For years I refused to go to the Getty Villa in Malibu. The idea of an oil mogul building a Roman villa for himself on the Californian coast just seemed a bit too tacky and absurd. Having seen it now I must admit that even though it is tacky and somewhat absurd there is something beautiful about the place and the relentless will of a man on a mission. The mission? Keeping the origins of Western civilization present in our heads and minds by collecting whatever he could get his hands on from the Greek, Etruscan and Roman periods. The most stunning exemplar is „Isidora“. It is one of the most beautiful mummy portraits still existing. Isidora is looking at us not only from a distant world but the early days of painting as such. Even art historians tend to forget that next to poetry, architecture and sculpture the art of painting was also „reborn“ in the Renaissance even though most of the original paintings were lost forever. Only in Pompeii under piles of ashes can they be seen and on those mummy portraits which were never meant to be seen again by anyone but transit to the realm of the living dead.