Painting in Time, a new exhibit in the Whitney Humanities Center, focuses on a wooden Roman shield with scenes from the Trojan War—most notably, a scene depicting Priam fighting in the Trojan War based on a passage in Virgil’s Aeneid. The shield was created in the city Dura-Europos, an important Roman military outpost located in modern day Syria, and it likely dates back to

the third century C.E.

The exhibit is filled with information about the shield: detailed descriptions of the watercolor paintings on it, thorough analysis of the mineral deposits that covered the shield, and even meticulous recreations of what the original shield may have looked like. Though the exhibit is very informative (almost all four of the walls in the room are covered with pictures and placards explaining the significance of the artifact), the exhibit seemed to be missing one key item: the shield itself.

The shield, it turns out, is several blocks away, on display at the Yale University Art Gallery. Once this absence becomes apparent, it preoccupies and frustrates the viewer. However, the information on display at WHC does give the shield much-needed context. Ultimately, the absence of the shield forces the viewer to focus on the historical context behind its creation, and Painting in Time successfully explores Roman culture through a narrow lens. The content of the exhibit proves essential for synthesizing the shield with the historical and cultural context in which it was created. Coupled with a visit across campus to the art gallery itself, the experience could be truly memorable.

If the two exhibits were brought together, even, the viewer then might be able to truly synthesize the information relating to the shield with their impressions of the shield as a work of art.