|
The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD brought nearly all this to an end. From a villa at Misenum at the northern tip of the bay, Pliny the Younger saw the cloud rising from Vesuvius and, soon after, wrote two letters recording the event, “Its general appearance can best be expressed as being like a pine tree, for it rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches. I imagine . . . it was thrust upwards by the first blast . . . broad sheets of fire and leaping flames blazed at several points . . . The buildings were now shaking with violent shocks and seemed to be swaying to and fro as if they were torn from their foundations.”
In the second letter he wrote, “Soon afterwards the cloud sank down to earth and covered the sea . . . We were terrified to see everything changed, buried deep in ashes like snowdrifts” (Ep. 6.16, 6.20). When it was over, Herculaneum and all but the highest parts of Pompeii lay beneath tons of volcanic debris. Cities farther away were largely unaffected; the discovery of the monumental Aphrodite at Capua shows that artistic patronage continued at a very high level in parts of the region well after the eruption. But the towns and villas in the shadow of Vesuvius were abandoned and mostly forgotten until their discovery in the 18th century.
Systematic excavations began at Herculaneum in 1738 and ten years later at Pompeii. In the following decades, archaeologists tunneling through solidified mud at Herculaneum found the Villa dei Papiri and brought to light more than eighty statues and about one thousand ancient papyri inscribed with Greek texts. News of the discovery of the ancient cities spread throughout Europe. Curious tourists flocked to the Bay of Naples, attracted also by bursts of volcanic activity from Vesuvius.
Illustrated publications documenting the finds spawned a rage for antique styles, and reproductions of antiquities became a major industry that continued throughout the 19th century. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and other artists specialized in paintings such as A Sculpture Gallery, 1874, in which Pompeian antiquities are illustrated in exacting detail. The ancient works of art excavated (and still being found) at the buried cities and villas along the Bay of Naples affected the art, design, and culture of Europe and eventually North America, where even rooms in the United States Capitol were decorated in the Pompeian style. 
Joseph Wright, Vesuvius from Portici, c. 1774 – 1776, oil on canvas, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; Acquired with funds from the Frances Crandall Dyke Bequest
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, A Sculpture Gallery, 1874, oil on canvas, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. Gift of Arthur M. Loew, Class of 1912ª
|
