The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection

The aftermath of Mount Vesuvius' infamous eruption froze the city of Pompeii in time and captured artistic imagination for centuries to follow. Experience the perpetual obsession with this historic disaster at the Getty Villa in Santa Monica, where works by artists from Piranesi, Fragonard, and Ingres to Duchamp, Dali, Rothko and Warhol mirror the shifting impression of Pompeii's potent legacy. The exhibition considers such themes as sexual identity, psychoanalysis, the nuclear threat, collective memory and the nature of art, while drawing its name from the melodramatic novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton that portrays life moments before Vesuvius blew its top.