Raunchy scenes may redden faces at a new exhibition in Pompeii on art and sexuality in the ancient Roman city, where sculptures and paintings of breasts and buttocks abound.
Archaeologists excavating the city, which was destroyed by the eruption of nearby Vesuvius in AD79, were initially startled to discover erotic images everywhere, from garden statues to ceiling frescoes. Since those first digs in the 18th century site, racy images have been found in taverns, thermal baths and private homes, from huge erect penises to a statue with both male and female physical attributes.
It became clear that “this is a city where sensuality, eroticism, are ever-present,” Pompeii’s site director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said, as he stood in front of statues of bare-chested centaurs. The discoveries initially caused “dismay, embarrassment and curiosity, and were seen by some as a great opportunity to think about the relationship with their bodies and nudity in a very different way”.
Neapolitan King Charles VII, who financed the excavations, shut some of the more bawdy finds away in a secret cabinet in Naples, showing them only to those of proven moral standing, Zuchtriegel said. That secret cabinet still exists in the archaeological museum in the southern Italian city.
The exhibition, which runs until January 2023 and comprises some 70 works, begins with the vast erect penis on a statue of the god Priape – a Roman symbol of fertility and prosperity. Priape, and his phallus, was traditionally placed in the atrium, the large central hall of Roman houses.
Visitors are told this has nothing to do with eroticism, “though the modern imagination gives it this meaning”, said Tiziana Rocco, of the Pompeii exhibition office. The smirking of embarrassed tourists is proof enough of that, despite some wishing it otherwise.
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“I think modern American culture is a little bit too prudish, and uncomfortable with the human body,” said Seattle tourist Daniel Berglund. “It’s nice to see ancient culture that was more open and willing to display and glorify the human body,” the 40-year-old said, as he lingered in front of paintings from a cubiculum, or Roman bedroom. Various scenes are shown, including a man and a woman having sex.
Further on, a series of oil lamps shine light on images to make pulses race – though the curators have not forgotten that some people will be bringing their children to the exhibition.
“Families and children make up a large part of our public,” said Zuchtriegel, who put together an illustrated guide for them. “The theme may seem difficult, but it is omnipresent in Pompeii, so it must be explained to children in one way or another.”
In the guide, a centaur – a creature from Greek mythology that is half man, half horse – searches for a mate. On the way he meets Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image, Dionysus, the god of wine, and Hermaphrodite, the child of Aphrodite and Hermes, who had both male and female sexual organs.
“It’s a playful way to meet the different figures of Greek myths present in Pompeii,” Zuchtriegel said.
