Getty Center
Sepulveda Pass, Los Angeles
August 5, 2018
We headed north, and met up with Meredith’s sister Kathleen at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. We went to see the special exhibition Beyond the Nile: Egypt in the Classical World. The exhibition runs through September 9, and we wanted to be sure not to miss it.
Various pieces of fine and decorative arts are displayed in the special exhibition pavilion. They span nearly two millennia, and the galleries are arranged in chronological order. The theme is cultural exchange in the Mediterranean world, that is how Egypt and the other civilizations around the Mediterranean traded with one another and how their interactions influenced their respective art. The first room displays the oldest pieces, including objects traded between the Egyptians and the Mycenaeans and other items from the Bronze Age. Among the early pieces is a wooden model of a river boat; this piece had been placed in a tomb. Meredith liked seeing a boat full of rowers, although she thought one rower on the port side was leaning back too far relative to the rest of his crew.
The next room shows Egyptian and classical Greek pieces. The gallery which follows features works from the Ptolemaic period. The last several rooms contain Egyptian and Roman pieces, including some from Pompeii and others from Hadrian‘s villa.
The three of us took a docent led tour, which lasted about an hour and was quite informative. After lunch in the museum café, we went back through the Egypt exhibit on our own. We were all interested by two separate ancient papyri with medicinal recipes and magic healing spells. Although the documents are thousands of years old, large parts remain intact and the writing is clearly visible. We saw numerous statues, busts, and other sculpture. One we particularly liked was a basalt sarcophagus made around 600 BC, on loan from the Rijksmuseum. The person entombed in it was a Greek who attained high office in the Egyptian government, so someone who exemplifies the multicultural theme.
We saw several other things at the center. We caught the end of Pathways to Paradise: Medieval India and Europe. There were some truly splendid illuminated religious manuscripts on display. Although that particular exhibit closed after the weekend of our visit, the Getty has an extensive collection of illuminated manuscripts and often rotates them through special exhibitions like this one. There are some ancient Roman and Greek sculptures on loan from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. We found them in the south hall of the South Pavilion. The Santa Barbara museum is undergoing extensive multi-year renovation, and these works are on loan while that work is going on. The Lansdowne Hermes was particularly impressive.
Admission to the museum is free, but parking costs $15. A tram runs up the hill from the parking garage. Handicap access is good. The café offers a selection of cuisines, in a food court type arrangement. Food is good, prices are a little high, as is typical with most museum restaurants.