Recent stories of note:
“Writing my autobiography”
Joseph Epstein, First Things
As another editor here at The New Criterion pointed out the other day, “Only Joseph Epstein could write something about writing his autobiography and make it interesting.” Epstein, who is nearing nonagenarian status, acknowledges in the opening words of this First Things essay that the notion his life isn’t “sufficiently interesting to merit an autobiography. . . . isn’t altogether wrong.” But this honesty and humor is part of what has made Epstein such a compelling critic for the last six decades, and, ironically, what will likely make his autobiography (which comes out next week) worth reading. The author uses the opportunity to explore the form itself, asking, for example, why women are less represented as autobiographers. His tentative answer? The fairer sex is typically “too sensible” to indulge in the genre.
“Stunning frescoes revealed at Pompeii”
Garry Shaw, The Art Newspaper
Mount Vesuvius exploded in A.D. 79; Pompeii was not only buried by the earth but also in the historical record, more or less disappearing until 1592. Its excavation has proceeded in fits and starts over the last four centuries—and is still revealing treasures to this day. Archaeologists uncovered last week two remarkably well-preserved frescoes in the eastern part of the city. Both frescoes depict highly charged scenes: one shows Paris’s first meeting with his future kidnappee, Helen of Troy, and the other presents Apollo’s failed seduction of Cassandra. These colorful scenes are placed within otherwise deep-black walls, creating a contrast that heightens their drama and lends them a sense of otherworldliness. These are exciting additions to the world’s collections of Roman wall paintings—a topic that Robert Erickson tackled last year.
“The tumultuous story behind Caravaggio’s last painting”
Laura Gascoigne, The Spectator
The legend of Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand British virgins goes like this: Ursula was a British Christian princess betrothed to a pagan governor. Before her marriage, she set out—with eleven thousand virgins in tow—to complete a pilgrimage to Rome. On the return journey, unfortunately, they encountered an army of Huns. The chief Hun proposed marriage to Ursula. She refused, and her entire caravan was massacred. Given the tale’s violence and sensationality, we should not be surprised by Caravaggio’s attraction to it. The artist selected the story’s climactic moment—when Ursula is pierced by a Hun’s arrow—as the subject for what is the last painting he completed. But the depiction itself contains several surprising elements. Ursula’s skin, for example, is a deathly grisaille, a noticeable departure from the fleshiness typically associated with the artist’s figures. And, as Laura Gascoigne points out in The Spectator, the canvas “lacks the surface polish one expects from a Caravaggio.” Gascoigne provides here an intriguing history of the painting, which will go on view at London’s National Gallery next week.