Introducing Becoming Artsy

Jessie Hendricks: Wow! My first day working for the Getty and I have to say, this is the life.

Jessie’s boss: Jessie! Jessie, are you eating grapes? You have an interview in 10.

Hendricks: Uh, gotta go.

[upbeat guitar music]

Hi, I’m Jessie. I’m a science-y, math kind of person. And, yet, I work at the Getty, famous for its art and culture. Ooh, Hercules!

So I decided to go on a quest to learn about art and discover all I can about becoming artsy.

To begin this episode, this season, this series, I’m going to see what I can learn about becoming artsy from an ancient villa far, far away.

Almost 2,000 years ago, there was this massive earthquake that rocked the Roman empire.

This was near Pompeii, where there was also this giant volcano named Vesuvius. And this earthquake woke up that volcano, so the story goes.

So after about 17 years, Vesuvius erupted and buried an entire city beneath a whole bunch of volcanic ash.

Now fast-forward to 1750.

And just for context, this is around the same time that Benjamin Franklin was trying to prove to everybody that lightning was actually electricity using a key attached to a kite.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh!

So in 1750, well diggers in Herculaneum digging through the layers of ash and dirt struck gold, at least, metaphorical gold.

Oh, no, I’m out of gloves.

There was this Swiss military engineer, who was working for the king of Naples.

And he set up what was essentially the first archaeological dig, and found all of these amazingly preserved sculptures and—most impressively—these papyrus scrolls that were carbonized in this ancient lost villa.

270 years and 6,500 miles later, I’m in a replica of that Roman villa, the Villa dei Papiri, named after the carbonized papyrus scrolls uncovered those many years ago.

This is the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

And based on California’s history, well, I’m thankful there’s no volcanoes in Malibu, because earthquakes are definitely a thing here.

This fellow was commissioned by a man with a lot of money to house his growing collection of ancient artifacts.

It’s beautiful and a little extra. Nevertheless, there’s a magic to this place that I can’t quite put my finger on.

So I’m here to talk to the curator of antiquities to learn more about what was so compelling about the Villa dei Papiri.

Kenneth Lapatin: The ancient Villa of dei Papiri preserves not only the largest collection of ancient sculpture in marble and bronze from the ancient world—and we have replicas of the bronzes here in our gardens—

Hendricks: Okay.

Lapatin: But also the only complete library with texts. And people were very excited about these texts, which are charred, and burnt, and damaged, and some of them have been opened. Some have been destroyed. Others remain closed.

Mostly they’re philosophical texts. They’re Epicurean texts, addressing the big questions in life. What it is to be happy? What is enough? How do we find balance in our lives?

Hendricks: Whoa. Big questions, ones that many of us have had some extra time to think about this past year. For me, this is an absolute dream job that lets me dress up and eat grapes, but it is still a job.

And while I’m immensely grateful for it, this past year has shown me just how much I also need family.

Man: I just want to wish you a happy birthday and congratulations on graduation.

Hendricks: Friends. Connection.

Lapatin: Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher, whose philosophy was about living a good life free of pain. Putting pleasure—but pleasure is really not sex, drugs, and rock and roll for Epicurus. Pleasure is being happy with your friends, having enough.

Epicurus said we shouldn’t fear the gods, because if they exist, they don’t care about us. We shouldn’t fear death, because while we’re alive, death is absent. And when death comes for us, then we don’t feel anything.

Hendricks: Yeah.

What is good is easy to get. The simple pleasures in life, you always have a little. And a little is ultimately enough. And what is bad is easy to bear, especially if you have your friends, and family, and support networks.

Hendricks: Friends and family and support networks, even 2,000 years ago, these were important in helping people overcome hard times. I think I’m starting to really like this Epicurus guy.

Lapatin: His philosophy was open to all classes, to women, which was odd in antiquity, to the enslaved, as well as the free.

Hendricks: Oh, so he was a cool guy?

Lapatin: He was a cool guy, Epicurus, but he got a reputation for being kind of a wild, crazy, pleasure seeker. That really wasn’t the core of his philosophy. And these texts from the Villa dei Papiri are mostly written by one of his followers, the resident philosopher and poet for a very wealthy Roman. His name was Lucius Calpurnius Piso.

Hendricks: Okay. He might not sound familiar, but stay with me. His daughter Calpurnia married someone you just might recognize.

Lapatin: So we’ve got what we think is one of the vacation homes of this very wealthy senator, ex-magistrate governor of Greece, father-in-law of Julius Caesar.

Hendricks: Whoa. Oh, and another fun fact about the owners of the Villa dei Papiri—

Lapatin: The son was the patron of the Poet Horace, who famously coined the phrase “carpe diem,” seize the day, take advantage of the moment. Don’t live in fear. Don’t live in worry. Enjoy life as you have it, because tomorrow, who knows what will happen?

Hendricks: Right, like a worldwide pandemic. So time to carpe diem. Another thing that people say is, if you build it, they will come.

So this is a catio that we built during quarantine for our quarantine family, our cats. And this over here is a table that we built for our friends and family when they can finally come and hang out. And then I repaired this little bar table over on this side of my patio, which honestly feels a little bit uninspired.

It’s very plain. I feel like if I’m truly to become artsy, I want to make something that’s a little bit more artistic. So what would the Romans do?

Lapatin: What the very wealthy Romans did in the first century BC is they took what was Greek, civic, and sacred architecture and used it in their domestic architecture to kind of recreate places of memory. The Emperor Hadrian, parts of his villa, he built to recall his journeys to Egypt. Cicero built part of his villa to recall his journeys in Greece.

Hendricks: So this feels a little bit like the concept of souvenirs, but instead of bringing home like those tiny metal spoons or refrigerator magnets, or shot glasses, whatever you like, people back then, just like now, are creating spaces in their homes that are meaningful by incorporating things that they encountered during their travels or experiences.

And that’s just what J. Paul Getty was doing when he built the Getty Villa.

Lapatin: He built kind of a crazy idea, a reproduction of a Roman senatorial mansion on his property overlooking the Pacific, just as Lucius Culpurnius Piso had built this wonderful house on his property overlooking the Mediterranean.

Hendricks: Colorful tiles remind me of time spent with family in the Mediterranean and with friends in Mexico. So I’m using these to create my own space. And at the end of the day, this will simply be a small corner of the world to hang out with friends and talk about life, but as Epicurus says, that is everything.

Wow. Look at this view.

Lapatin: And we’re now in what we call the large outer or the rectangular peristyle.

Hendricks: What’s a peristyle?

Lapatin: A peristyle is a fancy word meaning, a place with columns all around it. Peri means around like perimeter.

Hendricks: Oh. Okay. Yeah.

Lapatin: So your style is how you write with your pen, but a peristyle is a place with columns all around.

And this is a place where you could walk and exercise, taking the shade. You could walk with your friends. You could talk about philosophy.

And they had lots of sculpture in the garden. The satyr here, who is falling back drunken. There are also young athletes.

They’re also famous people, politicians, philosophers. So if we were ancient Romans, we could walk and talk about the careers of these famous people of the past, what they did right, what they did wrong, how they were models for or against certain behaviors. And we could have kind of a salon talking about important things in life while relaxing, all here in Malibu, as in Herculaneum on the Mediterranean coast, within view of the sea and have cooling breezes, the noise of birds—

Hendricks: It’s gorgeous today.

Lapatin: It’s always gorgeous. It’s a wonderful, wonderful place.

Hendricks: Okay. I think I figured out the secret to the villa. This place makes me feel utterly human and connected to my fellow human beings that existed 2,000 years ago. People have since lived through revolutionary times.

We’ve survived natural disasters like earthquakes and, of course, pandemics, ancient times, ancient people, seem worlds away, but ultimately, across time, across space, we are all Human, we are all connected. Thank you so much for watching. I would love to see if you have any places of memory that you’ve recreated in your homes.

So please share with us on social media. I’m Jessie. I will see you on the next episode of Becoming Artsy.

[Jessie singing]

Becoming artsy. Becoming artsy. I’m becoming so artsy. Yes, I am!