The Etruscans Visit the Legion of Honor

After visiting the Vatican Museums in Roma for the first time last December, with its fascinating treasures and horrifying mass tourism crowds, it was a joy to attend this summer's human-sized exhibit at San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum about the Etruscan civilization. The show, entitled The Etruscans: From the Heart of Italy, even includes quite a few pieces from the Vatican Museums, minus the hordes.

The Etruscans were an extraordinary civilization in northwestern Italy that lasted from about the 9th century BC to the beginning of the Roman Empire in the first century. It was a collection of city-states, sharing the same culture and language, that stretched from just north of present-day Rome to the top of Tuscany.

Some of the relics are so old that they feel like they are from another civilization altogether. (Pictured is Bronze Cauldron (lebes) with lion protomes, 675-650 BC.)

They are reminiscent of some of the ancient relics from China you can find at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, which are bizarrely sophisticated. (Pictured is Cauldron (olla) on stand (holmos) 675-625 BC.)

Most of the relics on display were taken from tombs, which were extravagant, jolly places with murals on the wall and happy looking statues of people who were waiting out the purgatory between this life and the afterlife. (Pictured is Sarcophogus lid.)

Besides having a vibrant religious and artistic culture, the Etruscans were also much more accepting of women as public figures than the Mediterranean cultures that came after them. (Pictured is Cinerary urn of the spouses, 520-500 BC.)

The exhibition is beautifully laid out with with a reproduction of a banquet mural in one room...

...and naked line drawings on another room featuring sculptured heads. (Pictured is Head of a young man, bronze, 375-350 BC.)

This painted sculpture reminded me of a better-looking Mike Pence. (Pictured is Portrait head of a man, terracotta with polychromy, early 1st century BC.)

Though the exhibit is small, there are strange treasures galore... (Pictured is Round boss with head of Acheloos, early 5th century BC.)

...including proto-Giacometti statues. (Pictured is Attenuated statue of priestess holding serpent, bronze, 2nd century BC.)

See it before the word gets out and Vatican Museums crowds arrive. (Pictured is Votive statue of a seated boy, late 4th-3rd century BC.)