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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
