The Getty villa museum of arts located on the pacific coast highway near Malibu is dedicated to art works and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria. The museum contains over 44000 collections Greek, roman and Etruscan antiquities that date from 6500 BC to 400 AD. The ancient Greek and ancient roman art is referred to as classical art. The Romans had learned painting and making of sculptures mainly from the Greeks after the Romans had conquered Greece in 146 BC. The art during this period was characterized by simplicity, reasonableness, sheer beauty and humanity. This paper analyses various sculptures that were found in the Getty villa museum (Whitley 11). It offers a comparison between the roman and Greek art works and seeks to identify similarities and differences between arts from the two cultures. It also shows what was commonly depicted whether deities or human beings and whether they compare in terms of size, symbol or clothing in the paintings and the sculpture. It will also compare what material was used.
The Lansdowne Heracles is one of the most striking sculptures in the museum. It is a roman marble sculpture that dates back to 125 CE. The sculpture depicts the Hero Heracles in his nude form holding the skin of the nemean lion and holding a club on his shoulder. The sculpture was discovered in 1790 in Hadrian’s villa a roman emperor in Italy. This is what inspired J Paul Getty to build the museum as an ancient roman villa. The structure was reworked initially by a roman in the neo classical age but a spirit of purism and a discovery that the pins holding it together could affect the marble in the seventies made it be stripped of its restorations however, it was reworked in 1990s to bring it as it had appeared in the eighteenth century. The sculpture to the left was that of Leda the swan a roman statue found in 1775.It dates back to 1000 AD and is made of marble. The sculpture on the right is the Head of Tiberius made of marble and dating 14-37 AD it had previously attached to a nude head it did not belong to and was reworked for the Getty museum as just the marble head with the nose reconstructed (Whitley 13).
Greek art found in the museum includes ‘The Gravestone of a prominent family’. It is made in marble and it dates back 150 BC the woman depicted hold a touch and appears to have been the goddess of agriculture whereas her husband’s clothing point to him being a philosopher or an orator. The sculpture to the left is ‘the gravestone of Phanokrates’ It shows him with his slave and symbols of wealth and he has an eagle headed sword at his waist an ivy leaf pin on his shoulder and a short sleeved tunic. The sculpture on the right is the ‘Gravestone of poseides and his wife’ it is made of marble and pigment and dates back 275 AD the sculpture also includes their dog and a lengthy inscription around it.
There is a clear similarity in choice of material as marble is used in both cultures the roman had borrowed from the Greeks form of art and although their art forms are miniature versions of Greek art they were able to create their own distinct form of art. The roman sculptures have a focus on nudity and an emphasis on specifics of the body creating a realistic structure. Greeks however had a leaning on clothed sculptures with a leaning to defining a person by what they had on or what symbols of power they held as shown by the Gravestone of prominent people. The form of art for the Greeks was idealist and a bit less realistic. The art work was inscribed into a marble background whereas arts from the Romans were actual self standing structures that could support themselves. The Greeks and Romans depicted men and women as well as deities with the Greeks representing the Gods as superior more perfect featured human sculptures. The sculptures by the Greeks are larger than those of the Romans as the Greeks placed an emphasis with making them life sized. The sculptures by the Romans appealed better to me because they appeared neat and less detailed without any exaggerations or unnecessary details (Whitley 15). The Greek sculptures appeared a bit cluttered with too many details that did not do much for the description of the sculpture.
Work Cited
Whitley, James. The Archaeology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge University Press, 2001.Print
