Chimera of arezzo autobiography in five short
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"Fire-Breathing Chimaera", in B. Arbeid, E. Ghisellini, M.R. Luberto (eds), O Pais Kalos. Scritti di archeologia offerti a Mario Iozzo per il suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno, Roma 2022, pp. 39-62.
Ὁ παῖς καλός Scritti di archeologia offerti a Mario Iozzo per il suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno a cura di Barbara Arbeid, Elena Ghisellini, Maria Rosaria Luberto EbE EDIZIONI ESPERA Per i periodici, i corpora e inom repertori sono state utilizzate le abbreviazioni dell’American Journal of Archaeology. Per le citazioni di opere e/o di autori antichi si sono adottate le abbreviazioni del dizionario Liddell Scott-Jones per gli autori greci e sektion Thesaurus Linguae Latinae per quelli latini. Fotografie e disegni sono stati forniti dagli autori dei contributi presenti nel volume, ai quali si rimanda per le referenze. Redazione: Barbara Arbeid, Elena Ghisellini, Maria Rosaria Luberto. In copertina: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. n. 28.167. Bobbin a fondo bianco attribuit
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The J. Paul Getty Museum’s recent exhibition, The Chimaera of Arezzo, was reviewed in this journal by Beth Cohen,1 who provided an excellent account of what was a beautifully realized and extremely informative exhibition that contextualized the Chimaera iconographically in a broader Mediterranean milieu and historiographically in the context of early modern Italy. Seen in the new context at the Getty Museum and now prominently placed as a pièce de résistance in its own light, the Chimaera’s display raises important questions about the way we privilege a “masterpiece” yet are still unable to be certain about the artistic and cultural milieu that produced it. One very real context, as I proposed at the symposium that accompanied this exhibition, is that the statue was a religious dedication at Arezzo that was ritually treated as a physical sacrifice. In this sense, the Chimaera has a very tangible Etruscan cultural identity. Its artistic identity, however, seems more problematic.
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J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, Malibu
16 July 2009–8 February 2010
The Chimaera of Arezzo, edited by Mario Iozzo, in collaboration with G. Carlotta Cianferoni, Claire L. Lyons, and Seth D. Pevnick. Pp. 51, b&w figs. 12, color figs. 50. Edizioni Polistampa, Florence 2009. €8; $15. ISBN 978-88-596-0628-4 (paper).
The large bronze statue—more than 4 ft. long—known as the Chimaera of Arezzo depicts a fantastic compound animal from Greek mythology visualized as a lion with a goat’s head (or protome) emerging from its back and a serpent for a tail (figs. 1, 2).
This statue of ca. 400 B.C.E. shows the creature under attack: the Chimaera, roaring menacingly, draws backward on his haunches as if to spring, with the lion’s claws bared and now-lost eyes originally fixed on an attacker. Walking around the statue or viewing it in QuickTime on the exhibition’s permanent Web site.2 reveals that the goat head has flopped over, mortally wounded, as thick droplets of blood g