Caesar's Palace Pool
This past week, I stayed at the opulent and excessive Caesar’s Palace, a mega-hotel that also includes extensive casinos, bars, pools, and restaurants. Upon entering the cacaphonic casino, one can sense the lingering smell of gently smoking cigars and the high excitement about drinking and partying from the guests. However, instead of participating in the raucous merriment, the only thoughts that occurred to me were “This place is historically incorrect!” and “Where were their art historians when they designed this pleasure palace?” Caesar’s Palace is supposed to invoke the luxury of Rome, as in circa the first century C.E. However, many of the flashy decorations were simply related to Italy and the location of Rome, not the Roman Empire specifically. Being the stickler I am about Roman history and art history, this article will explore some of the anachronisms that the designers for Caesar’s Palace unwittingly incorporated into their building.
David
First, one of the wings of the Palace included a statue of David, the marble giant crafted skillfully by Michelangelo. The cast statue (with similar dimensions to the real statue in Florence) has a prominent location under a bright oculus, which mirrors the real David’s standing position in the Accademia Galleria. However, this statue is the epitome of Renaissance thinking and ideals. The Renaissance was at its height during the 1500s, and it advocated perfection, idealism, neo-platonic shapes, geometry, perspective, and sfumato. Why is David lurking in Caesar’s Palace, the building that is supposed to echo Ancient Rome? Just because it is connected with Italy doesn’t mean it is Roman or Ancient. The actual David statue was sculpted around 1502, while the height of the Roman Empire occurred under Trajan around 100 C.E. This statue is obviously a manicured addition to the edifice, but it doesn’t accurately portray the Ancient Roman vibe that Caesar’s Palace is trying to emanate. The cast statue belongs in hotels named “Michelangelo’s Man-Cave” or “Leonardo’s Lair.” Additionally, in one of wings of the noisy casino, a portion of the famous Sistine Chapel was shown near the ornate roof. The side panels depicting legendary sibyls and prophets are in the high Renaissance style and were painted unwillingly by Michelangelo around 1510. Just for a nugget of educational fun, the prophet Isaiah is modeled after Michelangelo’s own face.
Face of the Apoxyomenos |
Aphrodite of Knidos |
To conclude, Caesar’s Palace in the City of Sin is exciting, glamorous, and internationally recognized, but it needs to resurvey its pseudo-historical decorations. The marble decorations (i.e. David, Aphrodite of Knidos, The Scraper) are lovely, but they don’t quite fit the time period that Caesar’s Palace imitates.
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