Description of Roman art and architecture
- 1. Roman art and architecture
- 2. ROMAN ART Timeline 753 BC Rome is founded Rome was founded by Romulus. Romulus was the first of the seven Roman kings. The original name of Rome was Roma. 509 BC Rome becomes a Republic The last king is expelled and Rome is now ruled by senators. There is a constitution with laws and Rome becomes a complex republican government. 218 BC Hannibal invades Italy Hannibal leads the Carthage army to attack Italy. This becomes part of the Second Punic War. 45 BC Julius Caesar becomes the first dictator of Rome Julius Caesar defeats Pompey in a civil war. He becomes the supreme ruler of Rome. This is the end of the Roman Republic. He hires Sosigenes, an Egyptian astronomer, to work out a new 12 month calendar.
- 3. 44 BC Julius Caesar is assassinated Julius Caesar is assassinated on the Ides of March by Marcus Brutus. They hope to bring back the republic, but civil war breaks out instead. 27 BC Roman Empire begins Octavius appoints himself "Augustus", which means the first emperor. 64 AD Much of Rome burns Nero set fire to Rome and blames the Christians for it. 80 AD Colosseum is built The Colosseum was built in 80 AD. The completion of the Colosseum was celebrated with 100 days of games. The Romans invade Scotland.
- 4. 122 Hadrian Wall is built The Hadrian Wall was built in 122 AD. It was a long wall built across northern England in an effort to keep the barbarians out. 306 Constantine becomes Emperor in 306 AD Rome becomes a Christian empire. Before this, Rome persecuted the Christians. Constantius dies. His son Constantine is the new vice-emperor of Galerius. 380 Christianity Theodosius I proclaims Christianity as the sole religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD. 395 Rome splits In 395 AD, Rome split into two empires - the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Each side had a ruler in charge of it. The Roman Empire was split by Theodosius.
- 5. 410 The Visigoths sack Rome This was the first time in 800 years that the city of Rome has fallen to an enemy. It was a huge uproar. 476 End of the Western Roman Empire and the fall of Ancient Rome The last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus is defeated by the German Goth Odoacer. This is the start of the Dark Ages in Europe. 1453 The Byzantine Empire ends The Byzantine Empire comes to an end as it falls to the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople in 1453 A.D. It is renamed Istanbul in 1930.
- 6. The three most popular forms of Roman art Sculpture: Make or represent a form by carving or casting or other shaping technique in 3D, has height, depth and width Mural: Painting or other work of art executed directly on wall Mosaic: A picture or pattern produced by arranging together small pieces of stones, glass, tile etc
- 7. Roman Art The Romans controlled such a vast empire for so long a period that a summary of the art produced in that time can only be a brief and selective one. Roman artists copied, imitated, and innovated to produce art on a grand scale, sometimes compromising quality but on other occasions far exceeding the craftsmanship of their predecessors.
- 8. The three most popular forms of Roman art: sculpture, murals and mosaics. Romans love Greek sculptures. They bought, borrowed or stole vast quantities of sculpture from Greece. They also copied a lot of it, either in bronze or in marble. Although any material was fair game to be turned into objects of art.
- 9. Immortalizing an individual private patron (client) in art was a common artist’s commission. Painting aimed at faithfully capturing landscapes, townscapes, and the more trivial subjects of daily life. Realism became the ideal and the cultivation of a knowledge and appreciation of art itself became a worthy goal. These are the achievements of Roman art.
- 10. Criticism Roman art has suffered something of a crisis in reputation ever since the rediscovery and appreciation of ancient Greek art from the 17th century CE onwards. Romans love Greek sculptures. They bought, borrowed or stole vast quantities of sculpture from Greece. They also copied a lot of it, either in bronze or in marble.
- 11. About 200 B. C. the Romans conquered the Greeks and began copying their arts style. During their conquest of Greece, the Romans looted the towns. They brought the art home. They also captured sculptors and brought them to Rome as slaves. When art critics also realized that many of the finest Roman pieces were in fact copies or at least inspired by earlier and often lost Greek originals, the appreciation of Roman art, which had flourished along with all things Roman in the medieval and Renaissance periods, began to diminish.
- 12. Unlike Greek art, the vast geography of the Roman empire resulted in very diverse approaches to art depending on location. Although Rome long remained the focal point, there were several important art-producing centers in their own right who followed their own particular trends and tastes, notably at Alexandria, Antioch, and Athens. As a consequence, some critics even argued there was no such thing as 'Roman' art.
- 13. Artworks were looted from conquered cities and brought back for the appreciation of the public, foreign artists were employed in Roman cities, schools of art were created across the empire, technical developments were made, and workshops sprang up everywhere. Such was the demand for artworks, production lines of standardized and mass produced objects filled the empire with art. And here is another factor in Rome’s favor, the sheer quantity of surviving artworks.
- 14. . Such sites as Pompeii, in particular, give a rare insight into how Roman artworks were used and combined to enrich the daily lives of citizens. Art itself became more personalised with a great increase in private patrons of the arts as opposed to state sponsors. This is seen in no clearer form than the creation of lifelike portraits of private individuals in paintings and sculpture. Like no other civilization before it, art became accessible not just to the wealthiest but also to the lower middle classes.
- 15. Inheriting the Hellenistic world (from the Greek word Hella for Greece) forged by Alexander the Great’s conquests, with an empire covering a hugely diverse spectrum of cultures and peoples, their own appreciation of the past, and clear ideas on the best way to commemorate events and people, the Romans produced art in a vast array of forms. Seal-cutting, jewellery, glassware, mosaics, pottery, frescoes, statues, monumental architecture, and even epigraphy( the study and interpretation of ancient inscription) and coins were all used to beautify the Roman world as well as convey meaning from military prowess (skill or expertise in a particular activity or field) to fashions in aesthetics.
- 17. Importance Although Greek art had the greatest influence on the Romans, other civilizations that they conquered and encountered over their wide empire also had influence. These included the Ancient Egyptians, eastern art, the Germans, and the Celtics(The Celts are an Indo- European ethno linguistic group of Europe identified by their use of Celtic languages and cultural similarities. Lived on British islands). Roman sculpture played an important part of the Roman daily life.
- 18. Roman Sculpture Roman sculpture blended the idealized perfection of earlier Classical Greek sculpture with a greater aspiration for realism and mixed in the styles prevalent in Eastern art. Roman sculptors have also, with their popular copies of earlier Greek masterpieces, preserved for posterity invaluable works which would have otherwise been completely lost to world art.
- 19. The Romans favoured bronze and marble above all else for their finest work. However, as metal has always been in high demand for reuse, most of the surviving examples of Roman sculpture are in marble. The Roman taste for Greek and Hellenistic sculpture meant that once the supply of original pieces had been exhausted sculptors had to make copies, and these could be of varying quality depending on the sculptor’s skills. (The Hellenic World' is a term which refers to that period of ancient Greek history between 507 BCE (the date of the first democracy in Athens) and 323 BCE (the death of Alexander the Great). This period is also referred to as the age of Classical Greece and should not be confused with The Hellenistic World which designates the period between the death of Alexander and Rome's conquest of Greece (323 - 146 - 31 BCE).)
- 21. Sleeping Hermaphrodite There is nothing improper in this work, but it still intrigues the viewer. Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes (Gods messenger for humans) and Aphrodite (godess of love and sexuality), had rejected the advances of the nymph Salmacis. Unable to resign herself to this rejection, Salmacis persuaded Zeus to merge their two bodies forever, hence the strange union producing one bisexed being with male sexual organs and the voluptuous curves of a woman. Shown on a matress in a sleeping position, Hermaphroditos has only fallen half asleep: the twisting pose of the body and the tension apparent down to the slightly raised left foot are indicative of a dream state.
- 22. Roman sculpture There was a school specifically for copying celebrated Greek originals in Athens and Rome itself. Roman sculptors also produced miniaturized copies of Greek originals, often in bronze, which were collected by art-lovers and displayed in cabinets in the home. Roman sculpture did, however, begin to search for new avenues of artistic expression, moving away from their Etruscan and Greek roots, and, by the mid-1st century CE, Roman artists were seeking to capture and create optical effects of light and shade for greater realism. The realism in Roman portrait sculpture and funerary art may well have developed from the tradition of keeping realistic wax funeral masks of deceased family members in the ancestral home.
- 23. Transferred to stone, we then have many examples of private portrait busts which sometimes present the subject as old, wrinkled, scarred, or flabby; in short, these portraits tell the truth. By later antiquity, there was even a move towards impressionism using tricks of light and abstract forms.
- 24. Sculpture also became more monumental with massive, larger- than-life statues of emperors, gods, and heroes, such as the huge bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on horse back now in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. Towards the end of the Empire, sculpture of figures tended to lack proportion, heads especially were enlarged, and figures were most often presented flatter and from the front, displaying the influence of Eastern art.
- 25. Sculpture on Roman buildings and altars could be merely decorative or have a more political purpose. For example, on triumphal arches( Triumphal Arches. The triumphal arch was a type of Roman architectural monument built all over the empire to commemorate military triumphs and other significant events such as the accession of a new emperor.) the architectural sculpture captured in detail key campaign events, which reinforced the message that the emperor was a victorious and civilizing agent across the known world.
- 26. A typical example is the Arch of Constantine in Rome (c. 315 CE) which also shows defeated and enslaved 'barbarians' to ram home the message of Rome’s superiority.
- 27. Such a portrayal of real people and specific historical figures in architectural sculpture is in marked contrast to Greek sculpture where great military victories were usually presented in metaphor, using figures from Greek mythology like amazons and centaurs such as on the Parthenon (The Parthenon was an expression and embodiment of Athenian wealth, and it was a symbol of Athenian political and cultural preeminence in Greece in the middle of the fifth century. It was larger and more opulent than any temple that had been constructed on the Greek mainland before.)
- 28. Altars could also be used to present important individuals in a favorable light. The most famous altar of all is the Ara Pacis of Augustus (completed 9 BCE) in Rome.
- 29. The Ara Pacis Augustae is an altar in Rome dedicated to Pax, the Roman goddess of Peace. The monument was commissioned by the Roman Senate on July 4, 13 BC to honor the return of Augustus to Rome after three years in Hispania and Gaul and consecrated on January 30, 9 BC. The Ara Pacis Augustae or Altar of the Augustan Peace in Rome was built to celebrate the return of Augustus in 13 BCE from his campaigns in Spain and Gaul.
- 30. a huge block of masonry which depicts spectators and participants at a religious procession. It seems as though the figures have been captured in a single moment as in a photograph, a child pulls on a toga, Augustus’ sister tells two chatterers to be silent, and so on.
- 31. Roman Wall Paintings The interiors of Roman buildings of all description were very frequently luxuriously decorated using bold colours and designs. Wall paintings, fresco, and the use of stucco to create relief effects were all commonly used by the 1st century BCE in public buildings, private homes, temples, tombs, and even military structures across the Roman world. Designs could range from intricate realistic detail to highly impressionistic renderings which frequently covered all of the available wall space including the ceiling.
- 32. Fresco, Livia's Villa, Rome A detail of the garden fresco from the winter triclinium (dining room) from the Villa of Livia, wife of Augustus, Rome. The life-size representations of trees, flowers, fruit and birds decorate all four walls of the room to create a continuous and 360° view of a garden which adds perspective by increasing clarity in the foreground subjects. (Palazzo Massimo, Rome).
- 33. Colors Roman wall painters (or perhaps their clients) preferred natural earth colours such as darker shades of reds, yellows, and browns. Blue and black pigments were also popular for plainer designs, but evidence from a Pompeii paint shop illustrates that a wide range of colour shades were available.
- 34. Subjects Subjects could include portraits, scenes from mythology, architecture using trompe-l’oeil (a French phrase meaning deceive the eye, used for painting to give illusion of reality), flora, fauna, and even entire gardens, landscapes and townscapes to create spectacular 360° panoramas which transported the viewer from the confines of a small room to the limitless world of the painter’s imagination.
- 35. An outstanding example is the 1st century BCE House of Livia on the Palatine hill in Rome which includes a 360° panorama of an impressionistically rendered garden. The scene runs around one room and completely ignores the corners.
- 36. Another splendid example is the 1st century CE private villa known as the House of the Vettii in Pompeii.
- 37. As the art form developed, larger-scale single scenes which presented larger-than-life figures became more common. By the 3rd century CE one of the best sources of wall painting comes from Christian catacombs (underground cemetery consisting of a subterranean gallery for religious practice) where scenes were painted from both the Old and New Testament.
- 38. Roman Mosaics Roman mosaics were a common feature of private homes and public buildings across the empire from Africa to Antioch. Mosaics, otherwise known as opus tessellatum, were made with small black, white, and coloured squares of marble, tile, glass, pottery, stone, or shells.
- 39. Typically, each individual piece measured between 0.5 and 1.5 cm but fine details, especially in the central panel were often rendered using even smaller pieces as little as 1mm in size. Designs employed a wide spectrum of colours with colored grouting to match surrounding tesserae.
- 40. This particular type of mosaic which used sophisticated coloring and shading to create an effect similar to a painting is known as opus vermiculatum, and one of its greatest craftsmen was Sorus of Pergamum (150- 100 BCE) whose work, especially his Drinking Doves mosaic, was much copied for centuries after.
- 41. Mosaic of a Gypsy Girl
- 42. Theme Popular subjects included scenes from mythology, gladiator contests, sports, agriculture, hunting, food, flora and fauna, and sometimes they even captured the Romans themselves in detailed and realistic portraits.
- 43. One the most famous Roman mosaics today is one from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, which depicts Alexander the Great riding Bucephalus and facing Darius III on his war chariot.
- 44. Not just floors but also vaults, columns, and fountains were decorated with mosaic designs too. Roman mosaics artists developed their own styles, and production schools were formed across the empire which cultivated their own particular preferences - large-scale hunting scenes and attempts at perspective in the African provinces, impressionistic vegetation and a foreground observer in the mosaics of Antioch, or the European preference for figure panels, for example.
- 45. The dominant (but not exclusive) Roman style in Italy itself used only black and white tesserae (a small block of stone, tile, glass, or other material used in the construction of a mosaic), a taste which survived well into the 3rd century CE and was most often used to represent marine motifs, especially when used for Roman baths.
- 46. Over time the mosaics became ever more realistic in their portrayal of human figures, and accurate and detailed portraits become more common. Meanwhile, in the Eastern part of the empire and especially at Antioch, the 4th century CE saw the spread of mosaics which used two-dimensional and repeated motifs to create a 'carpet' effect, a style which would heavily influence later Christian churches and Jewish synagogues(house of assembly).
- 47. Roman Architecture Roman architecture took off right where the esteemed builders from ancient Greece left after the decline of Greek civilization. But unlike their predecessors, the Roman architecture gave far more priority to the practicality of their architectural designs. It was a major diversion from the contemporary practice which gave primary focus to a structure’s exterior design and aesthetic appeal.
- 48. The Greeks, Persians and Egyptians before them had a number of monumental architectures, but their magnificence was limited to the exterior only. With the discovery of concrete, arches, and other engineering marvels during the ancient Roman era, the Roman builders could now build majestic architectures with internal structures that were previously deemed impractical and impossible.
- 49. Building Techniques: Arch, Vault, Dome In architecture, however, the Romans absorbed some important techniques from the Etruscans (Italy 6th cent) before Greek influence was decisively felt. This included the arch and the vault, which were destined to carry Roman engineering into a development directly away from that of ancient Greece, who preferred "post-and-lintel" building methods to arches and domes. Thus was laid the foundation of the art in which the Italic peoples were to surpass the Hellenes: structural engineering.
- 51. The vaulting techniques used by the Romans were the simple geometric forms: the semicircular barrel vault
- 52. the groin vault, and
- 53. the segmental vault. The vault surfaces were typically covered with stucco or tiles.
- 54. An excellent example of Roman vaulting is the Basilica of Constantine (public building with multiple purpose) and Basilica of Maxentius in Rome.
- 55. A natural development of the vault was the dome, which enabled the construction of vaulted ceilings and the roofing of large public spaces such as the public baths and basilicas. The Romans relied heavily on the dome for much of their architecture, such as Hadrian's Pantheon, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla.
- 56. Hadrian's Pantheon Baths of Diocletian Baths of Caracalla
- 57. Characteristic of Roman architectural design was the construction of complex forms of domes to suit multilobed (multilevel) ground plans. The mastery by Roman architects and engineers of the arch, vault and dome - further enhanced by their development of concrete - helped them to solve the first problem of monumental architecture, which is to bridge space.
- 58. Roofing a great area means carrying heavy materials across spaces impossible to span with the Greeks' simple post-and-lintel system. In the arch, and the vault that grew out of it, the Romans had a means of thrusting the massive Colosseum walls story above story, of covering a luxurious bathing hall that could accommodate three thousand persons, and of creating the majestic form of the Pantheon.
- 59. Building Materials The earliest buildings built in and around Rome were made of tuff, a type of volcanic rock of varying hardness, which could be worked mostly with bronze tools. Later, harder stones were used, like peperino and local albani stone from the Alban hills. During the empire, the most common stone used for building was travertine, a form of limestone quarried in Tivoli, as used on the exterior of the Colosseum in Rome.
- 60. Marble was used only for facing or decoration, or sometimes in mosaics. Colored marbles and stones like alabaster, porphyry and granite, were also popular, as exemplified by the remains of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. The majority of domestic homes were made with a variety of unburned bricks faced with stucco.
- 61. Urban Planning, Houses, Residential Architecture The city of Ancient Rome - at its height, a huge metropolis of almost one million people - consisted of a maze of narrow streets. After the fire of 64 CE, Emperor Nero announced a rational rebuilding program, with little success: the city's architecture remained chaotic and unplanned. Outside Rome, however, architects and urban planners were able to achieve a lot more.
- 62. Towns were developed using grid-plans originally drawn up for military settlements. Typical features included two wide axis streets: a north-south street, known as the cardo, and a complementary east-west street called the decumanus, with the town centre located at their intersection. Most Roman towns had a forum, temples and theatres, plus public baths, but ordinary houses were often simple mud-brick dwellings.
- 63. In very simple terms, there were two basic types of Roman house: the domus and the insula. The domus, exemplified by those discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum, usually comprised a collection of rooms set around a central hall, or atrium. Few windows overlooked the street, light coming instead from the atrium. In Rome itself, however, very few remains of this type of house have survived. One example is the House of the Vestals in the Forum and the House of Livia on the Palatine Hill.
- 64. In Roman architecture, an insula (Latin for "island", plural insulae) was one of two things: either a kind of apartment building, or a city block. An insula housed most of the urban citizen population of ancient Rome, including ordinary people of lower- or middle-class status (the plebs) and all but the wealthiest from the upper-middle class (the equites). The term was also used to mean a city block. The traditional elite and the very wealthy lived in a domus, a large single-family residence, but the two kinds of housing were intermingled in the city and not segregated into separate neighborhoods. The ground-level floor of the insula was used for shops and businesses, with the living space upstairs. Like modern apartment buildings, an insula might have a name, usually referring to the owner of the building.
- 65. In general, only wealthy citizens could afford houses with courtyards, roofed atria, underfloor heating or gardens. Even then, space constraints in many provincial towns meant that even well to-do houses were relatively compact. Rich cities were the exception.
- 66. The Judean port of Caesarea (25-13 BCE), extended by Herod the Great to please his boss Augustus Caesar, and home of Pontius Pilate, the regional Roman Prefect, posessed a spacious network of gridded streets, a hippodrome, public baths, palaces and an aqueduct. The wealthy Italian port of Ostia, had brick-built apartment blocks (called insulae, after insula the Italian for building) rising five floors high.
- 67. Public Baths Probably the most popular Roman buildings among all classes of citizens were the public baths (balneae or thermae) (akin to Turkish steam baths) which by the end of the republic, were a recognized feature of Roman life. The term Balneae usually referred to smaller scale baths, while Thermae described larger, wealthier establishments. It was in the late Imperial thermae, like the Baths of Caracalla, that the spirit of luxurious grandeur in Roman architecture was best expressed. The best of them were regular social meeting places of the upper classes, and were lavished with the most stupendous engineering creativity and the most vulgarly elaborate architectural decoration.
- 68. Not only was an incredible number of pools, gymnasia, anointing rooms, and lounging halls to be roofed over, but lecture and studio rooms had to be included in the interior, and a stadium was to adjoin it. It is said that one thousand bath buildings existed in imperial Rome, ranging from the simplest to the immense establishments known by the names of the emperors who built them, Nero, Trajan, Diocletian, and the like. There are sufficient remains of the Baths of Caracalla to impress the observer today with the daring of Roman engineers in roofing the necessary spaces and buttressing the supporting arches. There are traces of the marble sculpture as well as pavements and mosaics, and contemporary descriptions that aid in building up a picture of magnificent decorations and furnishings.
- 69. Theatres The theatres of Rome itself were usually temporary erections, but often were adorned with almost incredibly rich displays of sculpture and architectural accessories, if one may believe eyewitness reports. Some surviving provincial examples indicate, indeed, that the architecture was thought of as part of the spectacle. One Latin description mentions a stage wall with 360 columns, 3000 statues, and other "special" adornments.
- 70. Triumphal Arches The commemorative arches, or arches of triumph, were a sort of ceremonial architecture invented by the Romans in their passion for the show of power, to commemorate an important event or military campaign. They merit hardly more attention than any other ornamental and advertising monument, though there is considerable symmetry and academic competence in the compositions. Typically erected away from the main access road, they were typically decorated with relief sculpture illustrating the events to be commemorated. The most famous example is the Arch of Titus, celebrating the capture of Jerusalem, and the Arch of Constantine (c.315), celebrating Constantine's victory over Maxentius at Milvian Bridge. Famous triumphal arches erected in the Italian provinces included those of Tiberius at Orange, of Augustus at Susa, of Trajan at Benevento and Ancona, and Caracalla at Tebessa.
- 71. Temple of Baalbek One of the major attraction and a remarkable archaeological site in present day Lebanon, Baalbeck is placed among some of the most spectacular wonders of the ancient world. It also happens to be one of the largest, prestigious and well preserved Roman temples built in the ancient Roman era.
- 72. The first of the Baalbek temples were constructed in 1st century BC and in the subsequent 200 years, the Romans built three different temples – each dedicated to the god of Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus respectively. The largest temple among them was the temple of Jupiter, which had 54 titanic granite columns lined up – each giant column was around 70 feet tall. Although only six of those columns survive today, the sheer scale of their massiveness gives ample of reflection to the grandeur of Baalbek temples. After the fall of Roman civilization, the Baalbek temples suffered from numerous thefts, war and natural calamities. But fortunately, it is still able to reflect its majestic aura to this day, with thousands of visitors visiting the famous Baalbek temples every year
- 73. Library of Celsus Named after the famous former governor of the City of Ephesus, the Library of Celsus was actually a monumental tomb dedicated to Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus. This amazing piece of Roman architecture was constructed under the orders of Celsus’s son Galius Julius Aquila. It was also a popular repository (storage area) for important documents and at the height of its use, the library of Celsus housed over 12,000 different scrolls.
- 74. It had beautifully carved interiors and equally mesmerizing architectural designs on the exterior – making it one of the most impressive buildings in ancient Roman Empire. The architecture of the library is typically reminiscent of the building style that was much popular during the rule of Emperor Hadrian. The entire structure is supported by nine-stepped podium which is 21 meters long. The surviving facade of the building retains its amazing decorations and relief carvings that simply add to the grandeur of the structure.
- 75. Pont du Gard Pont du Gard or the bridge of the Gard (a literal translation) is one of the surviving aqueducts constructed by the Roman Empire. Located in present day southern France, it was built somewhere in the middle of first century AD.
- 76. This aqueduct was constructed without use of any mortar – the Roman engineers built this three storey masterpiece by fitting together massive blocks of precisely cut stones. These huge blocks of stones weighed up to 6 ton, and the bridge itself measured up to 360 meters at its highest point. Pont du Gard was a pivotal structure in an aqueduct that stretched over 50 kilometers in length. The success of this engineering marvel was essential to make the entire aqueduct functional which supplied water to the city of Nimes. In the end, the Roman engineers pulled off an outstanding achievement in contemporary engineering and hydraulics. Pont du Gard was used as a conventional bridge all along the middle ages right up to the 18th century.