5. Peristyle As much as the front part of the house centered on the atrium, the back centered on the peristyle: a small garden (the hortus), often surrounded by a columned passage, which later formed the model of the medieval cloister. A masquerade of private bliss inside the frenetic city, a garden, like a painting, is literally defined by its boundaries. It is a framed picture of what it excludes, namely, the chaos and unbounded realities of nature. It reworks what it denies, shutting out the surrounding landscape, the rest of the world. In English, the word garden grew from the Old Saxon gyrdan , meaning to enclose, and closely relates to the modern yard and guard . In Pompeii, this poetics of denial and watchfulness became a decorative motif. The garden was enclosed by walls on which images of itself were painted. Perhaps to extend the illusion in a small space, or perhaps to play a game, since what could be more enchanting than the real in conversation with its representation? Especially when the “real” is already a re-presenting, a re- composing of the wild. Frescoes depicting plants, trees, flowers, trellis walls, songbirds, masks, exotic animals, hunting or chase scenes, and even paintings, hung impossibly between posts, and strewn with garlands: all playing out a game of cat and mouse between original and copy. The composition, and the compost. Sculptures of Dionysus were a favorite garden ornament in Pompeii. His association with vegetation, growth, and the promise of life after death alluded to the garden as a place of enchantment, an earthly paradise. —AK
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