[OCEAN WAVES]
PADMA LAKSHMI: Nearly 2,000 years ago
near the Bay of Naples, the towns
of Pompeii and Herculaneum flourished.
It was a region with landowners and merchants, farmers
and slaves, politicians and priests, doctors
and courtesans.
There were temples, shops, paved roads.
And for thousands of people, it was home.
In 79 AD, the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius
buried Herculaneum and nearby Pompeii
in volcanic ash and mud.
In just a few hours, their communities vanished.
But sealed beneath the debris was
a record of ancient life waiting to be uncovered again.
In the early 1700s, well diggers south of Naples
discovered a trove of ancient marble artifacts.
Over the next three centuries, archaeologists
uncovered luxurious villas, courtyards, storerooms,
theaters.
And in them, rare objects of art and daily life
from the people who lived and died there 2,000 years ago.
These discoveries inspired billionaire oil magnate,
J. Paul Getty, to reimagine one of Herculaneum's most
spectacular homes, the Villa dei Papiri, here in California,
overlooking the ocean in Malibu, a site
remarkably similar to the original location
on the Mediterranean Coast.
The cultures of Greece and Rome fascinated Getty.
And in the 1970s, as his collection
of ancient Mediterranean art grew,
he decided to build a reconstruction
of an ancient Roman villa in which to display it.
He chose a design based largely on the partially excavated
Villa dei Papiri.
Getty believed this Roman-style setting would help visitors
forge a deeper connection with the people
of the ancient Mediterranean, people who created and owned
sumptuous works of art, but also cooked,
and studied, and watched their children grow in a city
by the sea.
The Getty Villa borrows many of its architectural features
directly from Herculaneum and neighboring towns--
the mosaic tile fountain alive with the sound
of flowing water, the long peristyle with its gardens,
sculpture, and pool, so like the ones
where Romans would have raised fish or spent a warm afternoon.
Ancient Romans incorporated art into their daily lives.
They filled their public spaces and temples
with statues of emperors and gods, soldiers and heroes.
The wealthy decorated their houses with elaborate frescoes
and covered their floors with colored stone
laid in marvelous geometric patterns.
In Greece, decorated ceramics were within the means
of even modest households.
In the Getty Villa, these ancient artworks
continue to inspire artists and artisans today.
WAYNE PERRY: There's an immediacy
to manipulating the clay.
The connection to the past is tangible and real.
It's very tactile.
Going back into the history of civilization,
pottery was at the center of it.
The level of craftsmanship and quality
is on par with the greatest works of art in the world.
And it all takes place in the decorating of it,
and telling a story, and applying
meaning to what's still a very functional vessel.
PAUL KNAAK: Wine is part of culture.
It's part of life.
It predates the Greeks and the Romans.
In many ways, we're still following their methods--
grapes and yeast and time.
The climate in California is almost the same.
We don't have the volcanic soil, but we
have the sun and the sea.
The technology has changed, but the process is timeless.
PADMA LAKSHMI: From wine cups to keys and containers
for cosmetics, the ancient Greeks and Romans
transformed the most ordinary objects
into charming and sometimes humorous artworks.
They built on the creations of other ancient cultures
and refined glassmaking, sculpture, and metalwork.
ARAM NIGOGHOSSIAN: One of the things
I love about blacksmithing is that connection
to ancient times.
One of my favorite things is seeing those old tool marks,
because that's almost like the blacksmith's signatures
that they put on the piece.
HEATHER MCLARTY: I work with copper, bronze, brass.
And the ancients worked in the same materials.
I'm part of this very long continuum of metalsmithing.
PADMA LAKSHMI: The Mediterranean Sea connected ancient people
from Asia to Africa.
Their cultures influenced and borrowed from one another.
Egypt, Rome, and Greece traded not only
in metalwork, wine and food, but also
in ideas, beliefs, and art.
PAMELA HUDSON: This looks like it could
have been painted yesterday.
The texture, the smoothness of the skin, the look in the eyes.
It really speaks to me.
Encaustic paint is made of basic materials--
beeswax, sap from a tree, and pigment.
It's this beautiful, luminous, translucent medium.
Working with encaustics, you feel a connection, even
across thousands of years.
PADMA LAKSHMI: These funerary portraits from Rome and Egypt
are a powerful link to people who died thousands of years
ago.
Like many objects at the Getty Villa,
they memorialize a world that still inspires us today,
but is now gone.
The Getty Villa, the only American museum
devoted to Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art,
is a tribute to the people of the ancient world
and their lasting contributions to civilization--
democracy, literature, philosophy, and art.
The citizens of Herculaneum may have
believed they were creating a society and a culture that
would endure forever.
They could not have foreseen the volcanic devastation
of their entire city, one 24-hour period that
buried everything they knew and everything they
created for nearly 2,000 years.
And yet, the cultures of the past
do live on in their art and their inventions,
in the irrepressible creative impulse
that defies time and place.
[MUSIC PLAYING]