The Birmingham Museum of Art will show ~ POMPEII ERUPTS

Written by Keith Robinett Tuesday, 27 December 2011 22:42

BIRMINGHAM, AL - The largest collection of artifacts from the ancient Italian city of Pompeii ever to leave Italy will be shown at the Birmingham Museum of Art, October 14 to January 27, 2008.  Birmingham is the only city in the southeast and in the state of Alabama to host “Pompeii: Tales of an Eruption,” an exhibition of nearly 500 stunning works of art and artifacts ─ many of which have never been seen outside Italy ─ that offers a rare glimpse of life in the ancient world.  The exhibit travels to only two other US cities: Chicago’s Field Museum and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.  Exhibition Tells the Stories of Final Moments.

The fabled city of Pompeii and the nearby Italian coastal resort towns of Herculaneum, Oplontis and Terzigno were destroyed in 79 AD by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius that killed more than 3,000 people.  Until its first excavations, Pompeii slept for 1,600 years under 20 feet of volcanic ash.  “Tales of an Eruption” vividly brings to life the terrifying final hours of a highly sophisticated people overtaken by a downpour of ash and searing gases as they fled their homes.  The stories of how they lived and died unfold in what they carried and what they left behind.  Clutching precious objects including exquisitely designed jewelry, ancient coins and the tools of their trade, father, mother, children and pets are preserved for all time in casts of bodies found huddled as the volcano’s pryoclastic surges engulfed streets and buildings..

 “Their tragedy is archaeology’s good fortune,” says Robin Meador-Woodruff, MFA. “Because these ancient Roman cities’ sudden destruction preserved the remains and possessions of inhabitants, the sites yielded extraordinary architecture, art, and organic and human remains.”

Life-size marble statues, bronzes, mosaics and frescoes depicting Roman politics and Greek mythology come to us from their hastily abandoned villas.

“Art and architecture, archaeology and geology, city planning and history, food and medicine ─ it all comes together in this exhibit to tell the stories of their lives,” says Birmingham Museum of Art Director Gail Trechsel, MFA.  “Visitors will be stunned by the beauty.”

EXHIBITION FACTS:

• Nearly 500 objects: 12 plaster and resin body casts, marble statues, large-scale frescoes, bronzes, jewelry, gems, coins, armor, silver and other artifacts.
• Orientation film reconstructs the city of Pompeii and what happened there in 79 AD.
• One of only three US venues, along with the Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, and Houston Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas. This blockbuster exhibit has traveled around the world to critical acclaim, and was featured on the cover of Smithsonian magazine (February 2006).
• Most of the objects coming to Birmingham are from the collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Naples (MANN), renowned for its aesthetic and artistic value.  This is the only exhibit in Alabama that includes items from the MANN.
• Exhibition organized by the Archaeological Superintendent of Pompeii (Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali, Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompeii), Naples, Italy.

The Birmingham Museum of Art, one of the finest regional museums in the US, houses a diverse collection of more than 25,000 paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings and decorative arts dating from ancient to modern times.  Based on the exceptional quality of each work, the collection represents a rich panorama of cultures featuring the museum’s extensive holdings of Asian, European, American, African, pre-Columbian and Native American art.  Visit : www.artsbma.org/