By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 25, 2006; C01
LOS ANGELES -- When you are the world's richest man and an absolutely eccentric Mister Big, and you are obsessed with the glories of the ancient past, and imagine yourself a cosmic descendant of emperors and kings, then naturally you build yourself a replica of a first-century Roman palace.
A really, really big one. In Malibu. And fill it with 2,000-year-old statues of griffins and leering satyrs and terra-cotta wine cups decorated with scenes of vomiting philosophers.
And never, ever visit it.
This is exactly what J. Paul Getty did. In the late 1960s, the oilman-art collector and author of "How to Be Rich" hired architects, classicists and Hollywood set designers to re-create the Villa dei Papiri, at Herculaneum, which was smothered under a hundred feet of lava when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.
Now, after nine years and $275 million, after lawsuits and delays and amid ongoing scandals and the prosecution of its former curator (currently defending herself against charges in Italy of trafficking in stolen antiquities), Getty's over-the-top vision is restored, reopened and wow. Hail, Caesar by the seashore -- this place is a trip.
In a review of the opening last month, Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote that "the disinterred Getty Villa is gorgeous, vulgar, filled with astounding treasure, tainted by corruption, often brilliant, more than a little decadent." He predicted it would be "an enormous popular hit." Paul Goldberger, in the New Yorker, wrote that "you still park your car and enter a fantasy world, but it's no longer a glib one: It's sincere, cerebral, and elegant." (Comparisons are being readily made to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's ersatz Medieval monastery, the Cloisters, which was bankrolled by the Rockefellers.) Already, you have to wait until July to get tickets to tour the villa, which are free -- though parking will set you back $7. (If you'd like to visit, details can be found at http://www.getty.edu/ .)
The Getty Villa was originally opened to the public in 1974, and it was long a favorite destination of California art lovers, though some critics condemned it as a Roman Disneyland. The museum also suffered from admittedly awkward "flow" -- a visitor entered the villa from the parking garage below -- and there was a kind of nouveau riche dissonance of seeing bulky French furniture, old master paintings and statues of Hercules all stuffed together as if at a garage sale. Vowing to re-imagine its mission, the Getty Villa closed its doors in 1997 for extensive renovations (just as the new Getty Center, the Richard Meier masterpiece in marble atop a Brentwood hill, was opening 13 miles to the east).
Guy Wheatley, the Getty Villa's transition manager, was happy to show a visiting journalist around and point out the new and the old. Getty purchased the 64-acre property in 1945, and for a time housed some of his collection in the existing "ranch house" (it's big, too) and let visitors come for a look a few afternoons a week. This is before Getty built the Roman villa. "I don't think he spent much time at all at the ranch house," Wheatley said, "though his various wives did." (Getty was married five times.) "But they probably kept it ever ready for his always-imminent return."
The original villa that Getty used as his model is described as "one of the most luxurious private residences of the ancient world," and is believed to have been the country estate of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesonius, father-in-law of Julius Caesar. Getty was smitten by the historical romance of the buried palace. (In fact, he penned a novella, "A Journey From Corinth," set at the villa, in which he indulges his fantasy that he and Piso were kindred spirits separated by the ages.)
Most curiously, Wheatley reminds us that Getty himself never -- ever -- visited his re-creation. Indeed, from the early 1950s on, Getty never returned to the United States. The man spoke five languages, but he feared flying. Instead, he directed the design and construction of the replica while living at his 16th-century Tudor estate, Sutton Place, outside of London, surrounded by 25 German shepherd watchdogs. Alas, the author of "How to be Rich" (famous aphorism: "The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights") died in 1976.
The renovated Getty Villa, with its new marble and mosaic floors and freshly painted walls, is now surrounded by a new campus of modernist buildings designed by Boston architects Roldolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti. The lean, clean structures house administration, education, conservation staffs, as well as a welcome pavilion, store and cafe (serving the "Roman burger" with "Athenian cabbage"). Among the challenges the architects had to deal with was the flow. What they hit upon, Wheatley explains, is the metaphor of an archeological dig. Today a visitor approaches the villa first from below; then you ascend to and rise above it, and look down and see it nestled in a narrow canyon, "as though the villa was being excavated." It is a neat trick.
And the idea of an excavation? It works in ways that Getty planners never intended. The Getty has been buried in scandal recently -- in accusations of looting and greed and shady double-dealings. The vibe is very Nero.
The reopening of the Getty Villa was presided over by Barry Munitz, the president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust who resigned two weeks ago amid charges of extravagant spending on exotic personal whims. Munitz left without severance and agreed to repay the trust $250,000. The Los Angeles Times has reported that Munitz used Getty money to buy a $72,000 Porsche, to stay with his wife in $1,000-a-night luxury hotels. He had his staff express-mail umbrellas to him while he traveled.
That's the Munitz problem. Then there is the new open-air theater carved into the hillside, inspired by classical antiquity and honoring philanthropists Barbara Fleischman and her late husband, Lawrence, whose names are carved in stone in large letters as the museum path opens upon villa and theater. But, bummer! -- Barbara Fleischman, a New York art collector, resigned from her position on the Getty board of directors three days before the villa reopened, after it was revealed that she had made a personal loan to Marion True, former curator of antiquities at the Getty, which Getty officials called a conflict of interest. True is also being tried by Italian prosecutors who say she trafficked in looted art. She resigned last fall and denies any wrongdoing, and the Getty is paying for her legal defense. (A sizable chunk of the best stuff in the Getty Villa was acquired by True in the years after J. Paul Getty's death). The Italians want the Getty to return 42 items, including a dozen objects that were donated or sold to it by the Fleischmans. A number of these contested items -- the L.A. Times reports 34 -- are on display in the villa today.
Seen in the proper light (and the new architects have filled the renovated villa with natural light from new windows and skylights), these swirling scandals are somehow fitting. Getty himself was the kind of tycoon who liked to keep both wolves and sheep as pets, just to keep things in perspective. Caesar himself could relate to this den of intrigue.
The new museum is being hailed as intelligent and alluring. The villa is awash in bright golds, blues and greens -- colors that would have filled a Roman estate at the time of Christ. The gardens are meditative, formal and filled with water and sculpture. The museum no longer houses the old French furniture and old master paintings (they've been moved to the Getty Center). The villa dedicates itself exclusively to collections of Greek, Etruscan and Roman artifacts -- and they include some doozies (Getty himself confessed a love for "big things").
Karol Wight, the new curator of antiquities, says the museum now possesses a complete and world-class assemblage of art from the ancients. On display are 1,200 pieces of glass, coins, goblets, armor, jewelry, pottery and sculpture.
There is a Roman sarcophagus depicting the Greek warrior Achilles dragging the body of the vanquished Trojan foe Hector behind his chariot (see: Brad Pitt in "Troy"). There is booty from Alexander the Great's campaign in Persia and beyond. And there is a huge limestone sculpture of a goddess, most likely Aphrodite, made in southern Italy, around 400 B.C. Among the folds of her windswept gown, one can still see the faintest pigments of long-ago paint.
Does it matter that Aphrodite might have been "looted" as the Italians charge? Of course, but doesn't that make this all the more delicious?
As J. Paul Getty explained his life in the arts, "I don't think there's any glory in being remembered as old moneybags."
