Chapter 6: Roman Art

Key Notes

• Time Period
  • Legendary founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus : 753 B.C.E.
  • Roman Republic : 509–27 B.C.E.
  • Roman Empire : 27 B.C.E.–410 C.E.
• Culture, beliefs, and physical settings
  • Roman art was produced in the Mediterranean basin from 753 B.C.E. to 337 C.E.
  • Roman art can be subdivided into the following periods: Republican, Early Imperial, Late Imperial, and Late Antique.
  • Roman culture is rich in written literature: i.e., epics, poetry, dramas.
• Art Making
  • Roman art reflects influences from other ancient traditions.
  • Roman architecture reflects ancient traditions as well as technological innovations.
• Cultural Interactions
  • There is an active exchange of artistic ideas throughout the Mediterranean.
  • Roman works were influenced by Greek objects. In fact, many Hellenistic works survive as Roman copies.
• Audience, functions and patron
  • Ancient Roman art is influenced by civic responsibility and the polytheism of its religion.
  • Roman art first shows republican and then imperial values.
  • Roman architecture shows a preference for large public monuments..
• Theories and Interpretations
  • The study of art history is shaped by changing analyses based on scholarship, theories, context, and written records.
  • Roman art has had an important impact on European art, particularly since the ­eighteenth century.
  • Roman writing contains some of the earliest contemporary accounts about art and ­artists.

Historical Background

• From hillside village to world power, Rome rose to glory by diplomacy and military might.
  • The effects of Roman civilization are still felt today in the fields of law, language, literature, and the fine arts.
• According to legend, Romulus and Remus, abandoned twins, were suckled by a she-wolf, and later established the city of Rome on its fabled seven hills.
  • At first the state was ruled by kings, who were later overthrown and replaced by a Senate.
• The Romans then established a democracy of a sort, with magistrates ruling the country in concert with the Senate, an elected body of privileged Roman men.
  • Variously well-executed wars increased Rome’s fortunes and boundaries.
• In 211 B.C.E., the Greek colony of Syracuse in Sicily was annexed.
  • This was followed, in 146 B.C.E., by the absorption of Greece.
• The Romans valued Greek cultural riches and imported boatloads of sculpture, pottery, and jewelry to adorn the capital.
  • A general movement took hold to reproduce Greek art by establishing workshops that did little more than make copies of Greek sculpture.
• Civil war in the late Republic caused a power vacuum that was filled by Octavian, later called Augustus Caesar, who became emperor in 27 B.C.E.
  • From that time, Rome was ruled by a series of emperors as it expanded to faraway Mesopotamia and then retracted to a shadow of itself when it was sacked in 410 C.E.
• The single most important archaeological site in the Roman world is the city of Pompeii, which was buried by volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.
  • In 1748, systematic ­excavation—actually more like fortune hunting—was begun.
  • Because of Pompeii, we know more about daily life in Rome than we know about any other ancient civilization.

Roman Architecture

• Ashlar Masonry: A technique used where building are built without mortar.
  • Carefully cut and grooved stones that support a building without the use of concrete or other kinds of masonry.
• Roman architects understood that arches could be extended in space and form a continuous tunnel-like construction called a barrel vault.
• Groin Vault: A larger more open space, formed when two barrel vaults intersect.
• The latter is particularly important because the groin vault could be supported with only four corner piers, rather than requiring a continuous wall space that a barrel vault needed.
  • Pier: a vertical support that holds up an arch or a vault
• Spandrels: The spaces between the arches on the piers.
• Arches and vaults make enormous buildings possible, like the Colosseum (72–80 C.E.), and they also make feasible vast interior spaces like the Pantheon (118–125 C.E.). Concrete walls are very heavy.
• To prevent the weight of a dome from cracking the walls beneath it, coffers are carved into ceilings to lighten the load.
  • Coffer: in architecture, a sunken panel in a ceiling
• The Romans used concrete in constructing many of their oversized buildings.
• Much is known about Roman domestic architecture, principally because of what has been excavated at Pompeii.
  • The exteriors of Roman houses have few windows, keeping the world at bay.
  • A single entrance is usually flanked by stores which face the street.
  • Stepping through the doorway one enters an open-air courtyard called an atrium, which has an impluvium to capture rainwater.
  • Impluvium: a rectangular basin in a Roman house that is placed in the open-air atrium in order to collect rainwater
  • Private bedrooms, called cubicula, radiate around the atrium.
  • Cubiculum: a Roman bedroom flanking an atrium; in Early Christian art, a mortuary chapel in a catacomb
  • The atrium provides the only light and air to these windowless, but beautifully decorated, rooms.
  • Atrium (plural: atria): a courtyard in a Roman house or before a Christian church
• The Romans placed their intimate rooms deeper into the house. Eventually another atrium, perhaps held up by columns called a peristyle, provided access to a garden flanked by more cubicula.
• The center of the Roman business world was the forum, a large public square framed by the principal civic buildings.
• Composite columns first seen in the Arch of Titus have a mix of Ionic (the volute) and Corinthian (the leaf) motifs in the capitals.
  • Composite column: one that contains a combination of volutes from the Ionic order and acanthus leaves from the Corinthian order
• Tuscan columns as seen on the Colosseum are unfluted with severe Doric-style capitals
• Keystone: the center stone of an arch that holds the others in place

➼ House of Vettii

• Details

  • From Imperial Roman,
  • 2nd century B.C.E.–1st ­century C.E.
  • Rebuilt c. 67–79 C.E.
  • Made of cut stone and fresco
  • Found in Pompeii, Italy

• Form

  • Narrow entrance to the home sandwiched between several shops.
  • Large reception area called the atrium, which is open to the sky and has a catch basin called an impluvium in the center; rooms called cubicula radiate around the atrium.
  • Peristyle garden in rear with fountain, statuary, and more cubicula; this is the private area of the house.
  • Axial symmetry of house; someone entering the house can see through to the peristyle garden in the rear.
  • Exterior of house lacks windows; interior lighting comes from the atrium and the peristyle.

• Function

  • Private citizen’s home in Pompeii
  • Originally built during the Republic with early imperial additions.

• Context

  • Two brothers owned the house; both were freedmen who made their money as merchants.
  • Extravagant home symbolized the owners’ wealth.
  • After the earthquake of 62 A.D., many wealthy Romans left Pompeii, leading to the rise of the “nouveau riche.”

• Image

  

➼ The Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater)

• Details

  • Imperial Roman
  • 72–80 C.E.
  • Made of stone and concrete
  • Found in Rome

• Function

  • Stadium meant for wild and dangerous spectacles—gladiator combat, animal hunts, naval battles—but not, as tradition suggests, religious persecution.

• Form

  • Accommodated 50,000 spectators.
  • Concrete core, brick casing, travertine facing.
  • 76 entrances and exits circle the façade.
  • Interplay of barrel vaults, groin vaults, arches.
  • Façade has engaged columns
  • first story is Tuscan,
  • second story is Ionic,
  • third story is Corinthian, and
  • the top story is flattened Corinthian; each thought of as lighter than the order below.
  • Flagstaffs: These staffs are the anchors for a retractable canvas roof, called a velarium.
  • Velarium: A retractable canvas roof used to protect the crowd on hot days.
  • Sand was placed on the floor to absorb the blood; occasionally the sand was dyed red.
  • Hypogeum: The subterranean part of an ancient building.

• Context

  • Real name is the Flavian Amphitheater; the name Colosseum comes from a colossal statue of Nero that used to be adjacent.
  • The building illustrates what popular entertainment was like for ancient Romans.
  • Entrances and staircases were separated by marble and iron railings to keep the social classes separate; women and the lower classes sat at the top level.
  • Much of the marble was pulled off in the Middle Ages and repurposed.

• Images

  

  

Content Area for Petra: West and Central Asia

➼ Treasury and Great Temple of Petra, Jordan

• Details

  • Nabataean Ptolemaic and Roman
  • c. 400 B.C.E.–100 C.E.
  • Made of cut rock
  • Found in Jordan

• Context

  • Petra was a central city of the Nabataeans, a nomadic people, until Roman occupation in 106 C.E.
  • The city was built along a caravan route.
  • They buried their dead in the tombs cut out of the sandstone cliffs.
  • Five hundred royal tombs in the rock, but no human remains found; burial practices are unknown; tombs are small.
  • The city is half built, half carved out of rock. –The city is protected by a narrow canyon entrance.
  • The Roman emperor Hadrian visited the site and named it after himself: Hadriane Petra.

• Content

  • Approached through a monumental gateway, called a propylaeum, and a grand staircase that leads to a colonnade terrace in the lower precincts.
  • A second staircase leads to the upper precincts.
  • A third staircase leads to the main temple.

• Form

  • Nabataean concept and Roman features such as Corinthian ­columns.
  • Monuments carved in traditional Nabataean rock-cut cliff walls.
  • Lower story influenced by Greek and Roman temples but with unusual features:
  • Columns not proportionally spaced.
  • Pediment does not cover all columns, only the central four.
  • Upper floor: broken pediment with a central tholos.
  • Combination of Roman and indigenous traditions.
  • Greek, Egyptian, and Assyrian gods on the façade.
  • Interior: one central chamber with two flanking smaller rooms.

• Function: In reality, it was a tomb, not a “treasury,” as the name implies.

• Images

  

  

➼ Forum of Trajan

• Details

  • By Apollodorus of Damascus
  • 106–112 C.E.
  • Made of brick and concrete
  • Found in Rome, Italy

• Form

  • Large central plaza flanked by stoa-like buildings on each side.
  • Originally held an equestrian monument dedicated to Trajan in the center.

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

• Context: Built with booty collected from Trajan’s victory over the Dacians.

• Image

  

➼ Basilica of Ulpia

• Details

  • c. 112 C.E.
  • Made of brick and concrete
  • Found in Rome, Italy
  • Basilica: in Roman architecture, a large axially planned building with a nave, side aisles, and apses

• Form

  • Grand interior space (385 feet by 182 feet) with two apses.
  • Nave is spacious and wide.
  • Double colonnaded side aisles.
  • Second floor had galleries or perhaps clerestory windows.
  • Timber roof 80 feet across.
  • Basilican structure can be traced back to Greek stoas.

• Functional: Law courts held here; apses were a setting for judges.

• Context

  • Said to have been paid for by Trajan’s spoils taken from the defeat of the Dacians.
  • Ulpius was Trajan’s family name.

• Image

  

➼ Trajan Markets

• Details

  • 106–112 C.E.
  • Made of brick and concrete
  • Found in Rome, Italy

• Form

  • Semicircular building held several levels of shops.
  • Main space is groin vaulted; barrel vaulted area with the shops.

• Function

  • Multilevel mall.
  • Original market had 150 shops.

• Materials: Use of exposed brick indicates a more accepted view of this material, which formerly was thought of as being unsuited to grand public buildings.

• Image

  

➼ Pantheon

• Details

  • Imperial Roman
  • 118–125 C.E.
  • Made of concrete with stone facing
  • Found Rome, Italy

• Form Exterior

  • Corinthian-capital porch in front of this building.
  • Façade has two pediments, one deeply recessed behind the other; it is difficult to see the second pediment from the street.

• Form Interior

  • Interior contains a slightly convex floor for water drainage.
  • Square panels on floor and in coffers contrast with roundness of walls; circles and squares are a unifying theme.
  • Coffers may have been filled with rosette designs to simulate stars.
  • Cupola walls are enormously thick: 20 feet at base.
  • Cupola: a small dome rising over the roof of a building; in architecture, a cupola is achieved by rotating an arch on its axis
  • Thickness of walls is thinned at the top; coffers take some weight pressure off the walls.
  • Oculus, 27 feet across, allows for air and sunlight; sun moves across the interior much like a spotlight.
  • Oculus: a circular window in a church, or a round opening at the top of a dome
  • Height of the building equals its width; the building is based on the circle; a hemisphere.
  • Walls have seven niches for statues of the gods.
  • Triumph of concrete construction.
  • Was originally brilliantly decorated.

• Function

  • Traditional interpretation: it was built as a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods.
  • Recent interpretation: it may have been dedicated to a select group of gods and the divine Julius Caesar and/or used for court rituals.
  • It is now a Catholic church called Santa Maria Rotonda.

• Context

  • Inscription on the façade: “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, having been consul three times, built it.”
  • The name Pantheon is from the Greek meaning “all the gods” or “common to all the gods.”
  • Originally had a large atrium before it; originally built on a high podium; modern Rome has risen up to that level.
  • Interior symbolized the vault of the heavens.

• Images

  

Roman Painting

• Interior wall paintings, created to liven up generally windowless Roman cubicula, were frescoed with mythological scenes, landscapes, and city plazas.
  • Fresco: a painting technique that involves applying water-based paint onto a freshly plastered wall. The paint forms a bond with the plaster that is durable and long-lasting
  • Mosaics were favorite floor ­decorations—stone kept feet cool in summer.
  • Encaustics from Egypt provided lively ­individual portraits of the deceased.
  • Encaustic: an ancient method of painting that uses colored waxes burned into a wooden surface
• Murals were painted with some knowledge of linear perspective—spatial relationships in landscape paintings appeared somewhat consistent.
  • Perspective: depth and recession in a painting or a relief sculpture.
• Orthogonals recede to multiple vanishing points in the distance.
• Sometimes, to present an object in the far distance, an artist used atmospheric perspective, a technique that employs cool pastel colors to create the illusion of deep recession.
• Figures were painted in foreshortening, where they are seen at an oblique angle and seem to recede into space.
  • Foreshortening: a visual effect in which an object is shortened and turned deeper into the picture plane to give the effect of receding in space
• So much Pompeian wall painting survives that an early history of Roman painting can be reconstructed.
  • First Pompeian Style: Characterized by painted rectangular squares meant to resemble marble facing.
  • Second Pompeian Style: had large mythological scenes and/or landscapes dominating the wall surface. Painted stucco decoration of the First Style appears beneath in horizontal bands.
  • Third Pompeian Style: characterized by small scenes set in a field of color and framed by delicate columns of tracery.
  • Fourth Pompeian Style combines elements from the previous three:
  • The painted marble of the First Style is at the base;
  • the large scenes of the Second Style and
  • the delicate small scenes of the Third Style are intricately interwoven.
  • The frescos from the Pentheus Room are from the Fourth Style.

➼ Pentheus Room

• Details

  • Imperial Roman
  • 62–79 C.E.
  • fresco
  • Foun in Pompeii, Italy

• Function

  • Triclinium: a dining room in a Roman house.

• Context

  • Main scene is the death of the Greek hero Pentheus.
  • Pentheus opposed the cult of Bacchus and was torn to pieces by women, including his mother, in a Bacchic frenzy; two women are pulling at his hair in this image.
  • Punishment of Pentheus is eroticized; central figure with arms outstretched; exposed nakedness of his body.
  • Architecture is seen through painted windows; imaginary landscape.
  • This painting opens the room with the illusion of windows and a sunny cityscape beyond.

• Image

  

Roman Sculpture

• The instructional program included painted relief and freestanding sculptures. Later arches utilized current art with statues from two-hundred-year-old emperors.
• The Column of Trajan (112 C.E.), had an entrance at the base, from which the visitor could ascend a spiral staircase and emerge onto a porch, where Trajan’s architectural accomplishments would be revealed in all their glory.
  • A statue of the emperor, which no longer exists, crowned the ensemble.
  • The banded reliefs tell the story of Trajan’s conquest of the Dacians.
  • The spiraling turn of the narratives made the story difficult to read; scholars have suggested a number of theories that would have made this column, and works like it, legible to the viewer.
• Republican Sculpture
  • Republican busts of noblemen, called veristic sculptures, are strikingly and unflatteringly realistic, with the age of the sitter seemingly enhanced.
  • Veristic: sculptures from the Roman Republic characterized by extreme realism of facial features
  • Bust: a sculpture depicting the head, neck, and upper chest of a figure
  • Republican full-length statues concentrate on the heads, some of which are removed from one work and placed on another.
  • The bodies were occasionally classically idealized, symbolizing valor and strength.
• Imperial Sculpture
  • Emperors, who were divine, were shown differently than senators. The contrapposto, perfect proportions, and heroic attitudes of Greek statues inspired
  • Contrapposto: a graceful arrangement of the body based on tilted shoulders and hips and bent knees
  • Roman artists. Forms become less individualistic, iconography more heavenly.
  • At the end of the Early Imperial period, a stylistic shift begins to take place that transitions into the Late Imperial style.
  • Compositions are marked by figures that lack individuality and are crowded tightly together.
  • Everything is pushed forward on the picture plane, as depth and recession were rejected along with the classicism they symbolize.
  • Proportions are truncated—contrapposto ignored; bodies are almost lifeless behind masking drapery.
  • Emperors are increasingly represented as military figures rather than civilian rulers.

➼ Head of a Roman Patrician

• Details

  • Republican Roman
  • c. 75–50 B.C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Museo Torlonia, Rome

• Function

  • Funerary context; funerary altars adorned with portraits, busts, or reliefs and cinerary urns.
  • Tradition of wax portrait masks in funeral processions of the upper class to commemorate their history.
  • Portraits housed in family shrines honoring deceased relatives.

• Context

  • Realism of the portrayal shows the influence of Greek Hellenistic art and late Etruscan art.
  • Bulldog-like tenacity of features; overhanging flesh; deep crevices in face.
  • Full of experience and wisdom—traits Roman patricians would have desired.
  • Features may have been exaggerated by the artist to enhance adherence to Roman Republican virtues such as stoicism, determination, and foresight.
  • Busts are mostly of men, often depicted as elderly.

• Image

  

➼ Augustus of Prima Porta

• Details

  • Imperial Roman
  • Early 1st century C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Vatican Museums, Rome

• Form

  • Contrapposto.
  • References Polykleitos’s Doryphoros.
  • Characteristic of works depicting Augustus is the part in the hair over the left eye and two locks over the right.
  • Heroic, grand, authoritative ruler; over life-size scale.
  • Back not carved; figure meant to be placed against a wall.
  • Oratorical pose.

• Function and Original Context

  • Found in the villa of Livia, Augustus’s wife; may have been sculpted to honor him in his lifetime or after his death (Augustus is barefoot like a god, not wearing military boots).
  • May have been commissioned by Emperor Tiberius, Livia’s son, whose diplomacy helped secure the return of the eagles; thus it would serve as a commemoration of Augustus and the reign of Tiberius.

• Content

  • Idealized view of the Roman emperor, not an individualized portrait.
  • Confusion between God and man is intentional; in contrast with Roman Republican portraits.
  • Standing barefoot indicates he is on sacred ground.
  • On his breastplate are a number of gods participating in the return of Roman standards from the Parthians; Pax Romana.
  • Breastplate indicates he is a warrior; judges’ robes show him as a civic ruler.
  • He may have carried a sword, pointing down, in his left hand.
  • His right hand is in a Roman orator pose; perhaps it held laurel branches.
  • At base: Cupid on the back of a dolphin—a reference to Augustus’s divine descent from Venus; perhaps also a symbol of Augustus’s naval victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
  • Maybe a copy of a bronze original, which probably did not have the image of Cupid.

• Image

  

➼ Column of Trajan

• Details

  • 113 C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in Rome

• Form

  • A 625-foot narrative cycle (128 feet high) wrapped around the column tells the story of Trajan’s defeat of the Dacians; this is the earliest example of this kind of structure.
  • Crowded composition.
  • Base of the column has an oak wreath, the symbol of victory.
  • Low relief; few shadows to cloud what must have been a very difficult object to view in its entirety.

• Function

  • Visitors who entered the column were meant to wander up the interior spiral staircase to the viewing platform at the top where a heroic nude statue of the emperor was placed.
  • Base contains the burial chamber of Trajan and his wife, Plotina, whose ashes were placed in golden urns in the pedestal.

• Technique: Roman invention of a tall hollowed out column with an interior spiral staircase.

• Content

  • 150 episodes, 2,662 figures, 23 registers—continuous narrative.
  • Continuous narrative: a work of art that contains several scenes of the same story painted or sculpted in continuous succession
  • Scenes on the column depict the preparation for battle, key moments in the Dacian campaign, and many scenes of everyday life
  • Trajan appears 58 times in various roles: commander, statesman, ruler, etc.

• Context

  • Stood in Trajan’s Forum at the far end surrounded by buildings.
  • Scholarly debate over the way it was meant to be viewed.
  • A viewer would be impressed with Trajan’s accomplishments, including his forum and his markets.
  • Two Roman libraries containing Greek and Roman manuscripts flanked the column.

• Image

  

➼ Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus

• Details

  • Late Imperial Roman
  • c. 250 C.E.
  • Made of marble
  • Found in National Roman Museum, Rome

• Form

  • Extremely crowded surface with figures piled atop one another; horror vacui.
  • Abandonment of classical tradition in favor of a more animated and crowded space.
  • Horror vacui: (Latin for a “fear of empty spaces”) a type of artwork in which the entire surface is filled with objects, people, designs, and ornaments in a crowded, sometimes congested way
  • Figures lack individuality.

• Function: Interment of the dead; rich carving suggests a wealthy patron with a military background.

• Technique

  • Very deep relief with layers of figures.
  • Complexity of composition with deeply carved undercutting.

• Content

  • Roman army trounces bearded and defeated barbarians.
  • Romans appear noble and heroic while the Goths are ugly.
  • Romans battling “barbaric” Goths in the Late Imperial period.
  • Youthful Roman general appears center top with no weapons, the only Roman with no helmet, indicating that he is invincible and needs no protection; he controls a wild horse with a simple gesture.

• Context

  • Confusion of battle is suggested by congested composition.
  • Rome at war throughout the third century.
  • So called because in the seventeenth century it was in Cardinal Ludovisi’s collection in Rome.

• Image

  

  Chapter 7: Late Antique Art