Month: December 2020

We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, educator Elmira Adamian wonders about a couple in an ancient fresco as she shelters at home with her family. To learn more about this work, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/6535/.

Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every other Tuesday.

---

Transcript

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, President of the J. Paul Getty trust. In a new podcast feature, we’re asking members of the Getty community to share short reflections on works of art to thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings every other Tuesday. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives, from laundry on the line to a dog, scholars feet, thought provoking illuminating and entertaining.

ELMIRA DAMIAN: Hi, my name is Elmira Damian.  I’m a gallery educator at the Getty Villa.

Recently, I’ve been looking closely at one of the frescoed wall panels that decorated a room of a first century ancient Roman Villa at Boscoreale. This large fresco depict delicate architectural designs on a black and yellow background. In the center, there is a small picture of a room with two figures, a seated man facing a beautiful woman. At first glance it looks like the couple is engaged in an intimate and tranquil conversation, but the smallness of a room on a big wall surface implies tension in a confined space.

This scene reminds me of my situation during the pandemic in lockdown at home. Being at the house all the time, and sharing workspace with my family was a little uncomfortable at first. We were not used to having so much time together, other than a couple of hours after work. Many of my friends commented that spending so much time at home was a bit stressful for their relationships. But others have remarked on positive outcomes like going closer to their family because of that.

In my family we try to make the best out of this new norm at home, my husband and I came up with creative ideas and home renovation project. We’ve had long conversations and debates. We’ve cooked, baked, and watched movies. And with horror, we’ve reminisced on the nightmare traffic of the 405, when we both had to drive to work.

When I come back to the fresco image again. I wonder about the couple’s relationship and their conversation. Their identities are unknown, but some scholars think that the pair could be Socrates and Diotima. Socrates was a Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and Diotima is said to have taught Socrates the philosophy of love.

No matter who they are, in this small, intimate setting these two characters seem to be engaged in an exciting dialogue. I think that this fresco could be a great conversation starter itself. I just wish I was back in the galleries and I could ask people what they think about it.

CUNO: To view this Roman wall panel from a villa in Boscoreale, Italy, created around the years 1 to 50 CE, click the link in this episode’s description or look forward on getty.edu/art/collection.

“After you have the institutionalization of the discourse of nationalism, a Chinese bronze that is buried in the ground belongs to the ancient Chinese nation. So now anyone who removes this artifact is a thief.”

From the 1790s to the 1930s, archaeologists from Europe and North America removed tens of thousands of art objects, manuscripts, and antiquities from China and dispersed them among museums and university collections outside Asia. This removal of artifacts took place with the permission and cooperation of local officials, but growing nationalism following the 1911 Revolution led Chinese scholars to view this activity as theft. According to historian Justin Jacobs, however, retroactively labeling it as “plunder” is overly simplistic.

In this episode, Jacobs unravels the shifting cultural, economic, and diplomatic meanings and values assigned to Chinese artifacts by examining the archaeological expeditions of Aurel Stein, Paul Pelliot, and Langdon Warner in northwestern China, especially around the city of Dunhuang. He pays special attention to the possible motivations of the Chinese bureaucrats and laborers who assisted them. These complicated stories are explored in Jacobs’s new book, The Compensations of Plunder: How China Lost Its Treasures.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit getty.edu/podcasts.

We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, educator Kelly Jane Smith-Fatten learns about Michelangelo by drawing from his drawings. To learn more about this work, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/298166/.

Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every other Tuesday.

---

Transcript

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. In a new podcast feature, we’re asking members of the Getty community to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings every other Tuesday. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking, illuminating, and entertaining.

KELLY JANE SMITH-FATTEN:

Hi, I’m Kelly Jane Smith-Fatten and I’m a gallery educator.

The past few months, I have been thinking about Study of a Mourning Woman by Michelangelo Buonorroti. It’s a drawing of a woman draped in heavy cloth, made using a quill pen and dark brown ink. The woman’s head is covered in the cloth as well, and she tilts her head slightly down, towards her arms which are folded over her chest, with one hand coming up to her face and covers part of it. It’s as though she’s cradling herself in her arms.

This work has taken on special meaning to me. It was on view in the Michelangelo exhibition that had opened at the Getty just before the pandemic hit. I was fortunate enough to visit that exhibition a few times before the stay at home orders, and it was just magical. I was inspired. I planned to keep learning and spend more time in the galleries, but of course, the museum closed abruptly in March.

At home, I wanted to see if drawing from the image of Mourning Woman on my computer screen could continue the exploration and magic of what it was like to experience the drawing in person. Drawing from drawings is a way to look really closely and learn about what the artist did on paper. Anyone can do this. It doesn’t matter what your drawing comes out looking like, it’s the act that allows you to discover more about the object.

We gallery educators always encourage this in the galleries, but I wasn’t sure what it would be like online. So I pulled up the artwork and began drawing, zooming in really close to see the details of Michelangelo’s line work: where he chose to draw lines closer together or further apart, or where he left the paper clear of ink to create a sense of light.

Eventually, this experiment led to drawing classes I led over Zoom with volunteer docents, focused on Study of a Mourning Woman. They wondered who might the woman be, what she was feeling internally, and how her gestures and the drapery of the fabric expressed that feeling. Their questions and interpretations showed me that there are so many possibilities within this one drawing.

It has become a kind of friend, as can happen with art sometimes. I connect the posture and emotion of the Mourning Woman with how I’ve felt now and then during this exceptional time.

But drawing from this object, I am reminded of Michelangelo’s words to his student: “Draw Antonio, draw Antonio, draw and don’t waste time.” To me, these words are a hopeful reminder that art matters, what we do now matters.

CUNO: To view Michelangelo Buonarotti’s Study of a Mourning Woman, made about 1500–1505, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection.