AP Art History - Rome

• House of the Vettii

• 2nd century BCE – 1st century CE

• Imperial Rome

• cut stone and fresco

• Pompeii, Italy

• Private citizen’s home, built during the Republic and given additions in the Empire

• Owners were brothers and freedmen (former slaves) who made money as merchants

• Extravagant home shows off wealth

• Axial symmetry

• The Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre)

• 72-80 CE

• Imperial Roman

• stone and concrete

• Concrete core, brick casing, travertine facing

• 76 entrances, could seat 50,000

• Arches and barrel and groin vaults allow for a large structure

• Engaged columns – each level of a different order

• Brackets held staffs that anchored a retractable canvas roof

• Sand (arena) absorbed blood shed during shows

• Building illustrates Roman entertainment

• Stadium used for dangerous spectacles – gladiatorial combat, animal hunts, mock battles – but not religious persecution

• Assigned seating (seats are numbered)

• Entrances and seating separated by social class and sex

• Much of original marble was pulled off during Middle Ages

• Treasury and Great Temple of Petra, Jordan

• c. 400 BCE – 100 CE

• Nabataean Ptolemaic and Roman

• cut rock

• Petra was a Nabatean city until Roman occupation in 106 CE (city named by Roman Emporer Hadrian: Hadriane Petra)

• 500 tombs found, but no remains

• Great Temple (right) a tomb and not a treasury

• 3 stories, Greco-Roman elements

• Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian gods depicted on façade

• It like tombs is carved into the cliff face

• Forum of Trajan (Apollodorus of Damascaus)

• 106 – 112 CE

• Imperial Rome

• brick and concrete

• Central plaza flanked by stoas

• Once held an equestrian monument of Trajan

• Contained a shrine for Trajan’s deified aspect

• Part of a complex that included the Basilica of Ulpia, Trajan’s markets, and Column of Trajan

• Marcus Ulpius Traianus, one of the “good emporers” and very popular

• Funded building projects with profits from war with the Dacians (modern Romania)

• Basilica Ulpia (Apollodorus of Damascaus)

• c. 112 CE

• brick and concrete

• HUGE interior space: 385’x182’, two apses

• Wide, spacious nave

• Timbered, coffered roof 80 feet across

• Legal courts held here; apse at each end for judges

• Ulpia is Trajan’s family name

• Basilicas will later form the basis for Christian churches (more on that later)

• Trajan Markets (Apollodorus of Damascaus)

• 106 – 112 CE

• brick and concrete

• Semicircular, multi-level structure

• Main area is groin vaulted; shops are barrel vaults

• Originally 150 shops

• City space had been cleared to build the forum; these markets may have been built to replace those shops lost to the clearing

• Use of exposed brick shows a more accepted view of the material (as opposed to covering with marble or other stone)

• Pantheon

• 118-125 CE

• Imperial Rome

• concrete with stone facing

• Originally believed to be a temple for all gods (Pan=all, theo=deity)

• Now thought to have been dedicated to a select group including a deified Julius Caesar

• Now serving as a Catholic Church, Santa Maria Rotonda

• Inscription: “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, having been consul three times, built it”

• Originally had a large atrium in front and was built on a high podium; modern Rome has been built up to this level

• Corinthian capital porch in front, 2 pediments

• Interior floor is slightly convex for drainage

• Square coffers in ceiling match floor tiles, provide unifying element (may have once contained rosettes to mimic stars)

• Walls are 20’ thick at base, thinner at top (coffers reduce weight)

• Oculus measures 27’, allows sun to act as a spotlight

• 7 niches to house statues of gods

• Effectively a 140’ empty sphere

• Considered a triumph of concrete construction

• Alexander Mosaic

• Republican Roman copy o foriginal mosaic

• c. 100 BCE

• Depicts Alexander’s defeat of Darius

• Alexander is calm and assured, contrasts with panic shown by Darius

• Very crowded composition, use of spatial illusions

• Use of tesserae instead of pebbles to allow for more complex shading and composition

• Possibly made by Helen of Egypt

• Pentheus Room

• 62-79 CE

• Imperial Roman

• fresco

• Pompeii Italy

• A triclinium in the House of the Vettii

• 4th Style painting of the death of Pentheus

  • Pentheus opposed the cult of Dionysus and was literally torn apart by the god’s followers

• Illusions of windows and city scenes

• Head of a Roman Patrician

• c. 75-80 BCE

• Republican Roman

• marble

• A veristic portrait, heavily realistic

• Funerary altars would be adorned with busts like this

• Busts also housed in shrines to honor the dead

• Realism shows Hellenistic influence

• Aged features probably exaggerated

• Demonstrates favored virtues of stoicism and determination

• Augustus of Prima Porta

• early 1st century CE

• Imperial Roman

• marble

• Contrapposto, referencing Doryphorous

• Depicts the Emperor’s characteristic hair style

• Larger than life; meant to be placed against a wall

• Oratorical pose

• One of perhaps 2 dozen copies, found in his widow’s home

• Idealized view of a semi-divine emperor

• Barefoot, on sacred ground

• Armor and robes suggest multiple roles

• Cupid on dolphin show divine heritage

• Column of Trajan

• 113 CE

• Imperial Roman

• marble

• Column is 128 feet high, contains 625-foot narrative of Trajan’s victory over Dacians; oak wreath at base for victory

• Carved in low relief, making upper registers hard to read.

• Column is hollow with a spiral staircase inside (visitors intended to climb up to viewing platforum)

• Once mounted with a heroic statue of Trajan, replaced with one of St. Peter

• Contains ashes of Trajan and his wife

• Stands in what was Trajan’s forum, flanked by libraries of Greek and Roman works

• Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus

• c. 250 CE

• Imperial Roman

• marble

• Very crowded composition (horror vacui)

• Classical composition abandoned in favor of greater animation

• Most figures lack individuality

• Roman army defeats Goths

• Roman commander in center without helmet or weapons, suggesting invincibility

• Used to inter the dead; patron probably had a military background

• Named for the 17th-Century Cardinal who collected it