Art + Ideas

We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, curator Kenneth Lapatin dives into a new world through a Roman carved gem that features Aeneas fleeing Troy. To learn more about this artwork, visit:  https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/336770/.

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

_____

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. 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.

KENNETH LAPATIN: I’m Kenneth Lapatin, curator of antiquities at the Getty villa. In quarantine, working from home in a seemingly endless soup of time, it’s easy to get sucked into rabbit holes, delving too deeply into the depressing news of the day, or binge-watching Netflix. But this strange time has also afforded space to read, write, and think. And for me this unexpected opportunity for research has become a kind of escape, a happy place where sometimes I can slip into the zone where time is momentarily suspended.

I’ve become particularly fascinated by this one Roman gem, less than an inch tall, about the size of an olive. This translucent reddish orange stone is a cornelian. When held in the hand and rotated in the light, this gem would have flashed, gleamed and glowed, amazing viewers in an age before electric light.

Using minute cutting wheels dipped in abrasives and other tools, the anonymous ancient gem engraver carved into its surface a scene of escape. The large central figures the Trojan Prince Aeneas, he carries his aged father on his shoulder and leads his son by the hand.

But here in this tiny gem, there’s so much more than just the three heroes. The gem engraver has carved each block of the impregnable walls of Troy. The scene takes place at night, but the bright glowing stone itself vividly evokes the fires that consumed Troy when it was sacked by the Greeks, after they breached the tall gate of the doomed city, hidden in the infamous wooden horse.

Here in the tumult of the sack of his city, Aeneas has already lost his wife and will soon lose his father. It was the will of the gods.

But there is also hope. In the lower left, three sailors prepare for escape as Aeneas brings his family aboard the ship that will take them to a new life in Italy.

The ancients viewed the destruction of Troy as the necessary precursor to the founding of Rome. This gem was carved early in the reign of the Emperor Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, after decades of civil war. It is in remarkably good condition. It has suffered only a few minor scratches. This exquisite gemstone evokes destruction and suffering, loss and pain, but it also contains messages of durability, strength, and hope for a better future.

CUNO: To view this Roman carved gem with Aeneas and his family escaping Troy, made in Italy around the year 20 BC, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection.

In the year 1000 CE, complex trade networks were taking shape, stimulating unprecedented cultural interactions. The Vikings reached the shores of North America, trade routes connected China with Europe and Africa, and in the Americas, cities like Chichén Itzá underwent explosive growth that attracted people and goods from afar. These are just a few of the world-changing phenomena of this transformative era.

Valerie Hansen explores these early economic and cultural exchanges and their long-term impact in her new book The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began, which originated as a college course co-taught with Mary Miller, director of the Getty Research Institute. In this episode, Hansen and Miller discuss the state of the world around the year 1000. 

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

We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, curator Bryan Keene sees a common motif from illuminated manuscripts in a paper chain craft that he makes with his children. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/103069/.

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

---

Transcript

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. 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.

BRYAN KEENE: Hello, my name is Bryan Keene and I am a curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. Growing up, my family used to make brightly colored chains out of paper to commemorate a holiday, birthday, or other special occasion. Each day in anticipation of the big event, we would tear off a link, knowing that we were one day closer to seeing our friends and family and to celebrating together.

Now, my husband and I are working from home with our two small children, ages 3 and 5 and we’ve had to celebrate all of those special occasions while in quarantine. Once the severity of the current pandemic became clear, we decided to reverse this art-making project: every day for the last eleven weeks and counting, we’ve added a link to a chain. Our daughter helps to determine the pattern of color or design for the current week and our son practices writing words of things that we’re thankful for or memories from the day.

I look at our chain as a reminder of the pervasive interlace and knot patterns found in decorated books—from Ireland to Italy and from Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Persia, and beyond.

One of the earliest codices under my care was written and likely decorated by a monk called Sigenulfus in the year 1153. He was part of the Benedictine community in Montecasino, which is about 90 miles southeast of Rome

The bright red, yellow, blue, and green interlace on this page is characteristic of manuscripts from Montecasino, as are the countless hidden creatures. As I look closely, I see small white dogs who wrestle amid scrolling vines, while blue-faced monsters appear and lurk at either end of the lower portion of the shape. There are tons of figures hidden throughout. The shimmer of gold catches my eye as I struggle to find a spot to fix my gaze. And at the center, a bleary-eyed face stares out at me. I think we’ve all felt this way in the previous weeks.

These decorations surround the letter M, which opens a prayer asking for mercy. The last line on the page asks that we be cleansed with hyssop or a salve, and that our spirits be renewed.

Having spent a lot of time in monastic communities for study, I feel something familiar about the current moment, at least in terms of the reduction in daily activities, the number of people we encounter, and the feeling that each day is surprisingly similar to the previous one.

So we’ll continue to add to our chain, inspired by this captivating illumination. And I hope that you’re able to find quiet and meditation at this time, until that wonderful day when we can all spend time together looking at works of art in museums again.

CUNO: To view this illuminated Initial M, likely written and decorated by Sigenulfus in Montecassino, Italy in the year 1153, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection.

We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, curator David Saunders reflects on how a painted vase from the 6^th century BCE that shows Ajax and Achilles playing board games helps him make sense of his work-from-home life. To learn more about this artwork, visit:  https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/6890/.

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

---

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. 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.

DAVID SAUNDERS: Hi there, my name is David Saunders. I’m a curator in the Antiquities department. One of the objects that I’ve been looking at with renewed interest and perspective is this Athenian black figure neck amphora that shows Ajax and Achilles playing a board game.  

Normally its on view at the villa. I guess if I feel if I’m feeling generous, I would forgive you if you overlooked it. The shape is very typical, the decoration and the quality of painting is fairly commonplace, the image is by no means unusual. But like so many of the works in our collection they invite kind of a fresh perspective as our own sort of lives evolve.

Ajax and Achilles are the leading heroes of the Greek army. They’ve come with their comrades to Troy to recover Helen. And for whatever reason, we don’t quite know, they are not needed on the battlefield, either conflict hasn’t taken place yet or there is a pause in the fighting for whatever reason. And for Ajax and Achilles everything they do is centered around their status as warriors. It’s their job, if you will, being on the battlefield is their workplace.

I’m certainly not going to compare myself to Ajax and Achilles, I, you know, for many reasons. But similarly, as a curator to not be in the museum every day, it’s sort of sort of comparable. So much of what I do is centered around centered upon working with objects directly or engaging with our public. And to be working from home and to be at a remove from that is— it’s hard.

And seeing Ajax and Achilles here, it’s kind of encouraging and endearing almost to see them passing the time that they find a way to occupy themselves. We are seeing a side of Ajax and Achilles that we would never see otherwise that there’s sort of this sort of casual, innocuous sort of low stakes, depiction of them play playing this game. At the same time, you see how sort of intensely focused they are, and they’re bringing all of that kind of warrior persona, if you will, to the playing of this game. You know, all that energy that they have on the battlefield is being kind of concentrated on this tiny little board game. And you kind of wonder how healthy that is, you sort of almost want to tell them just to kind of actually relax, you know, loosen your grip on those spheres. And I think again, in our current moment, wanting to be productive whilst working from home, but recognizing that this is a very different situation and a different climate and it’s okay to find other ways of being oneself and contributing to our community.

And I look forward to a time not only when I can see the vase directly once again but, like Ajax and Achilles, sit face to face with a friend and enjoy their company.

CUNO: To view this black-figure neck amphora featuring Ajax and Achilles, made in Athens, Greece around 510 BCE, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection.

Architect Marwa al-Sabouni was born and raised in Homs, Syria. When the Syrian civil war began, she decided to remain in her home with her husband and two young children. An architect at the beginning of her career, al-Sabouni was determined to pursue her PhD in architecture, even as the war raged and her apartment building was caught in the crossfire between the Syrian army and opposition groups.

Al-Sabouni published her reflections on war, urbanism, and the relationship between architecture and community in her 2016 memoir The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria. In this episode, she discusses her life and her understandings of architecture, identity, and culture.

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

We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, Getty Research Institute Senior Research Specialist Zanna Gilbert reflects on the empty streets of Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles project, begun in 1966. To learn more about this artwork, visit:  https://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/ruscha.html.

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

---

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. 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.

ZANNA GILBERT: I’m Zanna Gilbert from the curatorial department at the Getty Research Institute. And one of the first artworks that crossed my mind when we entered into lockdown was Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles project.

In 1966 Ed Ruscha had driven along the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood with motorized camera mounted on the back of his pickup truck. The camera was capturing photos of the buildings on each side of the street, like a kind of analog Google streetview. He used the images to create his artist book every building on the Sunset Strip. This was a 27-foot long accordion folded record of the iconic Hollywood Street. Having devised this method for documenting sunset reshaping his collaborators continue to document various LA streets, and they revisited the streets periodically over the next six decades and they continue doing this until today. They built an archive that now totals over half a million images and constitutes just an incredible record of how LA has changed over time.

On one of the first days of lockdown, one of the rainy days at the beginning, I drove the entire length of Sunset Boulevard with my family. This was research that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but would never have done under normal traffic conditions. We began at the beach in Malibu and then drove through Brentwood towards the street signs of a deserted Sunset Strip. And then through little Armenia, Thai Town, and then ending where it turns into Cesar Chavez Boulevard.

Moving along the streets, eerily empty and almost devoid of people, I felt I was almost inhabiting flow Ruscha’s images. He’d always planned his shoots in the early hours of the morning so there’d be less traffic. Both because he didn’t want people in them. And because the slow speed of the pickup truck, then wouldn’t hold up the impatient, LA drivers.

Meditating on these images now, which echoes a looming post-apocalyptic feel of many of these paintings seems especially apt. The streets that were first empty by the pandemic are now, filled up again with protest marches and the righteous rage after the murder of George Floyd by the police.

Since the 1960s, Ruscha has been one of the artists that offers new ways of seeing Los Angeles, and the evidence we have from all the years of Ruscha’s streets photos, tells us so many stories about the city, about globalization gentrification and inequality and real estate speculation. I see Ruscha’s vast archive and history of LA as an important opportunity to reflect on the future and think about what our alternatives are now.

CUNO: To learn more about Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles photographs, a project he began in 1966, click the link in this episode’s description.

Peter Paul Rubens was among the most influential artists in 17^th-century Europe. Despite a childhood marred by a scandal that landed his father in prison, Rubens rose to become not only a prominent court painter in the Spanish Netherlands but also a lauded diplomat who worked across Western Europe. With countless biographies written about the artist and exhibitions of his work continuing into the present day, the legacy of this Flemish Baroque artist is hard to overstate.

In this episode, Getty curator Anne Woollett discusses the life of Rubens through 17th-century biographies by three authors: Giovanni Baglione, Joachim von Sandrart, and Roger de Piles.

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

We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These short recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, Getty drawings curator Stephanie Schrader considers the upside-down world of An Enchanted Cellar with Animals, made by Cornelis Saftleven around 1655 to 1670. To learn more about this artwork, visit:  https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/160/

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

---

Transcript:

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. 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.

STEPHANIE SCHRADER: Hi my name is Stephanie Schrader and I’m curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. I’m recording this podcast from a closet, during my 8th or 9th week from working at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And like many people with children who are working from home, I’m hiding in here to avoid my daughter as she takes her online chemistry class in the other room.

Normally, I look after the Dutch and Flemish drawings in our collection, and especially now, I’m feel very fortunate that I can escape the world of 17th century Dutch art and culture. 17th-century Dutch artists excelled at making images that poke fun at human foolishness. And there’s one drawing in our collection that I keep coming back to, which is speaking to me much more vividly than it did before. It is a drawing by Cornelius Saftleven, who is known for his animal satires and his images of hell.

This particular drawing shows a cellar full of animals doing all different human-like activities. It is an enchanting scene with lots of color that accentuates the animals’ curious behavior. There are chickens standing on wooden fences as baked bread cools above them and rats warming their feet by the fire and a chained monkey who is looking out, sort of jeering at the viewer as overturned kitchen utensils are scattered on the floor in front of hims. And overhead there’s a swirl of bats, who suddenly feel more menacing as I think about the likely origins of COVID-19. The animals have taken over here in this vaulted cellar.

But one aspect of this drawing that really stands out to me now is a monkey who’s pretending to be a conductor and trying to wrangle a group of owls into singing from a book that has been propped open on the floor. These distracted owls are not interested in learning how to sing and certainly not interested in learning from this very eager and enthusiastic monkey. As I repeatedly remind my daughter to stay focused on her studies and to get off her phone, I really relate to this foolish monkey trying to encourage these owls to sing.

In my moments of frustration, though, I am grateful for this drawing. Saftleven reminds us to laugh at the absurd, and God knows there’s enough absurd out there. He urges us to be critical consumers of images, to question our actions, and to remain attentive to the world we live in, especially now, when it’s upside down.

CUNO: To view the drawing An Enchanted Cellar with Animals, made by Cornelis Saftleven around 1655 to 1670, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection

As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These brief recordings feature stories related to our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet. Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.

This week features manuscripts curator Beth Morrison discussing Simon Bening’s portrait of the author of the Livre des faits de Jacques de Lalaing, made about 1530.

To learn more about this artwork, visit:  https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/287388/

---

Transcript:

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. 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.

BETH MORRISON: Hi, my name is Beth Morrison and I’m head of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. As for everyone else, it’s been a little bit of a transition to working at home and my life seems dominated by endless zoom meetings. But one of the things I really look forward to is the unexpected appearance of people’s pets. They sort of nose in from the side, or jump up on people’s laps, and it reminds me very much of an illumination that I’m working on right now.

I’m writing an article about a manuscript that is devoted to the life of a medieval knight names Jacques de Lalaing. And the frontispiece is by an artist named Simon Bening, who was one of the greatest artists of the sixteenth century. And he chooses an author portrait at the beginning of the manuscript which is a picture of the author hard at work at his text, and he’s got a desk, he’s got light at his back so he can see more clearly, he’s writing with his quill pen and he’s got books nearby him in case he needs to check something. And one of the great, charming details is that his pet dog has wandered in to curl up in the sun and take a nap. It’s a fluffy brown and white dog, quite distinctive, and very cute.

And it reminds me so much of my own working methodology nowadays. I put my desk at a good place in my house so the sun is at my back so I can see clearly. And my dog comes in, plops down, and decides to take a nap whenever she can because she thinks shelter at home is the greatest thing ever invented; she gets to spend all day with me.

So as I’ve been studying this illumination more and more, I’ve been comparing it to other works by Simon Bening. And I realized that this dog appears multiple times in his works. At the beginning of the 1530s, it’s a little puppy. And then by the end of the decade it’s a full-grown dog. And it kind of made me realize I bet this is Simon Benning’s own dog. And he used the dog as a model whenever he needed to add a sort of everyday touch to his illuminations.

It seems to me that pets are such an important part of our lives, especially now in times of crisis. They provide comfort, they provide inspiration, and just like this artist and this author in the middle ages, I like to have my dog near me. It makes me realize that people in the middle ages are pretty much just like ourselves in terms of how they approach their lives.

CUNO: To view this author portrait by Simon Bening made around 1530, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection/.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is one of the most admired painters of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Known for his powerful, dramatically lit compositions, Caravaggio depicted violence and the human form with a degree of realism unprecedented at the time. He was among the most famous painters in Rome—but not only because of his skill as an artist. Caravaggio was also notorious for his wild life and shocking temper. After being sentenced to death for murder, he fled Rome and died in exile at age 38 . Three biographies written in the decades after his death constitute nearly all that is known about the enigmatic artist.

In this episode, Getty curator and expert on Italian painting Davide Gasparatto discusses Caravaggio and the role these early biographies, by Giulio Mancini, Giovanni Baglione, and Giovanni Pietro Bellori, played in defining Caravaggio’s legacy.

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