| Los Angeles County Museum of Art Invites Visitors to Spend a Summer Day in Pompeii |
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 LOS ANGELES As the current worldwide repressed (or depressed) economy enters summertime, media reports almost daily point out that people everywhere are drastically cutting back on or canceling their vacation plans. Such news makes it all the more welcoming that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA, as locals call it) is now offering visitors, through October 4, the chance to get far and idyllically away—without every leaving town.
 A Harbor Town, fresco, probably 1st century AD, Stabiae. Photography © Luciano Pedicini Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples, a exhibition that premiered at Washington, DC’s National Gallery of Art, presents dozens of rare artworks and artifacts selected from the collections of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples; from museums at the archeological sites of Pompeii, Boscoreale, Torre Annunziata, and Baia; and from other museums and private collections across Europe and the United States. Unlike past very popular touring museum shows that focused on everyday life in Pompeii and its surroundings, this effort offers a bracingly upscale look at Roman imperial life in the first centuries BC and AD as it centered on coastal getaway villas around the Bay of Naples, an area where artistic life flourished thanks to elite patronage.  Garden Scene, fresco, 1st century BC—1st century AD, Pompeii, House of the Golden Bracelet. Photography © Luciano Pedicini As impressive as the original works on display may be, just as effective is the exhibit’s design, organized into five sections that at times make visitors feel as if they have been transported some 6,400 miles distant and 2,000 years back in time. In the first of these, we meet the owners of those villas, through frescoes of the homes, surprisingly informal marble and bronze portraits of their occupants, and pieces of gold jewelry that they wore. In the second section, more frescoes bring the villas’ interiors to life, including those from a dining room that was excavated south of Pompeii just a decade ago and never before seen in the U.S., along with silver, glass, and obsidian vessels.  Woman Seated Beneath a Coffered Ceiling, fresco, 1st century BC—1st century AD, Stabiae, Villa Arianna. Photography © Luciano Pedicini The courtyards and gardens so essential to villa life star in the third section. One highlight here is an exquisite mosaic depicting the garden of Plato’s Academy. Another eye-catching work is a sculpture grouping of a bronze boar attacked by dogs. The Roman elite’s passion for Greek antiquity is the subject of the fifth section, with works in marble depicting such subjects as the goddess Athena and the Trojan War. Finally, connecting the exhibit’s subject matter closer to the present day, the final section concentrates on artworks, books, photos, and souvenirs from the 18th and 19th centuries that were inspired by the early excavations of the Pompeii site.  Bronze board in a Pompeii garden courtyard setting. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Whether you examine the show and all of its featured works in depth, or simply stroll through the galleries and soak in the ambience, “Pompeii and the Roman Villa” offers manifold rewards. And, however you view it, you’ll likely come away feeling as if you’ve had a refreshing break from the everyday modern world.  View of the third exhibition section of Pompeii and the Roman Villa. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
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