The Egyptian Art Academy in Rome will be reinaugurated today by President Hosni Mubarak following comprehensive restoration, Nevine El-Aref reports Paradoxically in a country famous for its superb classical architecture, the Villa Borghese Gardens are landscaped in the naturalistic English manner. The distinguished buildings within them house a number of museums and various other attractions, among them the Egyptian Art Academy (EAA).The building stands resplendent with its new, contemporary glass and marble façade carved with hieroglyphic text. Following a year of development and restoration the EAA has now started greeting visitors, and its new architectural style combining both ancient and modern is an attraction in itself. The eight million euro restoration project included the renovation of the plastic arts galleries, theatre, cinema, Hi-Tech library, restaurant, conference hall and hostel, as well as the studios and small ateliers for artists and students. Also included in the development programme were the building's main façade and the creation of Egypt's first-ever permanent antiquities exhibition abroad. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), told Al-Ahram Weekly that the idea of having a museum in Rome came about when it was realised that Rome, one of the greatest art capitals in the world, did not boast an Egyptian antiquities museum apart from a very modest collection inside the Vatican. An area of 220 square metres inside the EAA was thus allocated for the creation of a museum to display the history of the Egyptian civilisation from the days of ancient Egypt right through the Islamic era. Hisham El-Leithi, coordinator of the museum project told the Weekly that the permanent exhibition, entitled "The Golden Ages of Egypt: Continuity and Change" will highlight the face of Egyptian arts in its golden ages by showing 205 artefacts carefully selected from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as well as the Coptic, Islamic and the Ceramic museums. El-Leithi explained that the collection was exhibited thematically as Life, Faith and Beyond. The life section is divided into three parts: Governance; People and Daily life. The Governance part displays famous Egyptian kings including Khafre, Akhenaten and Alexander the Great; the People section has statues of nobles, priests and overseers as well as some of their funerary objects; while Daily Life shows the life of workers and artisans, commerce and trade, ceramic and pottery production, weights and measures, ornaments and children toys and games. Among the most important objects, El-Leithi said, are Tutankhamun's canopic coffinet, a Mamluk Quran decorated with gold foliage drawings, an 11th- century painted Fatimid ceramic vase and a painted manuscript featuring the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus on her lap. "I am really very happy with the results," Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told the Weekly, adding that the inauguration of the EAA by President Hosni Mubarak was a great honour and coincided with the celebration of the EAA's 80th anniversary. The EAA's Director Ashraf Reda said that to celebrate the event several seminars on the history of Egypt's culture and art would be going on, as well as exhibitions of the masterpieces of the first and second generations of Egyptian artists, among them the Ragheb Ayad, Seif and Adham Wanli, Mahmoud Said, Taheya Halim, Hamed Nada and Margaret Nakhla. Books will be published on the history of art in Egypt. Hosni described the EAA as a significant cultural foundation and an honorable cultural project that extended as far as being the only inclusive cultural institution abroad that showcased Egyptian history and civilisations. "It is really an Arab Ambassador abroad since it is the only Arab art academy among other 17 international art academies in Rome," Hosni said. The idea of establishing an Egyptian Art Academy was initiated in 1924 by artist Ragheb Ayad, who was in Rome at the time. He wrote to the Egyptian plenipotentiary in Rome at the time, Ahmed Zulfiqar, mentioning Egypt's history and distinguished civilisation as well as the magnificent monuments that had been taken to cities all over the world. He also mentioned that most developed countries had established a fine arts academy in Rome where their students could complete their studies. These academies fully supported the educational and personal needs of the students through scholarships. At the end of every school year, Ayad mentioned in his letter, every student exhibited his work in an exhibition attended by the king and ministers of Italy, which encouraged and motivated them. At the end of the letter he requested that the plenipotentiary ask the Egyptian government to establish a similar academy for Egyptian students. Both the Minister of Education and the Council of Ministers approved the proposal and agreed to build a similar academy in Rome for Egyptian students. In 1929 the Royal Egyptian Academy for Arts came into being. It was located in the Villa Borghese area but moved a year later to its second home in the historic Collo Opeyo Palace. The artist Sahab Refaat Almaz, himself on a scholarship granted by King Fouad I to study fine arts in Rome, was appointed the academy's director. During the same year, 1930, the Italian diplomatic delegation in Cairo proposed to the Egyptian government that the Italian government was ready to relocate the Egyptian academy to Julia valley at Villa Borghese Gardens, where most of the academies were located, and in return to be granted a piece of land in Cairo from the Egyptian government to have an institute for archaeological study. "The academy was known as a governmental entity affiliated with the Royal Egyptian Ministry of Education, which created opportunities -- through competitions -- for Egyptian students to communicate with students from different countries and to study the history of Rome and the classic Italian art, especially the age of the "beginning", as it was called. While on their scholarships Egyptian students were to stay in Rome for a minimum of two years, and the work produced was to be displayed at an annual exhibition organised from Cairo. The General Authority of Fine Arts in Cairo was responsible for setting the academic programmes for the students, as well as programmes for languages and history. Two-month scholarships to those Italian cities that contained the most important works of art were granted to painters, architects and sculptors who have finished their studies in Rome. Many of the Egyptians scholarships to Rome were sponsored as a gift from Prince Youssef Kamal, a patron of the arts who in 1908 had established the School of Fine Arts in Cairo and who had supported it financially until 1925. The academy's first year began in 1930 with five talented young Egyptian artists -- two architects, two sculptors and a painter. The architects worked on projects on classical architectural art in Rome and also on repairing certain Roman monuments, while the sculptors and the painter studied classic art and the reality of its formation, as well as the advancements in Italian art.
