The 19/10/2017 is a special date for What’s happened. Today, we do not propose the content of a site that speaks of art by exploiting the convergence of the humanist and digital world and the staff, only for today, will not be made up of two enthusiasts delighted with the style sheets and canvases styles. Because there we will remember this autumn day as the day we discussed What’s happened as a university project, the zenith of an academic course lasted little less than a year, which culminates on the day of its presentation. To hear in the classroom, an intimate, attentive and zealous audience who will evaluate the work we have done so far. And it is in this until now that the virtual pools expand and the seats fill up with those viewers who, in these few weeks, have waited with cordial patience two students to share with them the art, life and soul of the artist and his work. Thanks to you, today we can talk about something tangible and alive, that has moved its first steps in the world full of pitfalls, where frustration and glory walk on parallel paths but in opposite directions, where to be discouraged is as easy as be enthusiastic. At our best, we lead with passion and joy this little navy, lurking in the digital world of the thick cultural proposal, navigating at sight, with an eye always aimed at safe harbors where our most rooted knowledge resides. In some way, in the picture depicted by this allegory, here are you, who have pushed us like a breeze and a benevolent tide.
Getting here, it was not easy. We had to dig into our consciousness, grasp our limits, and bring to light our best qualities. With zealous and daily work we managed to refine our perfect result, pulling it out of the dark recesses of: “Maybe one day I’ll do it, one day when I’ll have more time.” We wanted to extract from that presupposed and hypothetical time that concealed it, our idea. How small and fragmentary it is, it will be a testament to our commitment and wit.
Like a fresco that resurfaces from a buried past.
As in October 19, 1954, when – during the excavations – in the splendid Pompeii was discovered an articulate and singular fresco, where, in a mirror of green water, in front of a small island with four human figures and a temple surrounded by a porch, the mouth of the harbor opens. In the background of this marine landscape, the sailboat that enters the port through two piers, recalls the Vitruvian descriptions:
The sailing ship that enters the harbor between two piers in the background of this marine landscape recalls the Vitruvian descriptions: “In the covered passages, as the space was extended in length, they painted a series of landscapes inspired by the various features of the places : harbors, promontories, coasts, rivers, springs, canals, forests, sacred mountains, flocks, shepherds and other similar scenes present in nature”. This prospettic illusionism of the fourth Pompeian style, so perfect for the decoration of a complex like Villa San Marco in Stabia, opens up many topics. Not only that of Roman painting, but also the idea of the villa, its ideology or a romantic need to rejoin the nature that originated right here, in Roman Campania.
Stabia, a lagoon town of Ancient Rome, was the resort of the Roman patricians that built many villas, with annexed baths and wonderful frescoes. Villa San Marco, a true artistic and urban jewel of the Roman empire, composed – among other things – from a spa area with a porch garden with a pool, with a ninfeum decorated with stuccoes and beautifully decorated rooms for rest. The Villa still preserves today the fresco chosen to represent, in a symbolic way, our project for such a special day for us.
The discovery of the cities suddenly buried by the violent eruption of Vesuvius in ’79 was of vital importance for the birth and development of the history of art as a true science, whose knowledge we decided to promote with the project What’s happened. In fact, the renewed interest in the study of Greek and Roman antiquities was born as an emotional reaction to these discoveries. Even the formation of antiquarian and neoclassical culture in Europe, which was able to rethink the principles of harmony, equilibrium and proportions that were present in classical art as an ideal for excellence, was a real return to a concept classic beauty. This return to the classic principle of the “beautiful ideal” leads us to the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, not only as a creator and theoretician of neoclassicism but also as the first art historian who, with his The History of Ancient Art published in 1763, was defined the father of art history as we know it today. For him, true art was the ancient one, so: “the only way to become big and if possible, inimitable, is the imitation of the ancients”.
“Being a city stopped by the eruption at a pulsing moment of life and, consequently, kept almost intact with everything that existed at that moment, makes Pompeii a unique setting to enter into dialogue with both political, social and economic, and artistic, professional and artisanal life of an active and productive community like this one. ” This quest for approach is, instead, the purpose of the Rediscovering Pompeii project, featuring a strong digital component that opens another link with the What’s happened initiative: the importance of digital technologies for study and presentation of cultural assets, namely the field of digital humanities, whose result it represents.
Thus, the marine landscape chosen for today shows itself as a tribute not only to our personal interests, but also to the whole project as the perfect blend of human and digital sciences, Art History and New Technologies, the complexity of emerged lands and the vast blue sea.
Marine landscape with architecture
Fourth style, 63-79 d.C.
Fresco
51,7 x 31,5 cm
Pompeii Archaeological Park, Villa San Marco