Thematic Photographic - Classic

Carmi at Written, Inc., posts a photographic challenge each week called Thematic Photographic. This week, Thematic Photographic celebrates all things CLASSIC.

"Classic" is the word we often use to refer to ancient Greek and Roman art and architecture - or art and architecture derived from ancient Greek and Roman ideas and forms.

Throughout the history of European and American culture, artists and architects have gone back to the well of classicism for inspiration. Whether it's Bernini in 17th Century Italy, Thomas Jefferson when designing his Monticello, or the French of Napoleon's era, dressing in flowing drapery and wearing laurel wreaths in their hair - there's always something to inspire us about Greek and Roman arts.

Here in Pacific Palisades is a museum of ancient Greek and Roman art - the Getty Villa. Many people think the large golden stone villa on the hill overlooking Pacific Coast Highway is the Getty Villa, but no - it's a private home built for a wool merchant in the 1920s.

Its facade is marked with pairs of Ionic columns, Palladian windows, and statuary.

Though striking "classic" poses, the naked ladies standing on posts at gateways and on balustrades seem a little more inhibited and modest than the goddesses Aphrodite or Hera. Perhaps their models were young girls of their era, flocking to Hollywood from more staid hometowns, looking for fame and fortune in the movie business.

Now here they stand - forever looking out at the horizon, forever offering vessels of stone to the sea and sky.