“Modern Antiquity,” which opened this month at the Getty Villa, is exploring the effect of ancient art on early modernists. “Juxtaposing 20th-century works with ancient objects, this exhibition focuses on how four eminent artists reinvented and transformed the artistic legacy of antiquity,” according to the museum. “Classicizing creations such as Giorgio de Chirico’s enigmatic piazzas, Pablo Picasso’s postcubist women, Fernand Léger’s mechanized nudes, and Francis Picabia’s ‘transparencies’ made the arts of antiquity modern.

“The Getty Villa—a modern reconstruction of an ancient Roman house—and its antiquities collection provide a unique environment to experience early 20th-century art in relation to the classical past.”

Christopher Green, professor emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and the exhibition’s co-curator, added, “Picasso, de Chirico, Léger, and Picabia all looked to classical antiquity to feed their imaginations, and yet remained radical figures in the history of twentieth-century art. These avant-garde artists had no wish to return to a lost past; the antiquity they knew, above all in museums, was for them a vital element of contemporary life.”

“Modern Antiquity: Picasso, de Chirico, Léger, and Picabia in the Presence of the Antique ” runs through January 16, 2012 at the Getty Villa, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, California, 310-440-7300, getty.edu.

Franklin Einspruch is an artist and writer.