"Ferocious talent"

The Chimaera of Arezzo has arrived at the Getty Villa on the edge of Malibu, the first time the famous ancient Etruscan sculpture has traveled to the United States. When you see it, you'll know immediately why the magnificent bronze is regarded as a textbook work of art. The Chimaera grabs your attention and won't let go.

Not bad for a mythological monster that's more than 2,400 years old. The sculpture shows how one masterpiece can be enough to anchor a thoroughly satisfying exhibition.

A Chimaera fuses the body of a fire-breathing lion with a coiling serpent in the place of its tail, capable of guarding the rear flank; for good measure, a horned goat emerges from the lion's back. Altogether this chomping, hissing, butting flamethrower is a hybrid as frighteningly improbable as something from “Alien” in the movies or a Blue Dog Democrat in Congress.

The ancient Chimaera (pronounced ki-MEER-uh) was dug up at the gate to the Tuscan town of Arezzo in 1553. Now it stands in grand isolation on a pedestal in the center of a Getty Villa gallery. About 4¼ feet long, it pulls back on its haunches with its front legs stretched out, talons unsheathed, like a wounded animal refusing surrender.

The roaring head, encircled by curving rows of tufted fur, strains upward and bends to the right. Behind it the goat's head mirrors this pose but in the opposite direction. So the bodily motion goes down, back, up, left and right, yielding a marvelously animated dynamism. Skin is pulled taut over powerful musculature, while parallel curves, alternating shadow with light, articulate the beast's gaunt rib cage. This is an animal with living, breathing innards, not just a ferocious outward demeanor.

Look closely and you'll spot a couple of stylized floral rosettes on the goat's neck and the lion's hind end — in fact, engorged drops of blood, spurting from stabbed flesh. The beast has been wounded, no doubt from the fatal assault by the long-lost bronze figure of the Greek hero Bellerophon riding his winged steed, Pegasus — victors in the mythical ancient battle. The Chimaera of Arezzo is what remains of a surely amazing sculptural grouping, fabricated by a supremely gifted artist and his bronze casting crew, circa 400 B.C.