A diota was a Roman vessel used for water or wine. It had a narrow neck, a full body, and two handles. The form and sized varied, but it was generally made tall and narrow, and terminating in a point which could be put in a stand or into the ground to keep the vessel upright. Several were found in the cellars of Pompeii standing upright in the ground. Research Diota
Fresco Painting is a method of mural painting in water colours on fresh or wet grounds of lime or gypsum. Mineral or earthy pigments are employed, which resist the chemical action of lime. In drying, the colours are incorporated with the plaster, and are thereby rendered as permanent as itself.
In producing fresco paintings, a finished drawing on paper, called a cartoon, exactly the size of the intended picture, is first made, to serve as a model. The artist then has a limited portion of the wall covered over with a fine sort of plaster, and upon this he traces from his cartoon the part of the design suited fur the space. As it is necessary to the success and permanency of his work that the colours should be applied while the plaster is yet damp, no more of the surface is plastered at one time than what the artist can finish in one day. A portion of the picture once commenced, needs to be completely finished before leaving it, as fresco does not admit of retouching after the plaster has become dry. On completing a day's work, any unpainted part of the plaster is removed, cutting it neatly along the outline of a figure or other definite form, so that the joining of the plaster for the next day's work may be concealed.
The art is very ancient, remains of it being found in India, Egypt, Mexico, etc. Examples of Roman frescoes are found in Pompeii and other places. After the beginning of the 15th century fresco painting became the favourite process of the greatest Italian masters, and many of their noblest pictorial efforts are frescoes on the walls of palaces and churches. Some ancient wall-paintings are executed in what is called Fresco Secco, which is distinguished from true fresco by being executed on dry plaster, which is moistened with lime-water before the colours are applied. Fresco painting was revived during the 19th century, and works of this kind were executed in the British Houses of Parliament and other public and private buildings, more especially in Germany. Research Fresco
Genre painting is a type of painting concerned with the realistic depiction of scenes from everyday life. Originally the term was applied to all paintings that were factual representations of nature (animals, fruit, and landscapes), as well as scenes of ordinary life, rather than to works of imagination, such as religious and historical paintings. Genre paintings deal with ordinary life, including family life, sports, street scenes, picnics, festivals, and tavern scenes. They are usually characterised by human interest and by the care and finish with which they are executed.
Genre painting originated in ancient times. Many of the scenes painted on the walls of Egyptian tombs represent the daily life of the people of ancient Egypt. Excavations in the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum have revealed many genre paintings, both conventional and erotic. In the late Middle Ages genre painting reappeared, represented chiefly in the religious calendars that formed part of the illuminations, or illustrations, of manuscript books; the calendars show people going about the occupations appropriate to each season of the year.
In Italy during the early Renaissance, many of the religious and historical pictures of such painters as the 15th-century Florentines Ghirlandaio and Benozzo Gozzoli and the later Venetians Giorgione and the Bassano family are considered genre paintings because of their contemporaneous backgrounds and costumes as well as their use of people of the times as models. In 17th- century Italy, Mannerist painters such as Caravaggio executed genre paintings of extreme realism and dramatic power. In the 15th century the Flemish painter Petrus Christus in some of his religious paintings represented scenes from ordinary life, and in the following two centuries genre painting rose to its highest level in history with the work of the Flemish artists Pieter Brueghel the Elder, David Teniers, and Adriaen Brouwer. The greatest national school of genre painting was that of the Netherlands in the 17th century. Probably never before or after was the ordinary life of a nation depicted so fully as was the Dutch life of this period. Not only the great masters but also the less outstanding Dutch painters excelled in it.
The most important of the Dutch genre painters were the so-called little masters, including Gerard Ter Borch, Jan Steen, Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard Dou, and Adrian Van Ostade. The three leading 17th-century Dutch masters, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jan Vermeer, also created genre paintings of unrivalled beauty. French genre painting showed a vital development in the work of Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret, Jean Baptiste Chardin, and Jean Honore Fragonard. One of the most noted English genre painters was the great satirist William Hogarth. In the 19th century, genre painting was widely practised in both Europe and the USA Among the outstanding European painters in this style were the French painters Jean Leon Gerome and Jean Meissonier, the English painter William Powell Frith, and the American painter William Sidney Mount, known as the 'JanSteen of Long Island.' Among the many 19th- and 20th- century American painters whose work included genre painting were Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Wesley Bellows, George B Luks, Charles E Burchfield, Reginald Marsh, Grant Wood, and Thomas Hart Benton. Research Genre Painting
Graffiti is writing or drawing done on a wall etc by by a member of the public. The original graffiti was designs and inscriptions engraved with a style upon the walls of ancient towns and buildings, particularly of Rome and Pompeii. Those in Pompeii are in Latin, Greek, and Oscan, showing that the ancient language of Campania was still extant among a portion of the populace. The inscriptions are mostly amatory or humorous, sometimes malicious or obscene. In Rome graffiti occur frequently in the catacombs. Many of these are by Christians, some by Pagans in ridicule of Christianity. During the 20th century graffiti in the western world became much less humourous and political, and degraded generally into simple signatures identifying the graffitist - a style known among its advocates as 'tagging'. Research Graffiti
Si William Gell was an English antiquarian and classical scholar. He was born in 1777 and died in 1836. He was educated at Cambridge, and was for some time a fellow of Emanuel College in that university. In 1814 the Princess of Wales (afterwards Queen Caroline) appointed him one of her chamberlains, and he accompanied her on her travels for several years. His principal works are: The Topography of Troy, The Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca, The Itinerary of Greece, The Itinerary of the Morea, The Topography of Rome, and the interesting and beautiful work, Pompeiana, or Observations upon the Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments of Pompeii. Research William Gell
Sir William Hamilton was the third duke of Hamilton. He was born in 1730 at Scotland and died in 1803. In 1761 he was elected member of parliament for Midhurst, and in 1764 he received the appointment of ambassador to the court of Naples. He devoted his leisure to science, making observations on Vesuvius, Etna, and other volcanic mountains; and the resultsof his researches are detailed in the Philosophical Transactions, and in his Campi Phlegraei, or Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies (published in Naples, between 1776 and 1779, in three volumes). He took an active part in the excavation of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and collected a cabinet of antiquities, of which an account was published by D'Hancarville, in a splendid work with finely-coloured plates. Sir William Hamilton's second wife was the notorious Lady Emma Hamilton. Research William Hamilton
Bast was an ancient Egyptian goddess. She was represented as a woman with the head of a lion or cat, and the cat was sacred to her. She is depicted carrying a sistrum in her right hand, a breastplate in her left hand and a small bag over her left arm. The cult of Bast was popular around Bubastis and later at Memphis. The Romans also took the cult back to Rome, Ostia, Nemi and Pompeii. Research Bast
Herculaneum was an ancient city about five miles south-east of Naples. It was completely buried with Pompeii, Stabise, etc, by lava and ashes during an eruption of Vesuvius in the reign of Titus, in 79. The site had been long sought in vain, when in 1713 three statues were found in digging a well at the village of Portici. In 1738 the well was dug deeper, and traces of buildings were found. The theatre was then discovered, but though the excavations were continued for many years successive excavations were immediately filled up with rubbish from new digging. A number of public buildings and private dwellings were laid bare, and many objects of great value discovered, such as statues, busts, beautiful mosaics, wall paintings, charred papyrus manuscripts, etc. One of the houses discovered contained a quantity of provisions, consisting of fruits, corn, oil, pease, lentils, pies, and hams. Few skeletons have been found either in Pompeii or Herculaneum, so that it is probable most of the inhabitants had time to save themselves by flight. Among the most interesting objects discovered here were the papyri, over 1750 of which are in the NaplesMuseum.
Abbreviations
Research Diota
