Unit 2: Republican Roman Art

Tarquin Dynasty

• 600-500 BCE

• Created by the last Etruscan kings of Rome

• Created the Servius Tullis, stone walls that surrounded Rome

Forum Romanum

• Forum of the Romans

• Built up the ground to prevent flooding

• Included a gutter to drain water from the Tiber, known as the Cloca Maxima (Great Drain)

Republican Society

• Created after Rome ejects its monarchy in 509 BCE

• Highly stratified and structured by elites, common folk, and enslaved people

Roman Coins

• Greek influenced iconography, mixed with Roman mythology

• Invoked making two designs for both faces

• Used for getting a message out, POLITICAL PROPAGANDA

Glyptic Art

• Carved gemstones

• Wealthy enjoyed having a “logo” to mount on a ring and to show off status

• Portraiture as a way to promote oneself

Intaglio

Gouging out the surface of a gem to create a design

Imagines

• Death masks

• Unification of the dead w/ ancestors

• Immortalized one’s facial features

• Patrician tradition to keep the imagines of their ancestors and to display them

Verism

Close approximation to one’s real-life features

• Opposite of IDEALISM

Hyperrealism

Exaggeration of the realistic features

Toga

Distinctly ROMAN garment reserved for citizens

• Large piece of wool running over the left shoulder

• Worn without pins or fastenings

• Purple stripe: Member of the Senate

Atrium House

• Closed plan, designed to block out the city noise, pollution, etc.

• INTERIORS were the emphasis, the exterior is often simple

• Places of social rituals

• Guests invited further into the house = more trust

Atrium

Open space with an open ceiling

• Social rituals take place here

• Important artifacts are displayed here (imagines)

• Rainwater collects in this space

Cubiculum

General-use rooms, bedrooms, etc.

Peristyle

Columns where the entertaining took place

Roman Wall Painting

Custom murals which show the wealth of owners

• Early Themes: Highly decorative

• Later Themes: Representative, landscapes, mythology, still life, portraiture

First Style

ca. 200 - 80 BCE

• Colorful imitation of stone

• Stucco added + shaped to give stone-like appearance

• Adapted from Hellenistic Greece

Second Style

• Similarity to First Style w/ imitation of stone

• Scenes of buildings framed by columns

• Atmospheric perspective and linear perspective in building scenes

Opus Sectile

Inlaid pieces of marble and stone, “sectioned stone”, to create chromatic patterns

Roman Mosaics

Patterned or figural scenes made of pebbles, cut stone, and mortar

Common Mosaic Themes

Masks: Drama and Theater

Animal Still Life: Cats, birds, etc.

Myths: Grand battles, usually from Greek tradition

Hellenistic Mosaic

Greater range of colors, suggestion of modelity through light and shadow, different size + shape of stones

Tessera

Custom-cut mosaic stones

Art Trade

Dealing in antiquities + workshops dealing in copies + selling “contemporaries”