Later that week, we drove north along the famed Pacific Coast Highway to the Getty Villa in Malibu, an offshoot of the Getty Center in Los Angeles that houses ancient Greek and Roman art.

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The park also contains more than 30 important historical or archaeological sites, ranging from Stone Age cave art to Hellenistic and late Roman settlements where valuable decorative pieces such as coins, ceramics and statues have been discovered.

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And The New Elite will be more than hopping on their private jets to move from castle to castle to yacht, pushing up the prices of art and trying to emulate the Roman Emperors, the 18th century French nobility or the Russian Tsars.

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The foot-friendly furry rug makes the floor exciting. (Money-saving tip: Use a large, inexpensive sisal rug as a base, and layer it with a small version of the pricier rug you love.) Windows with wow factor: Embroidered Roman shades add warmth and contrast and function as art against understated blue walls.

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The watch has a dial with oversized Roman numerals and sword hands, Cartier mainstays since the days of Art Deco.

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The Frontiers of the Roman Empire UNESCO World Heritage Site has become the focus of a new online art and design learning resource.

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And though the city's monumental examples of the beaux arts and art deco movements are well documented in civic buildings dressed up in a mixed bag of Classical Roman and Greek elements, the city actually received its greatest modern architectural contribution in the years after WWII, when Ludwig Mies van der Rohe pioneered the new "International Style".

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When the aspiring graduates of those academies went to Italy to advance their knowledge through first-hand encounters with revered works of art, they were also expected to work from local models and record, on the spot, Roman ruins, picturesque towns and the Italian landscape.

WSJ: Appealing to Modern Eyes | The Path of Nature | Metropolitan Museum of Art | By Karen Wilkin