Laurence Goldstein has observed that in the destruction of earlier optimism "during the Age of Revolutions which followed Gibbon... Pompeii played an important role, as a social phenomenon and as a metaphor." In particular, It did so by compelling a personal identification with its victims. Because it was obliterated in the midst of life, Pompeii revealed to the modern world disturbing images of pathetic individuals stopped in recognizable domestic activities by the volcanic ash. Pompeii became a symbolic code word for what Madame de Stael calls "death's abrupt invasion." It fostered a dark literature of premature burial, natural calamity, and universal extinction. [Centennial Review. 23 (1979): 229.] Impact of a Discovery on the art and literary genre
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Pierre-Jacques Volaire (French, 1729 - before 1802) The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1777
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Karl Briullov (1799-1852)
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Valenciennes witnessed a Vesuvius eruption in 1779, and chose to incorporate his experience in the death of Pliny
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The Death of Pliny the Elder
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Last Days of Pompeii
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Theodore Chasseriau Women in the Tepidarium 1853
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American nineteenth century novelist Mark Twain gives a very unique account of Pompeii in his book, The Innocents Abroad. He presents the city not in an archaeological, symbolic, or reconstructive manner, but as seen through an irreverent and distinctly American perspective. He writes, ìThe sun shines as brightly down on old Pompeii today as it did when Christ was born in Bethelehem, and its streets are cleaner a hundred times than ever Pompeiian saw them in her prime. I know whereof I speak ñ for in the great, chief thoroughfares (Merchant Street and the Street of Fortune) have I not seen with my own eyes how for two hundred years at least the pavements were not repaired! ñ how ruts five and even ten inches deep were worn into the thick flagstones by the chariot-wheels of generations of swindled tax-payers? And do I not know by these signs that street commissioners of Pompeii never attended to their business, and that if they never mended the pavements they never cleaned them? And, besides, is it not the inborn nature of street commissioners to avoid their duty whenever they get a chance? I wish I knew the name of the last one that held office in Pompeii so that I could give him a blast. I speak with feeling on this subject, because I caught my foot in one of those ruts, and the sadness that came over me when I saw the first poor skeleton, with ashes and lava sticking to it, was tempered by the reflection that may be that party was the street commissioner.î Twain's representation of Pompeii serves to show how greatly a person's present and background affect his interpretation of the past. Being a member of a relatively young nation, Twain had a very different concept of history than the European writers who used Pompeii in their works (Leppmann 158). Thus, Pompeii draws from Twain not grand statements about the glory of bygone civilizations or about the transitory nature of life, but instead more pragmatic if somewhat flippant criticisms of bureaucratic inefficiency in ancient times. Leppmann, Wolfgang. Pompeii in Fact and Fiction. Mark Twain; Innocents Abroad
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Pompeii in Film- 1913
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1935
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1960
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Virtual Reality Representation of past spaces through animation and reconstruction stills, particularly in the fields of television and film. It is based on the development of novel computing solutions to the modelling, representation and interpretation of space in the archaeological past. Computer modelling provides a unique appreciation of the site and its context.
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Pompeii Virtual Tour
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Temple of Apollo
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The House of IULIUS POLYBIUS a 3D VR animation by ALTAIR 4 MULTIMEDIA The House of Julius Polybius in Pompeii has come to life again thanks to a long and elaborate process of visual restoration achieved by Altair 4 Multimedia at the request of the University of Tokyo and Prof. Masanori Aoyagi. To obtain the video, a digital restoration was performed on tens of frescos, a virtual reconstruction of all the house was also performed, and the dynamics of the eruption and its impact on the house were enhanced
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Pompeii; The Last Day 2003
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