the green background appears to recede. On a second look, it is not airy distance but inlaid blocks of green marble on a solid wall, a Roman painter’s typical play of color, space, and surface. Below, gold architectural elements project from a bright cinnabar wall. The white marble telamones and caryatids appear alive: each in a different pose, they gesture, stand, and run. From the top right edge of the adjacent wall three remarkable heads incorporated into the capitals of the Corinthian columns peer down on the viewer (fig. 52). The optical game begins again. At the western end of the villa, Room N was painted with the familiar Corinthian colonnade, and red and yellow partition walls rose from a black podium to open into an imaginary precinct crowded with rows of large and small Doric columns. Crowning the red partition wall on either side of the large window on the north wall was a brilliant red monochrome frieze populated with temples and figures at shrines that stood above a purple frieze depicting Nereids, Tritons, erotes, and sea monsters (figs. 53, 54). 36 Each room created an entirely different experience. The cubiculum, or bedroom (M), recently reinstalled in the Metropolitan Museum (see fig. 80 and also fig. 98), offers a rare opportunity to occupy a relatively complete interior from the villa. The room was divided into an antechamber (O), a central space, and a vaulted area for a couch. At first sight the east and west walls seem to be identical, but again, closer observation reveals them to be analogues rather than exact duplicates (figs. 55, 56). 37 Statues, buildings, masks, and endless other details
47. Virtual model of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, Room F, looking east. The three fresco fragments are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Rogers Fund, 1903 [03.14.10 – 1 2]).
48. Fresco panel from the west wall of Room I of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor. 6 ft. 11 ½ in. x 10 ft. 3 ¼ in. (2.12 x 3.13 m). Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels 49. Virtual model of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, Room I, looking north. The fresco fragment on the back wall (along with another, similar fragment from the south wall) is in the Musée Royal de Mariemont, Morlanwelz, Belgium (r58); for the panel on the left wall, see fig. 48.
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