This looks like it’s going to be really really really really good:
Category: Exhibitions
Dionysus in Australia
Some hype from the Sydney Morning Herald:
AS HEROIC gods go, Dionysus would fit right into Sydney: god of the grape harvest, bringer of culture and ritual ecstasy, he was the mythological inspiration for Alexander the Great, the 4th century BC Macedonian king and spreader of civilisations who is being honoured with his own blockbuster exhibition in our city on Saturday.
Dionysus, or at least his marble likeness cast in Rome in the second century AD based on the Greek BC original, arrived at the Australian Museum last week.
His tall, bespectacled courier, Andrey Nikolaev, looked a little weary after almost a week accompanying Dionysus over rail, sea and air only for museum staff to finally decide the two-metre tall, 1.5-tonne statue, which can only be moved by the base, was too fragile to part so soon from the wooden crate.
St Petersburg, home of the statue, has no cargo planes, so beginning on November 7, Nikolaev had chaperoned Dionysus by train to Helsinki, then ferry across the Baltic Sea to Travemunde, Germany; another train to Amsterdam; then a Boeing 747 to Frankfurt, Mumbai and Hong Kong; and finally a second Boeing 747, arriving in Sydney on November 13. Having sat in the crate for a day or two to acclimatise on the Australian Museum’s exhibition floor, Dionysus – joined on his plinth in the 18th century by a smaller marble statue bearing a dubious likeness of Persephone or Cora, wife of the ruler of the underworld – met with approval when workers drilled away the wooden crate screws and removed the door.
AdvertisementWhy was this god of the grape so important to Alexander the Great? ”Because Dionysus is not just the god of wine, he also is a god of inspiration,” said Anna Trofimova, the head of classical antiquities at The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. ”He was the god, the Greeks believe, that brought culture to different peoples in a lot of countries.”
More to the point, Dionysus was the ”guiding star” for Alexander, who in turn brought civilisation, founded cities and spread Greek language and art from the Mediterranean to Central Asia and India. Alexander was the ”first political leader who thought on the scale of the planet”.
Whether Alexander’s death at the age of 32 was due to fever or poisoning is open to conjecture, but Dr Trofimova is certain of Alexander’s legacy.
”The dream of Alexander, and I believe in it, was unity of mankind between east and western people. His belief in civilisation, this is a great lesson for us; especially important in our days when west and east are very, very sensitive.”
… the original article has an interesting little video where you can watch the workers trying to figure out how best to unpack the thing …
Exhibition: “The Age of Balance”
Nice little video report on an exhibition at the Capitoline Museums:
Whither the Riace Bronzes?
Last August we read that the Riace Bronzes would (finally) be back on display “in time for Christmas” (Riace Bronzes Back from Vacation Soon) but the Art Newspaper gives a somewhat different impression today … some excerpts:
[…]
Reggio Calabria’s Museo Archeologico Nazionale has been mired in controversy since renovation work began in 2008. This include external structural renovations and interior remodelling and decoration. With an initial budget of around €11m, work ground to a halt just over a year ago after €23m in total had been spent on the project. The region has managed to find an extra €6m from central government, and says an additional €5m could come from European funds.
The biggest problem appears to be the refurbishment of the museum’s interiors, which has been the subject of disagreements between the Soprintendenza, the regional arm of the ministry of culture that runs the museum, and the project consultants.
Felice Costabile, a celebrated academic from Reggio Calabria who was appointed by the ministry of culture as the chief consultant on the project, says visitors will be frustrated by the proposed exhibition route, which will force them to start from the third floor and work their way down to the main exhibition halls on the ground floor. He adds that there are only two lifts available to take visitors to the third floor, each of which can only hold nine people.
His plan to use the internal courtyard to display monumental pieces of Greek and Roman architecture has also been thwarted by the officials’ decision to use the space as a bookshop.
But Simonetta Bonomi, the superintendent of Calabria’s cultural heritage, is adamant that the new visitor route is the best option. Meanwhile, Giuseppe Scopelliti, the president of the region of Calabria, says he believes the museum will reopen in December, but with an estimated shortfall of at least €5m. The likelihood of this happening has been met with widespread scepticism.
- via: Riace Bronzes languish in limbo (The Art Newspaper)
Meanwhile I’m sitting here thinking they probably could have paid for the renovations if they had sent the boys on tour (especially outside of Italy … apparently there was a big backlash when they suggested putting them on display in Florence again) back when renovations began … someone over there didn’t think this through …
Archaic Colors @ the Acropolis Museum
That ancient statuary was coloured is, of course, well known to all who wander through these pages and in recent years (weeks, even) there has been an upsurge in interest, it seems, in ‘recolouring’ things. Accordingly, the Acropolis Museum has mounted an exhibition devoted thereto … here’s a bit from the blurb:
Commencing Tuesday 31 July 2012 and for the next twelve months, the Acropolis Museum wants to conduct research on its unique collection of archaic statues, which retain their colors to a small or large degree, and to open a very extensive discussion with the public and various experts on color, its technical issues, its detection using new technologies, its experimental use on marble surfaces, its digital reconstruction, its meaning, as well as the archaic period’s aesthetic perception of color. So far, scientific research into the color found on ancient sculpture has made great progress and reached surprising conclusions that to a large degree refute the stereotypical assumptions regarding ancient sculpture. It turns out that color, far from being just a simple decorative element, added to the sculpture’s aesthetic quality.
For ancient Greeks and their society, color constituted a way to characterize various attributes. The blond hair of the gods projected their power; the brown skin of warriors and athletes was a sign of virtue and valor, while the white skin of the korai expressed the grace and radiance of youth.
The Μuseum’s initiative on Archaic Colors is based on very careful observation, on spectroscopic analysis, on special photography sessions, on efforts to reproduce the colors of antiquity and then to apply them on Parian marble, and naturally, on searching through written sources for valuable information on the pigments.
The statues’ crisp, saturated colors, on bright garments and tender bodies, combined with the rich jewelry, frequently made of metal, and elaborately curled hair created a singular aesthetic pleasure, making the archaic statues “wonderful to behold” for the people of the period. […]
- via: Archaic Colors (Acropolis Museum)
If you have kids, or are bored, or want to kill time, scroll down that page and you can colour the Peplos Kore in whatever gaudy goodness you want. The instructions are in Greek, but it’s not difficult to figure out …
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