Analysis of a Work of Art - Essay Example

Analysis of a Work of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art is home to some of the greatest collections of artworks done all around the world since the ancient times. The museum has various departments consisting of various rooms, which display specific works of art accordingly. The paper at hand talks about painting fragments, which exist in one such room, that is, the Exedra room or the Room L of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1). The main focus of this paper is to analyze the painting fragment located in the west wall of the room, that is, the one that depicts the garland with mask, bucrania and basket.

Upon careful analysis, one can understand the techniques used by the artist as well as understand the subject matter that he tried to depict. The paintings were bought off by the museum at an auction, which sold the various components of art that existed within the villa since the late 1900. The villa was thought to be owned by Publius Fannius Synistor and Lucius Herennius Florus, however, there is no clue as to who was the first owner and who it was that commissioned the paintings (JSTOR 17).

This work of art belongs to the Late Republican Roman period, somewhere between 50-40 BC (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1). The work of art reveals a quite impressive garland made out of fruits and leaves, which has been suspended from a “brilliant wall of simulated masonry” (1). The garland has a sacrificial bull’s head, that is, the bucrania, from which a red thread hangs tied to a wicker basket that contains ivy leaves and out of which a snake is uncoiling (1). Works CitedJSTOR. "The Villa Of P.

Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. n.d. Web. 19 July 2014.The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Works of Art: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. N.p., 2014. Web. 19 July 2014. .