Houston Museum of Fine Arts

(This was originally posted in May 2008 on the family website)

Today I went to Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. They have had an exhibit on Pompeii that I've been waiting to have some time in Houston to go see, and this trip was it.
It was, in a word, overwhelming.
The exhibit had two main themes: gold and remains. If you are squeamish, skip the following paragraph and focus on the next paragraph where I talk about the gold.
The remains were obtained as far back as the 1800's, when a French archaeologist pumped plaster into the cavities where the bodies had been. They use a similar method, but with a resin, now. The casts are very detailed - in some, you can see the details of clothes they wore. When you first walked into the exhibit, you were faced with a large cast of 12 bodies that had died at the beach at Pompeii, thinking that the danger was over and help was on it's way. And I'm sure that many of them thought they would be safe in or near the water, but, of course, that was not the case. The casts were so detailed, it was eerie. Another cast was of a dog that had been chained to the house - dogs were frequently used as guards - and either its owner forgot to unchain him, or died before he could - of course, we will never know. For some reason, that was the most disturbing cast of all. I could not help but be affected by the casts - it really drove home that this is not just an interesting period of history, it was real and people suffered.
Alot of the rest of the exhibit showed the gold jewelry, monuments and frescoes found in Pompeii & Herculaneum. I like jewelry and so am always fascinated by the styles that were common at that time. Many gems on rings were carved with tiny figures, either of animals or gods or goddesses. The detail was incredible. I also liked the tiny statuettes of gods or goddesses - and given my recent travels in the UK, it was interesting to see the same figure of Venus, for example, in this exhibit depicted in a very similar way to statuettes of Venus found in St. Alban's Roman Museum just north of London. I guess it is sort of like the generification of the world today, where you can find Big Box stores carrying the same items and designs throughout the world.
The next exhibit I saw, part of the permanent collections, was the gold of the Pre-Colombian world. I was astounded - it is probably the best collection of Pre-Colombian art and artifacts I have seen at any museum in my world travels. There was alot of gold, of course, but several tapestries and tunics made from feathers of exotic birds, and so still colorful after centuries. I was also fascinated to see the sophisticated level of craftsmanship that rivalled, quite frankly, what the Romans were doing.
If you ever go to Houston, be sure to carve out some time to visit this very excellent museum!