Egyptomania, The Early Years – Piranesi, Gerome, Desprez (Ancient Art Podcast 93)

In the Art Institute's collection here, we have this magnificent painting by Jérôme, The Chariot Race, 1876. There's a very Ben-Hur moment here, and in the hippodrome of Rome here, with the horses racing along, the throngs of crowds, and you note in the backdrop this Egyptian obelisk right there behind these pillars that marked the edge of the spine of the hippodrome, signaling to riders when to turn. But more in the center of the spine, in the background there, there's the Egyptian obelisk. Rome, in the Roman era, was a city full of Egyptian art. Augustus Caesar, upon the conquests of Egypt, brought obelisks, sphinxes, and other objects back to Rome. So, Egyptian art and design and architecture was readily visible to the ancient Romans. In 10 BC, this obelisk here was erected on what's called the spina, the spine of the hippodrome, the central point, as a dedication to the sun and a monument of his conquest of Egypt. These Egyptian antiquities in Rome eventually were, well, a lot of them collapsed, and after the fall of the Roman Empire, and during the Middle Ages, and became basically entombed, and later excavations unearthed these Egyptian artifacts in Rome. Many items were still visible, though half buried, but then Pope Sixtus V had a strong campaign to re-erect many obelisks, and sphinxes, and other items around Rome. Jerome, it's interesting, he was very explicit in wanting his audience to know that he took great pains to emphasize the historical and archaeological accuracy of his paintings of ancient Rome. He has, in one of his own letters, presumably to a buyer, he writes that this scene is the Circus Maximus, the grandest monument of Rome. This restoration has been made in accordance with a plan of ancient Rome, which was engraved on the stone pavement of the temple, and which has been conveyed to the Capitol. Accordingly, there is an absolute fidelity, both as to the location of the different monuments, and also, which is equally important, in regard to the dimension for which it must be understood that the circus would hold 150,000 spectators. Jumping a little bit back in time from Jerome to Piranesi, but looking back as a nod to also what else was in the Roman Empire here, and still visible today, we have this pyramid in Rome. A Roman-built pyramid, erected in 12 BC, is the tomb of a powerful Roman magistrate, Gaius Sestius. It's actually in a traffic circle today in Rome. You can drive around it. It's beautifully illuminated and all of that. For the most part, Egypt was closed off to, throughout most of modern European history, closed off to Europeans during the Islamic era, under the Islamic Empire. Later on, though, under, in 1517, with the Ottoman-Turkish conquest of Egypt, things became a little bit more liberal, and there was some limited trade. Europeans were permitted to travel around in Egypt. And so, starting then in the 1500s, we begin to see this renewed interest in this mystical, almost far-off distant land that was preserved largely only in select fragmentary artifacts of the long-dead civilization, and preserved in Greek and Latin transcriptions. So, we begin then to see this blossom of the modern era of Egyptomania. Piranesi traveled around Rome, not Egypt, but Rome, and was captivated by Egyptian architecture and design, and produced a good number of prints of Egyptian and Egyptianized sculptures and motifs and designs around Rome, this obelisk among many. The most famous obelisk, perhaps, not the one depicted here, but the one in Vatican City, in front of St. Peter's. During the second half of the 18th century, we begin to see this wholehearted and inventive Egyptian revival, prompted in a large part by Piranesi. We see this massive tome that he produced, creating this portfolio of Egyptianized architecture and decorative designs, emphasizing the originality of a pioneer of Egyptian tastes. In the letter written by Piranesi in 1768, he writes that, Egyptian architecture appears here for the first time. I want to stress that, because people always believed that there was nothing more than pyramids, obelisks, and giants, neglecting the parts that would be adequate to adorn and support this architectural style. So, interestingly enough, we begin to see, for the first time, Egyptian motifs incorporated into domestic decorative arts. The full title of this multi-volume work that he produced is, Diverse Ways for Ornamenting Chimney Pieces and All Other Parts of Houses, Taken from Egyptian, Etruscan, and Grecian Architecture, with an apologia in defense of the Egyptian and Tuscan architecture, and then the works of Piranesi, etc., etc. This was a new synthesis of Greco-Roman and Egyptian designs. The first, as I mentioned, to apply Egyptianized designs in interior motifs, prompting this newfound recognition that the simplicity of ancient Egyptian architecture and design, previously commonly regarded in a rather derogatory fashion, as a primitive sort of civilization in comparison to the complexity of Greco-Roman design, but now recognizing that, and establishing a popular consciousness, this is recognition that Egyptian architecture was highly sophisticated and deeply symbolic, even though we're still at the point where we don't quite understand what's going on in the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The entire language of ancient Egypt has not yet been understood. That comes a little bit later. We have, about a generation or so after Piranesi, this image here by Louis-Jean Dupre, a tomb with sphinxes and an owl, so responding to Piranesi's influence, this new generation of French architects exhibiting this neoclassical influence with strong Egyptianizing features, and this exaggerated scale, definitely something they picked up from Piranesi. Here we have this entombment with a robust stone sarcophagus there, lined by Egyptianized sphinx designs, this Hellenistic influence, a Renaissance-influenced modern representation of the sphinx. Dupre, as this artist, went to Rome in 1776. He studied painting, drawing, architecture, and stage design, interestingly. You can see a bit of the stage and theatrical element to this image here, and then from 1784 through the rest of his life, he lived in Sweden, employed as the theatrical designer for the Swedish king, Gustavus III. Egyptian architecture lends itself very well to theatricality, as subsequent directors and set designers certainly picked up, with Aida onward to Cecil B. DeMille.