From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pinacotheca is a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or ancient Rome. The name is specifically used for the building containing pictures which formed the left wing of the Propylaea on the Acropolis at Athens, Greece. Though Pausanias (Bk. II., xxii. 6) speaks of the pictures "which time had not effaced," which seems to point to fresco painting, the fact that there is no trace of preparation for stucco on the walls shows that the paintings were easel pictures (J. G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece, 1898, ii. 252). The Romans adopted the term for the room in a private house containing pictures, statues, and other works of art. It is used for a public gallery on the continent of Europe, as at Bologna and Turin. At Munich there are three galleries known as the Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne.
[edit] References
