Art Institute: Ancient Roman Sculpture

everyday life 1 Minute

I still keep myself muted about the activities that take most of my time these days, draining my whole self in the process. There still appears to be room for cultural activities (but no time to blog about them), so I will try to post a short summary of the past two weeks.

Myths and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from Torlonia Collection is a new exhibit that opened at the Art Institute last week. I was there on the opening night for the Members-only preview (and invited a friend). I didn’t expect anything groundbreaking from this exhibit (what could be new about the Roman Sculpture?) and mostly thought about taking my friend out, but there were plenty of new things!

This private collection was not on public view for over 70 years, and many sculptures where cleaned and restored for this exhibit specifically.

Men were always presented with their distinct personal features, and women in a more generic way, so it’s often difficult to identify the portraits, or even tell whether it was a portrait of a nobility or a goddess or a random person.
Younger and older Markus Aurelius on the right
As my friend noted, in most couples represented in this exhibit, the man looks way happier than the woman
Hercules is smaller than Athena and Apollo, probably because he was mortal
Arthemis with multiple breasts
Bacchus

After we saw this exhibit, I realized that my friend hadn’t seen the Black Planet exhibit yet, and we rushed there, and didn’t have enough time. And now, one more exhibit is about to open!

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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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