Roman art

Fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries. Pompeii, 80 BC

Roman fresco from Boscoreale, 43-30 BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman art includes the visual arts produced in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Metal-work, coin-die and gem engraving, ivory carvings, figurine glass, pottery, and book illustrations are considered to be 'minor' forms of Roman artwork. ^[1]

[edit] General Style

In Romans art, observation of nature was of key importance; as in, for example, their portrait sculptures which are usually meticulously detailed and realistic. Portraits of Roman emperors were often used for propaganda purposes and included ideological messages in the pose, accoutrements, or costume of the figure. The Romans also depicted warriors and heroic adventures, in the spirit of the Greeks who came before them. While Greek sculptors traditionally illustrated military exploits through the use of mythological allegory, the Romans used a more documentary mode. Roman reliefs of battle scenes like those on the Column of Trajan are useful for the first-hand representation of military costumes, and military equipment. Another major contribution of Roman art is the use of concrete in architecture. Buildings like the Pantheon, or Colosseum could never have been constructed with previous materials.

While the traditional view of Roman artists is that they often borrowed from, and copied Greek precedents (much of the Greek sculpture we know of today is in the form of Roman marble copies), more recent analysis as indicated that Roman art is a highly creative pastiche of Greek, Etruscan, native Italic, and even Egyptian visual culture. Stylistic eclecticism is the hallmark of much of Roman art.

[edit] Painting

Pompeian painter with painted statue and framed painting Pompeii

Our knowledge of Ancient Rome painting relies in large part on the preservation of artifacts from Pompeii and Herculanum, and particularly the Pompeian mural painting, which was preserved after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. AD. Nothing remains of the Greek paintings imported to Rome during the 4th and 5th centuries, or of the painting on wood done in Italy during that period. Pliny explicitly states^[2](XXXV, 36) around 69-79 AD that the only true painting was painting on wood and that this had nearly disappeared by his time, to the benefit of the muralists, which was more indicative of the wealth of the owners than their artistic tastes.

[edit] Variety of subjects

Boscotrecase , Pompeii. Second style

Roman painting provides a wide variety of themes: animals, still life, and scenes from everyday life. During the Hellenistic period, it evoked the pleasures of the countryside and represented scenes of shepherds, herds, rustic temples, rural mountainous landscapes and country houses.

[edit] Innovations

The main innovation of Roman painting compared to Greek art was the development of landscapes, in particular incorporating techniques of perspective. The art of the ancient East would have known the landscape only in terms of civil or military scenes.^[3] This theory, defended by Franz Wickhoff, is debatable. It is possible to see evidence of Greek knowledge of landscape portrayal in Plato's Critias (107b-108b):

"...and if we look at the portraiture of divine and of human bodies as executed by painters, in respect of the ease or difficulty with which they succeed in imitating their subjects in the opinion of onlookers, we shall notice in the first place that as regards the earth and mountains and rivers and woods and the whole of heaven, with the things that exist and move therein, we are content if a man is able to represent them with even a small degree of likeness..."^[4]

[edit] Periods

Roman mural painting is generally distinguished by four periods, as originally described by the German archaeologist August Mau and dealt with in more detail at Pompeian Styles.

[edit] Triumphal paintings

From the 3rd century BC, a specific genre known as Triumphal Paintings appeared, as indicated by Pliny^[2] (XXXV, 22). These were paintings which showed triumphal entries after military victories, represented episodes from the war, and conquered regions and cities. Summary maps were drawn to highlight key points of the campaign. Josephus describes the painting executed on the occasion of Vespasian and Titus's sack of Jerusalem:

"There was also wrought gold and ivory fastened about them all; and many resemblances of the war, and those in several ways, and variety of contrivances, affording a most lively portraiture of itself. For there was to be seen a happy country laid waste, and entire squadrons of enemies slain; while some of them ran away, and some were carried into captivity; with walls of great altitude and magnitude overthrown and ruined by machines; with the strongest fortifications taken, and the walls of most populous cities upon the tops of hills seized on, and an army pouring itself within the walls; as also every place full of slaughter, and supplications of the enemies, when they were no longer able to lift up their hands in way of opposition. Fire also sent upon temples was here represented, and houses overthrown, and falling upon their owners: rivers also, after they came out of a large and melancholy desert, ran down, not into a land cultivated, nor as drink for men, or for cattle, but through a land still on fire upon every side; for the Jews related that such a thing they haundergone during this war. Now the workmanship of these representations was so magnificent and lively in the construction of the things, that it exhibited what had been done to such as did not see it, as if they had been there really present. On the top of every one of these pageants was placed the commander of the city that was taken, and the manner wherein he was taken."^[5]

These paintings have disappeared, but they likely influenced the composition of the historical reliefs carved on military sarcophagi, the Arch of Titus, and Trajan's Column. This evidence underscores the significance of landscape painting, which sometimes tended towards being perspective plans.

Ranuccio also describes the oldest painting to be found in Rome, in a tomb on the Esquiline Hill:

"It describes a historical scene, on a clear background, painted in four superimposed sections. Several people are identified, such Marcus Fannius and Marcus Fabius. These are larger than the other figures...In the second zone, to the left, is a city encircled with crenellated walls, in front of which is a large warrior equipped with an oval buckler and a feathered helmet; near him is a man in a short tunic, armed with a spear...Around these two are smaller soldiers in short tunics, armed with spears...In the lower zone a battle is taking place, where a warrior with oval buckler and a feathered helmet is shown larger than the others, whose weapons allow to assume that these are probably Samnites.

This episode is difficult to pinpoint. One of Ranuccio's hypotheses is that it refers to a victory of the consul Fabius Maximus Rullianus during the second war against Samnites in 326 BC. The presentation of the figures with sizes proportional to their importance is typically Roman, and finds itself in plebeian reliefs. This painting is in the infancy of triumphal painting, and would have been accomplished by the beginning of the 3rd century BC to decorate the tomb.

[edit] Panel paintings

The Severan Tondo, a panel painting of the imperial family, circa 200 AD

Depiction of a woman with a ringlet hairstyle. Royal Museum of Scotland.

In Greece and Rome, wall painting was not considered as high art. The most prestigious form of art besides sculpture was panel painting, ie tempera or encaustic painting on wooden panels. Since wood is a perishable material, only very few examples of such paintings have survived, namely the Severan Tondo from circa 200 AD, and the well-known Fayum mummy portraits. The portraits were attached to burial mummies at the face, from which almost all have now been detached. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest, viewed frontally. The background is always monochrome, sometimes with decorative elements. In terms of artistic tradition, the images clearly derive more from Graeco-Roman traditions than Egyptian ones. They are remarkably realistic and may indicate the similar art which was widespread elsewhere, but for reasons of the dry climate where they were found, have fortunately survived.

[edit] Sculpture

Main article: Roman sculpture

Bust of Antinous, c. 130 AD

Traditional Roman sculpture is divided into five categories: portraiture, historical relief, funerary reliefs, sarcophogai, and copies.^[6] Roman sculpture was heavily influenced by Greek examples, in particular their bronzes. It is only thanks to some Roman examples that we know of Greek originals which have since been lost. Another example of this is at the British Museum, where an intact 2nd century AD Roman copy of a statue of Venus is displayed, while a similar original 500 BC Greek statue at the Louvre is missing her arms. Contrary to the belief of early archaeologists, many of their sculptures were large polychrome terra-cotta images, such as the Apollo of Veii (Villa Givlia, Rome), but the painted surface of many of them has worn away with time. Romans were nearly unique in the mixtures of materials (e.g. marble and porphyry) used both for painting and sculptures themselves, largely due to cost.

Detail of the Antonine column. Drawn by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

Historical reliefs are represented by Trajan's column, a triumphal work which records the various Dacian wars conducted by Trajan in what is modern day Roumania. The monumental work is remarkable for the detail shown of the many activities conducted by the army.

While inspired by the Greeks, Romans also developed some of their own innovations, such as the bust and the democratization of the portrait. Many contemporary sculptures are described and discussed by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia published in 77 AD. The work is one of the very few places which discusses Roman art in detail, so is an inestimable source of the period.

[edit] Architecture

Main article: Roman architecture

Aqueduct of Segovia

Roman architecture is outstandingly notable for the durability of its construction; with many buildings still standing, and some still in use. The Roman use of the arch, and their improvements in the use of concrete building methods, their use of the dome which permitted construction of vaulted ceilings and enabled huge covered public spaces such as the public baths and basilicas, later served as inspirational models for architects of the Italian Renaissance, such as Brunelleschi. The Romans based much of their architecture on the dome, with outstanding examples such as the Pantheon, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla. Roman aqueducts were commonplace in the empire, and the standing masonry remains are especially impressive such as the Pont du Gard and the aqueduct of Segovia. The arch was the basis of all the aqueducts and the survival of so many aqueducts in a good state of preservation is mute testimony to their quality of their design and construction.

[edit] See also

• Latin literature
• Naturalis Historia
• Pliny the Elder
• Roman architecture
• Roman music
• Roman sculpture
• Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Ancient Rome Art History Resources

[edit] Sources

• Benton, Janetta Rebold and DiYanni, Robert. Arts and Culture. Volume 1. Prentice-Hall, 1998. New Jersey, United States.
• Kleiner, Fred S. A History of Roman Art. Thompson Wadsworth, 2007. Belmont, CA.
• Marceau, Jo. Art: A World History. DK Publishing, 1998. New York, New York.
• Montverdi, Mario. The Book of Art. Volume 1: The Origins of Western Art. Grolier 1967. Milan, Italy.
• Nuttgens, Patrick. The World's Great Architecture. Excalibur, 1981. New York, New York.
• Turner, Jane. The Dictionary of Art. Volumes 26 and 27. Macmillan, 2002. Hong Kong.