ART HISTORY

(ANCIENT ROMAN ART)

Asst. Prof. Crisencio M. Paner, LPT, MSc.
 Ancient Roman Art
◦ Ancient Roman art is a very broad topic, spanning almost 1,000
years and three continents, from Europe into Africa and Asia.
◦ The first Roman art can be dated back to 509 B.C.E., with the
legendary founding of the Roman Republic, and lasted until 330
C.E. (or much longer, if you include Byzantine art).
◦ The art of Ancient Rome, its Republic and
later empire includes architecture, painting, sculpture and
mosaic work.
◦ Sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by
Romans, but figure painting was also highly regarded.

Augustus of Prima Porta, statue of the

emperor Augustus, 1st century
AD, Vatican Museums
 Ancient Roman Art
◦ Ancient Roman pottery was not a luxury product, but a vast
production of "fine wares" in terra sigillata were decorated with
reliefs that reflected the latest taste, and provided a large group in
society with stylish objects at what was evidently an affordable
price.
◦ Roman coins were an important means of propaganda, and have
survived in enormous numbers.
◦ Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings,
and glass are sometimes considered to be minor forms of Roman
art. Roman red gloss terra sigillata bowl
with relief decoration.
 Ancient Roman Art
(Painting)
◦ Of the vast body of Roman painting we now have only a very few
pockets of survivals.
◦ The best 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 decorated their walls in
the century or so before the fatal eruption of Mount Vesuvius in
79 AD.
◦ Roman painting provides a wide variety of themes: animals, still
life, scenes from everyday life, portraits, and some mythological
subjects

Heracles and Omphale, Roman

fresco Pompeian Fourth Style (45-
79 AD), Naples National Archaeological
Museum, Italy
 Ancient Roman Art
(Painting)

Fresco from the Villa of the A Roman fresco depicting Amphion and Female painter sitting on a campstool and
Mysteries. Pompeii, 80 BC Zethus subject Dirce to the bull (from painting a statue of Dionysus or Priapus onto a
the House of the Vettii, Pompeii) panel which is held by a boy. Fresco
from Pompeii, 1st century
 Ancient Roman Art
(Painting)
◦ Roman still life subjects are often placed in illusionist niches or
shelves and depict a variety of everyday objects including fruit, live
and dead animals, seafood, and shells.
◦ Examples of the theme of the glass jar filled with water were
skillfully painted and later served as models for the same subject
often painted during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
◦ The portraits were attached to burial mummies at the face, from
which almost all have now been detached.
◦ They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head
and upper chest, viewed frontally.
◦ The background is always monochrome, sometimes with
decorative elements

Fayum mummy portrait of a woman

from Roman Egypt with a ringlet
hairstyle. Royal Museum of Scotland.
 Ancient Roman Art
(Painting)
◦ Gold glass, or gold sandwich glass, was a
technique for fixing a layer of gold leaf with a
design between two fused layers of glass,
developed in Hellenistic glass and revived in the
3rd century AD.

Detail of the gold glass medallion in Brescia (Museo di

Santa Giulia), most likely Alexandrian, 3rd century AD
 Ancient Roman Art
(Painting)

Roman fresco with a banquet scene from the Casa dei

Roman fresco from the Villa Boscoreale, Casti Amanti, Pompeii
43–30 BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art
 Ancient Roman Art
(Sculpture)
◦ Roman sculpture may be divided into four main categories: historical reliefs; portrait
busts and statues, including equestrian statues; funerary reliefs, sarcophagi or tomb
sculpture; and copies of ancient Greek works.
◦ Like architecture, a good deal of Roman sculpture was created to serve a purpose:
namely, to impress the public - be they Roman citizens or 'barbarians' - and
communicate the power and majesty of Rome.
◦ In its important works, at least, there was a constant expression of seriousness, with
none of the Greek conceptualism or introspection.
◦ The mood, pose and facial features of the Roman statue of an Emperor, for instance, was
typically solemn and unsmiling.

Detail from the Ahenobarbus relief showing

two Roman soldiers, c. 122 BC
 Ancient Roman Art
(Sculpture)

Section of Trajan's Column, 113 AD, with scenes from Arch of Constantine, 315: Hadrian lion-hunting (left) and
the Dacian Wars sacrificing (right), above a section of the Constantinian
frieze, showing the contrast of styles.
 Ancient Roman Art
(Sculpture)

The "Capitoline Brutus", dated to Augustus of Prima Porta, statue of The Four Tetrarchs, c. 305, showing the
the 4th to 3rd centuries BC the emperor Augustus, 1st century new anti-classical style, in porphyry,
AD, Vatican Museums now San Marco, Venice
 Ancient Roman Art
(pottery,terracottas,glass, & mosaic)
◦ Roman art did not use vase-painting in the way of the ancient Greeks, but vessels in Ancient Roman
pottery were often stylishly decorated in moulded relief.

Various Roman
glasswares on display at
The Blacas Cameo of the Metropolitan Museum of
Augustus, from his last Art
years or soon after
 Ancient Roman Art
(mosaic)

Roman mosaic of female athletes playing ball at the Villa

Roman mosaic of a gypsy girl, 2nd century CE?,
Romana del Casale of Piazza Armerina, Roman Sicily,
Gaziantep Zeugma, Turkey.
4th century AD
 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
◦ It was in the area of architecture that Roman art
produced its greatest innovations. Because the
Roman Empire extended over so great of an area
and included so many urbanized areas,
◦ Roman engineers developed methods for city
building on a grand scale, including the use
of concrete.
◦ The concrete core was covered with a plaster, brick,
stone, or marble veneer, and decorative polychrome
and gold-gilded sculpture was often added to
produce a dazzling effect of power and wealth.

Aqueduct of Segovia.
 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
◦ It was during the age of Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE)
and Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) that Rome
reached the zenith of its architectural glory, attained
through numerous building programs of monuments,
baths, aqueducts, palaces, temples and mausoleums.
◦ Many of the buildings from this era and later, served
as models for architects of the Italian Renaissance,
such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) designer of
the iconic dome of the cathedral in Florence, and Dating back to Etruscan times, this was the
both Donato Bramante (1444-1514) main Roman chariot racing venue in Rome,
and Michelangelo (1475-1564), designers of St Peter's Italy. Measuring roughly 2,000 feet in length
Basilica. (610 metres) and 400 feet in width (120
metres), it was rebuilt in the age of Julius
Caesar to seat an estimated 150,000
spectators, and again during the reign of
Constantine to seat about 250,000. It is now
a park.
Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)

Circus Maximus today

 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
◦ Colosseum (72-80 CE).
◦ Built in the center of Rome by Vespasian to
appease the masses, this elliptical
amphitheater was named after a colossal
statue of Nero that stood nearby.
◦ Built to seat some 50,000 spectators, its
intricate design, along with its model system
of tiered seating and spacious passageways,
makes it one of the greatest works of Roman
architecture.
 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
◦ The Arch of Titus (c.81 CE)
◦ The oldest surviving Roman triumphal arch,
it was built after the young Emperor's death
to celebrate his suppression of the Jewish
uprising in Judea, in 70 CE.
◦ Standing on the Via Sacra, south-east of
the Roman Forum, the Arch of Titus was the
model for Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe in
Paris (1806-36).

The Arch of Titus

 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
◦ Pantheon (c.125 CE)
◦ Built by Marcus Agrippa as a temple dedicated
to the seven gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt
by Hadrian in 126 CE, the Pantheon is a daring
early instance of concrete construction.
◦ The interior space is based on a perfect
sphere, and its coffered ceiling remains the
largest non-reinforced concrete dome in the
world.
◦ In the middle of its dome an oculus lets in a
beam of light.
Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)

Pantheon, Rome, Italy

 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
◦ The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch in Rome
dedicated to the emperor Constantine the Great.
◦ The arch was commissioned by the Roman Senate
to commemorate Constantine's victory over
Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312.

The Arch of Constantine, Rome, Italy.

Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)

St. Peter square, Vatican

Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)
Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)

Gates of Paradise, Ghiberti, Statue of David by

St. John Baptistry, Florence, Michelangelo, Florence, Italy
Italy
 Ancient Roman Art
(Architecture)

My school, Istituto per Il Restauri, Rome My Italian Professors

Videos
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKKMCcaoUkc&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=19
◦ Rome: Ancient Glory
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XxA4CX_Ip8&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=20
◦ What Did Ancient Rome Look Like? (Cinematic Animation)
◦ https://www.artic.edu/highlights/19/ancient-roman-art
◦ Ancient Roman Art
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6wnyjCmOHk
◦ Roman Art
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM2D7iJHWXQ
◦ Roman Art History from Goodbye-Art Academy
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXoEpNjgKzg
◦ Ancient Rome 101 | National Geographic
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ZXl-V4qwY
◦ Ancient Rome in 20 minutes
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ2NWXp-1Y4&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=6
◦ Virtual Rome: What Did Ancient Rome Look Like?+
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW8ED1Y_Emc
◦ Ancient Treasures of the Vatican Museums+
◦ https://cmpaner.blogspot.com/2010/07/witnessing-glory-of-italy-in-its-art_07.html
◦ My article written when I was in Rome, Italy+
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xfBU-dy2dM
◦ Ancient Roman Fresco Painting
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELYoWlozNcc
◦ Roman wall paintings styles
Videos
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA-m0IjYPn4&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=5
◦ What If You Lived in Ancient Rome?
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3FFDPdLVNw&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=10
◦ The Roman Empire Explained in 12 Minutes
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoi7KzsAUuw&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=15
◦ What Being a Spectator at the Rome Colosseum Was Like
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJz15Y6hKMM&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=16
◦ The Fall of Rome Explained In 13 Minutes
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXA0bok9-E&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=18
◦ How was Rome founded? - History of the Roman Empire - Part 1
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEqs69GESto&list=RDLV46ZXl-V4qwY&index=21
◦ What Normal Life Was Like In Ancient Rome | Meet The Romans | Timeline
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOmB3QohaPA
◦ Pompeiian Sexuality | National Geographic