CEREMONIES SECRETES

POMPÉI, GRANDES PEINTURES DE LA VILLA DES MYSTÈRES - COLLECTION PALETTES

of JAUBERT Alain

FRANCE, 2002, 00:30:00

Production : SAADOUN Paul, PALETTE PRODUCTIONS, PAINI Dominique, MUSEE DU LOUVRE, LA SEPT, REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, MUSEE D'ORSAY
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : Art, History, History of art, Louvre Museum, Painting, Society, Sensuality

Summary :
Choosing key-works in the imaginary of the Western culture, the series called “Palettes” tells in each episode the story of a different painting. In a word, it tells the genealogy of the painting. For a painting has its ancestors and its descendants. A double technical and philosophical knowledge, fed on by a long tradition, gave birth to the painting. And the painting itself gave birth, year after year, to a multitude of other images…
Assuming the idea that the deep meaning of a painting is conveyed by the choice of colours and themes, we dissect the canvas from its most visible composition to its deepest significance.

In April 1909, in the noth-west country of the ramparts of ompéi, you discover, buried under the ash, a great Roman villa. Among the numerous residential rooms, a rectangular room, where the walls are covered with painted scenes which are sorting out of a bright vermilion red background.
29 characters dressed sometimes in greek, sometimes in Roman fashion , are taking part to rather enigmùatic scenes. during around one century, historians,archeologists, scholars have been trying to interpret the gestures, the costumes, the sceneries and the props. Upon the discovery, one recognized the central character as being the god of the wine, of the transe and the theater, Dyonisos. And one thought that some of the postures that were staged were showing the steps of initiatory rites of the Dyonisos mysteries, that is why the name of the "Villa des Mystères" has been given to the site. But several polemics have divided the interpreters and still today, it is not easy to decipher the network of symbols, allegories and hints this gigantic fresco is woven with, one of the most complete and best preserved of the Antiquity paintings.

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