Roman Art

CEC-NME-ICT Project 2014

ROMAN ART

Outline Episode
Hello everybody and welcome to today’s episode where we are
going to introduce you to a very important field of study in visual
arts, i.e. Roman Art in an elaborative manner which includes
Architecture, Paintings, mosaics sculptures etc from Roman Art.
Subject expert is Romana Farid, who is Program Coordinator for
Sahitya Kala Parishad Projects.

Ancient Roman Art

Ancient Roman art (500 BC – 476 AD) comes from Roman
Empire, which was one of the major empires in the history,
so its art reflects its supremacy and influence. Ancient
Roman art has its roots in the Etruscan art (900 BC), but
really became its own type of art around 500 BC with the
beginning of the Roman Republic, and continued until the fall of
Western Roman Empire in 476.

Roman Empire included diverse civilizations that influenced its

culture. The major influence on the ancient Roman art came from
ancient Greek art, that was highly developed and which thoughts
and methods were basis for art in ancient Rome. The reason for
this is that numerous Roman artists came from Greek colonies in
the time when Romans were conquering Greece. Besides this
different Roman Emperors wanted their sculptures
reflecting Greek heroes and Gods, to put emphasis on their
power, authority and greatness and ancient
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Roman architecture wanted to reflect great ancient Greek

wonders

The idea of the Emperor as the Principate or the first citizen of

Rome gave way to the thought of the Emperor as the Dominate
or as the supreme and awesome wielder of power and authority.
This change in the conception of imperial power is
dramatically manifested in imperial imagery.

As testified to by the quotation above, images of the Emperor

detained great power in the Roman World. Ernst Kitzinger has
written that art became Medieval before it became
Christian. By this he means that there was already a move away
from the naturalistic and organic approach of the Classical
convention to a more abstract and mechanical style independent
of the influence of Christianity. Therefore, all this led to the
manifestation of imperial art which is the reason behind
the development of victory gates, equestrian sculptures,
coins etc later discussed in this script.

Ancient Roman art also found inspiration and

encouragement in Egyptian and eastern art, and was
influenced by the early Christians. In the latest years of the
Roman Empire there were also noticeable influences of Germanic,
Celtic and Barbarian art.

Forms of Ancient Roman Art

The most significant forms of ancient roman art are:
• Ancient roman architecture
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• Ancient Roman paintings

• Ancient Roman sculptures
• Ancient Roman Mosaics

Besides these main forms, ancient Roman creativity is revealed in

other creative works such as metal work, engraving, ivory
carvings, pottery, miniature book illustrations and further minor
forms of ancient Roman art.

Techniques used in Ancient Roman Art

Several techniques and methods used by the ancient Roman
artists were developed by ancient Greek artists. Some of these
are: high and low relief, free-standing sculpture, bronze casting,
perspective drawing, caricature, genre, landscape and portrait
painting, vase art, mosaic, cameo, coin art, fine jewelry and
metalwork, funerary sculpture, architectural sculpture, and
trompe l’oeil painting. Most of these techniques were used also by
the artists’ centuries later.

While Greek artists were more interested in ideals, Romans

were interested in reality, so portraiture was one of the
most accepted art forms in ancient Rome.

Ancient Roman paintings, mosaics and architecture remained

very well preserved in Pompeii.

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Ancient Roman Artists

Ancient Roman artists were generally unidentified, although there
are some well-known ancient Roman artists such as:

Sculptors: Arkesiloas, Boethos of Chalkedon, Stetphanos

Painters: Demetrios of Alexandria, Timomachos

Ancient Roman Architecture:

Ancient Roman Temples

From about 200 B.C. till 50 A.D lots of encounters with
Greek culture, as well as the fact that Rome developed as a
republic, caused temples to be constructed conform Greek
style. Both sculpture and spatial effects imitated Greek designs.
Greek influence on Roman culture was summed up in the saying:
Graeca capta Romam cepit (Conquered Greece conquered Rome)
On the other hand in the time of Caesar Augustus Roman temples
took on a more Italic spatial look .Also fresh forms, particularly
with floral arrangements and detailed friezes, were invented. In
this time beyond all in secular buildings an architectural style was
developed completely owned by Roman influences. Also it was in
this time that Roman culture started exercising its influence in
foreign countries, for example in the construction of theaters and
amphitheaters.

Roman temples differed in various important details from

their Greek predecessors. Greek temples had three steps
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round about, but the Roman temple had a high platform, or

stage, with a stairway that served as entrance. Greek
temples more or less always looked out to the East or West, but
the position of the Roman temples depended on the adjoining
buildings.

The Romans repeatedly built round temples, of which the

most important one survives as the Pantheon at Rome till
today. It consists of a rotunda with a diameter of almost fifty
meters and surrounded by concrete walls seven meters thick. An
essential opening at the top with a nine meter diameter lets the
light in. This is called the oculus (eye), located in the dome. The
rotunda and the dome are examples of Roman expertise in
working with concrete.

Ancient Roman Building Style

Romans had a fondness for spatial compositions worked
out in the organization of lines, surfaces, mass and
voluminous parts. In this they differed from their predecessors
in those times around the Mediterranean. No matter how much
they adopted the essentials of previous styles, they did this in
their own manner.

One can distinguish five different Roman styles of building,

adopted from Greek culture, but used in their own distinctive
ways. These were the:

• Doric
• Ionic
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• Corinthian
• Toscan and
• Mixed Architectonic styles
• On the common Roman proportional styles were more
tempered, but with more panache for details. Columns and
pillars were habitually smooth, but the architrave, frieze
and cornice were embellished.

Ancient Roman Houses

The Romans fabricated two kinds of houses, the domus
and the insula. The first was the privilege of the wealthy;
the latter was an apartment building for the working class.
The domus consisted of a few rooms built around an entrance
hall. Often more rooms were added at the back around a court
with columns, the peristyle. The entrance hall was a four-sided
figure room with an open roof. The entrance hall with the
surrounding chambers was purely built in Roman style. The
peristyle was drawn up in Greek or Middle Eastern fashion.

City Planning in Ancient Rome

Romans possessed a wonderful technique in the way of city
planning. When a new city was laid out, its function, climate and
geographical location were taken into account. Characteristic of
a Roman town (possibly developed from earlier Italic
towns in combination with the occupation of building an
army camp) was its square layout. Roads and streets ran on
parallels and met in the center, equivalent with New York.

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Ancient Roman Baths

Towards the end of the republic the so-called balneae

(baths) had become a known feature of the Roman way of
life. Mainly during the empire they were very popular. The
Stabian Baths at Pompeii have been conserved best.

Imperial thermae were more than baths alone. They were very
large complexes for all kinds of physical exercise and housed halls
where philosophers, poets and orators addressed the public.

Ancient Roman Theatres

Roman theaters differed from those of the Greeks in

different ways. The auditorium was not dug out and the walls
encircling both the stage and the seats, were continuous. The
entrance to the dancing stage was formed by vaulted passages.
The choir did not play a role in Roman theater. The dancing
section therefore was part of the auditorium. The wall behind the
stage was ornamented generously.

Arches of Triumph
Arches of triumph (victory gates) were sometimes erected to
honor an important event. Most of the time they sat by
themselves and did not serve as a passage. The triumphal arch
was used to honor victorious generals or important public events
such as the founding of new colonies, the construction of a road
or bridge, the death of a member of the imperial family or the

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attainment of a new emperor. They were adorned with reliefs and

fitted out with statues.

Ancient Roman tombs

The Roman tomb consisted of a hill of earth, the tumulus. It was
enclosed by a ring of cement generally of considerable height.
Only a few of such tombs remain, mainly the tomb of Hadrianus,
now called Castel Sant’Ange lo.

Ancient Roman Imperial Palaces and Villas

Also in the layout of imperial palaces at Rome the emphasis lay
on gardening. The buildings themselves, as far as their function
was concerned, were not extremely monumental and they were
stretch over the Palatine hill as it were randomly. Augustus
himself bought and enlarged the home known as the House of
Livia, still in existence today .Very little remains of Nero’s famous
Golden Palace, occupying once a territory of more than 120
hectares. One can find the baths of Titus there now, the
Colosseum and the Basilica of Maxentius.

The Villa of Hadrianus at Tivoli, started in about 123 A.D., was a

lavish residence with parks and gardens laid out on a magnificent
scale. Because of the imbalanced terrain terraces and staircases
were constructed. There still remain vast stones and concrete
fabrications. All the buildings are in Roman style, but with
Greek names. The Latin word villa denoted an estate, complete
with a home, terrains and precincts and dependent facilities.
Around Pompeii comparatively simple villas were found.

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Descriptions known in literature, such as of Pliny the Younger,

who describes his villa at Laurentum, and remains of the palatial
residence at Piazza Armerina in Sicily, represented the upper
class. The villa of Hadrianus is too elaborate and detailed to be
called a typical villa.

Funerary aspects in Roman Art

A noble family was socially allowed to present images of

ancestors (imagines, singular imago) in the entrance hall of the
family home (domus). There is some doubt about whether
these imagines were funeral masks, portrait busts, or more
commonly both. Imagines could be arranged in a stemma, with
a tag (titulus) summarizing the individual's offices held
(honores) and accomplishments (res gestae), a practice that
might be facilitated by hanging masks. In any case, portrait
busts of family members in stone or bronze were displayed in
the home as well.

Funeral masks were most likely prepared of wax, and perhaps

molded as death masks directly from the departed. They were
worn in the funeral procession either by actors who were
practiced mourners, or by appropriate members of the family.
Practice may have varied by time or by family, since sources
give no consistent description.

Since references to imagines repeatedly fail to differentiate

between commemorative portrait busts, existing examples of
which are plentiful, or funeral masks made of more consumable
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materials, no funerary imagines can be recognized with

certainty as having survived. The veristic tradition of funerary
likenesses, though, contributed to the growth of realistic
Roman portraiture .In Roman Egypt, the Fayum mummy
portraits reveal traditions of Egyptian and Roman funerary
portraiture and the techniques of Hellenistic painting.

Sarcophagi

The funerary urns in which the remains of the cremated

were placed were gradually overtaken in popularity by
the sarcophagus as inhumation became more
widespread. Particularly in the 2nd–4th centuries AD, these
were often ornamented with reliefs that became an important
vehicle for Late Roman sculpture. The scenes depicted were
drawn from mythology, religious beliefs pertaining to the
mysteries, allegories, history, or scenes of hunting or
feasting. Many sarcophagi represent Nereids, fantastical sea
creatures, and other marine imagery that may allude to the
location of the Isles of the Blessed across the sea, with a
portrait of the deceased on a seashell. The sarcophagus of a
child may show tender representations of family life, Cupids, or
children playing.

Some sarcophagi may have been ordered during the person's

life and custom-made to convey their beliefs or aesthetics.
Most were mass-produced, and if they contained a portrait of
the dead, as many did, with the face of the figure left
incomplete until purchase. The carved sarcophagus survived
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the conversion to Christianity, and became the first common

location for Christian sculpture, in works like the mid 4th-
century Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.

Ancient Roman paintings

The Ancient Romans lived in a highly visual society, enclosed by
images: "It is hard for us to imagine the pleasure which the
ancients found in pictures ... halls, verandahs and bowers
swarmed with painted doves, peacocks, lions, panthers, fishes,
cupids, shepherds, sailors, idylls, myths and fairy tales". Of the
enormous body of Roman painting we now have only a very few
pockets of survivals, with many acknowledged types not surviving
at all, or doing so only from the very end of the period
(plate.30). The well-known and most important pocket is
the wall paintings from Pompeii, Herculaneum and other
sites nearby, which show how residents of a wealthy
seaside resort ornamented their walls in the century or so
before the fatal explosion of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD
(plate.31). A succession of dated styles have been defined and
analyzed by modern art historians beginning with August Mau,
showing increasing growth and sophistication.

Starting in the 3rd century AD and finishing by about 400 we

have a great body of paintings from the Catacombs of Rome, by
no means all Christian, showing the later extension of the
domestic attractive tradition in a version adapted - perhaps not
really adapted - for use in burial chambers, in what was possibly
a rather humbler social milieu than the largest houses in Pompeii.
Much of Nero's palace in Rome, the Domus Aurea, survived as
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grottos and gives us examples which we can be sure represent

the very supreme quality of wall-painting in its style, and which
may well have represented noteworthy innovation in style .There
are a number of other parts of painted rooms surviving from
Rome and somewhere else, which somewhat help to fill in the
gaps of our awareness of wall-painting. From Roman Egypt there
are a large number of what are known as Fayum mummy
portraits, bust portraits on wood added to the outside of
mummies by a Romanized middle-class; in spite of their very
distinct local character they are probably broadly representative
of Roman style in painted portraits, which are otherwise totally
lost.

Nothing remains of the Greek paintings imported to Rome

throughout the 4th and 5th centuries, or of the painting on
wood made in Italy during that period .In sum, the range of
samples is confined to only about 200 years out of the about 900
years of Roman history, and of local and decorative painting.
Most of this wall painting was done using the secco (“dry”)
method, but a few fresco paintings also existed in Roman times.
There is proof from mosaics and a few inscriptions that some
Roman paintings were adaptations or copies of earlier Greek
works. Conversely, adding to the confusion is the fact that
inscriptions may be recording the names of migrant Greek artists
from Roman times, not from Ancient Greek originals that were
copied. The Romans completely lacked a convention of figurative
vase-painting comparable to that of the Ancient Greeks, which
the Etruscans had emulated.

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Variety of subjects in Roman Paintings

Roman painting provides a large variety of themes:
animals, still life, and scenes from daily life, portraits, and
some mythological subjects. 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. Erotic scenes are also quite
common. In the late empire, after 200AD, early Christian themes
mixed with pagan imagery survive on catacomb wall.

Ancient Roman sculptures

Conventional Roman sculpture is divided into five categories:
portraiture, historical relief, funerary reliefs, sarcophagi, and
copies of ancient Greek works.

Roman sculpture was profoundly influenced by Greek

examples, in particular their bronzes .It is only thanks to
some Roman copies that knowledge of Greek originals is
conserved. One example of this is at the British Museum, where
an intact 2nd century AD. Roman copy of a statue of Venus is
displayed, as a similar original 500 BC. Greek statue at the
Louvre is missing her arms.

Differing to the belief of early archaeologists, several of these

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 damaged with time. Romans were almost unique in

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the mixtures of materials (e.g. marble and porphyry) used both

for painting and sculptures themselves, largely due to cost.

Portrait sculpture from the Republican era tends to be a bit more

modest, realistic, usual and natural compared to early Imperial
works. A typical work might be one like the standing figure "A
Roman Patrician with Busts of His Ancestors" (c. 30 BC.)

By the imperial age, though they were repeatedly realistic

depictions of human anatomy, portrait sculpture of Roman
emperors were often used for propaganda purposes and
included ideological messages in the pose, accessories, or
attire of the figure. Since most emperors from Augustus on
were sacred, some images are rather idealized. The Romans also
represented warriors and heroic adventures, in the spirit of the
Greeks who came before them. Portrait sculptures were more
commonly found.

While Greek sculptors conventionally illustrated military

exploits through the use of mythological allegory, the
Romans used a more documentary style. Roman reliefs of battle
scenes, like those on the Column of Trajan, were formed for the
adoration of Roman might, but also provide first-hand depiction
of military costumes and military equipment.

Trajan's column records a variety of Dacian wars conducted by

Trajan in what is modern day Romania .It is the prime example of
Roman historical relief and one of the great artistic treasures of
the ancient world. This extraordinary achievement, over 650 foot
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of strengthening length, presents not just realistically rendered

individuals (over 2,500 of them), but landscapes, animals, ships,
and other elements in a continuous visual history - in effect an
ancient precursor of a documentary movie. It survived
devastation when it was adapted as a base for Christian
sculpture. During the Christian era after 300 AD, the
beautification of door panels and sarcophagi continued but
full-sized sculpture died out and did not emerge to be a
vital element in early churches.

Equestrian Sculptures
An equestrian statue is a sculpture of a rider mounted on a horse.
A full-size equestrian statue is a complex and expensive
object for any culture to produce, and figures have
characteristically been portraits of rulers or, more
recently, military commanders.

Such statues often commemorated military leaders, and those

statesmen who wished to symbolically highlight the active
leadership role undertaken since Roman times by the equestrian
class, the equites (plural of eques) or knights.

There were several bronze equestrian portraits (particularly of the

emperors) in ancient Rome, but they did not survive because
they were melted down for reuse of the alloy as coin, church
bells, or other, smaller projects (such as new sculptures for
Christian churches); the standing Colossus of Barletta lost parts
of his legs and arms to Dominican bells in 1309 (plate.48).
Almost the only sole surviving Roman equestrian bronze,
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the equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, owes its

conservation on the Campidoglio, to the popular mis-identification
of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, with Constantine
the Great, the Christian emperor.

Ancient Roman Mosaics

The Romans were not the first to use tiles and minute stone
blocks to create designs and patterns to decorate the floors and
walls of ancient buildings, such as temples and palaces. It had
been done before, in both Greece and in the Ancient Near East –
but the Romans have truly perfected the technique of mosaic
creation and developed it from a decorative craft into magnificent
ancient roman art. Roman mosaics were both striking and
long lasting and were extremely practical for a variety of
architectural applications

Around two thousand years ago the Romans developed a

skill in making high quality cement mortar and concrete
that was both structurally very well-built and also water-
resistant .This technological innovation allowed for significant
scope and flexibility in developing architectural forms and led to
the extensive use of mosaic panels for enhancing the looks and
usefulness of their buildings.

To make their mosaics, they used tiny, squared off blocks of

natural stone, marble or tiles, called tesserae, fixed in mortar and
with the joints between them grouted up with cement, to provide
very long-lasting concrete floors, walls and arched roofs. Besides
being attractive, properly laid mosaic tiles rendered floors.
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• water-resistant,
• hygienic,
• easy to clean , also reflected light – essential properties for
public buildings such as the bathhouses of a people obsessed
with bathing.

But hand in hand with advances in procedure and innovative

applications of practical value, so also went the development of a
tradition of artistic brilliance. We have many wonderful examples
of both abstract and representative ancient Roman mosaic art
that is truly marvelous by any standard.

Ancient Roman mosaic designs are very distinguishing and

display worthy examples of both abstract and
representative art. Although always instantly recognizable as
Roman, many different style and themes are used:
• black and white (dichromatic) very stylized mosaic
representations of dolphins and sea monsters decorated the
floors of public baths.
• whilst in the shelter of their villas, the rich favored more
colorful realistic mosaic representations of gods, gladiators and
gracious ladies at leisure time.
• a great deal of purely geometric mosaic adornment and
bordering was used in repetitive patterns.
• there were also many mosaics of pastoral and gastronomic
themes in somewhat random, but pleasurable depictions,
especially in dining rooms and reception areas.

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It is magnificent that numbers of fine ancient Roman mosaic

panels, many still in excellent condition, can be found all over the
numerous lands that Rome once ruled – vivid reminders of a time
when her strong empire expanded from Britain in the West to
Israel and Iraq in the East and from Germany in the North to
Morocco and Egypt in the South. The extensive mosaic record of
Rome that has been unearthed from all over Europe, North Africa
and the Middle East is a brilliant legacy.

We are lucky that so many fine examples of this unique art form
can be viewed in many museum exhibitions and also inset in a
large number of heritage sites. Many of these specifically Roman
works look as though they were laid out only yesterday – their
glory undiminished after the passage of twenty or so centuries.
This is really a lasting tribute, both to the durability of the
medium and also to the fine craftsmanship of the original ancient
Roman mosaic artists.

Development of Ancient Roman Art

Ancient Roman art of the first and second century AD: Popular
are portraiture, as well as Greek imitations and wall painting. Art
was also used as propaganda for the emperors’ ideas.

Ancient Roman art of the third century AD: New thoughts

emerged in Roman art, such as depicting violence that was
influenced by the wars with Germans (plate.64). Use of drill in
sculpture was replacing chisel. Interest in the soul inspired by
Christians shows up in art as emphasis on the eyes, repeatedly
looking upward to heaven. Body is not that important to
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artists to any further extent, so artists tend to depict it

inaccurately (to short limbs, bigger head)

Ancient Roman art of the fourth century AD: Interest in soul

continues, which shows in art as big eyes and illusory bodies,
there is also less bloodshed visible in art.

Christian period of the late Empire (350-500): Wall painting,

mosaics and funerary sculpture were popular in ancient roman
art. On the other hand full sized sculpture in the round and panel
painting subsided because of religious reasons. Eastern influences
were showing.

After the fall of Rome in 5th century artists moved to

Eastern capital, where they generally found work in
churches.

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