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Is it

Or is it

GREEK

ROMAN ?

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GREEK ROMANPreferred Structure: Temples to Glorify Gods Civic Buildings to honor

Empire

Walls: Made of cut stone blocks Concrete with Ornamental facing

Trademark Forms: Rectangles, Straight Lines Circles, Curved Lines

Support System: Post and Lintel Rounded Arch

Column Style: Doric & Ionic Corinthian

Sculpture: Idealized Gods & Goddesses

Realistic (Verism) humans, idealized officials

Painting: Stylized figures floating in Space

Realistic images with perspective

Subject of Art: Mythology Civic Leaders, military triumphs

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Temple of Athena NikeClassical Greek

Temple of PortunusRome, Italy - ca. 75 BC

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PARTHENONGreek

PANTHEONRome

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Polykleitos, Doryphoros,High Classical Greek

Augustus Primaporta,Pax Romana (Roman)

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Athena and Alcyoneus frieze from the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, c.180 BCE.

HELLENISTIC GREEK

Spoils from the Temple of Solomon, Jerusalem.Relief on the Arch of Titus

EARLY EMPIRE ROME

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Etruscan Supremacy: 700-509 BCEProvided link between Greek and Roman ArtKEYWORDS: TERRA-COTTA, COMPOSITE ORDER

Roman Republican Period: 509-27 BCE Begins with overthrowing last Etruscan King and ends with Julius Caesar… Major buildings built more for POLITCAL use than for WORSHIPKEYWORDS: TEMPLES, ARA PACIS, HOMAGE TO RULERS

Early Empire Period: 27 BCE-180 CE KEYWORDS: WALL PAINTINGS, CONCRETE, ARCH, COLOSSEUM

The High Empire: 180-195 CE Five Good Emperors (Trajan, Hadrian, etc.) kept things prosperous and peaceful.KEYWORDS: COLUMN OF TRAJAN, HADRIAN’S WALL, PANTHEON

The Late Empire: 195-400 CEDiocletian had Empire divided into four parts.KEYWORDS: TETRARCHY, ARCH OF CONSTANTINE

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The Roman Architectural Revolution

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Republic Rome Temple of PortunusRome, Italy - ca. 75 BC EARLY REPUBLIC ROMAN

A superb example of Roman eclecticism is the Temple of Portunus, the Roman god of harbors.

Follows the Etruscan pattern:

•High podium is accessible only at the front, with its wide flight of steps.•Freestanding columns are confined to the deep porch. •The structure is built of stone overlaid originally with stucco in imitation of the white marble temples of the Greeks.

•The columns are Ionic, complete with flutes and bases. •In an effort to approximate a peripteral Greek temple - while maintaining the Etruscan plan - the architect added a series of engaged Ionic half-columns around the cella’s sides and back.

•The result was a pseudoperipteral temple.

Model of a typical Etruscan Temple 6th Century BC

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Temple of “the Sibyl” or of “Vesta”Tivoli, Italy - early first century BC

The Romans’ admiration for the Greek temples they encountered in their conquests also led to the importation of the round, or tholos, temple type.

The travertine columns are Corinthian

In contrast with Greek practice, the cell wall was constructed not of masonry blocks but of a new invention: concrete.

Republic Rome

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Aulus Metellus Late 2nd - early 1st century BC

Artists of the Republican Period sought to create very realistic images of their rulers. Dressed in the traditional draped toga, Aulus Metellus poses with authority and persuasiveness.

Republic Rome

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Funerary Relief with Portraits of the GessiiRome (?), Italy - ca. 30 BC

The surviving sculptural portraits of prominent Roman Republican figures are uniformly literal reproductions of individual faces. Although their style derives to some degree from Hellenistic and Etruscan portraits, Republican portraits are one way the patrician class celebrated its elevated status. Slaves and former slaves could not possess such portraits, because, under Roman law, they were not people but property. Yet when freed slaves died, they often ordered portraits for their tombs - in a style that contrasts sharply with that favored by freeborn patricians. This image depicts former slaves who have gained their freedom and right to have their portraits created.

Republic Rome

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Head of a Roman patrician, from Otricoli, Italy, ca 75-50 B.C.

Republican patrician portraits :

Mostly men of advanced age (generally these elders held the power in the state)

One of the most striking of these so-called veristic (superrealistic) portraits is of an unidentified patrician.

We are able to see this man’s personality: serious, experienced, determined- virtues that were admired during the Republic.

Kresilas, PericlesClassical Greece

Republic Rome

16Augustus of Primaporta,Early 1st Century BCE EARLY EMPIRE ROMAN

Octavian Caesar (the great-nephew and adopted ‘son’ of Julius Caesar) became the first Roman Emperor in 44BC. By 27 BC, the Senate conferred him the title ‘Augustus’ (meaning ‘exalted’ or ‘sacred’).

For the next 41 years, Augustus Caesar led the empire thru a period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace.

The inclusion of Venus’ son, Cupid, is a reminder of Augustus’ divine descent (related to Goddess Venus).

Furthermore, this depicts the return of Roman military standards by the Parthians. The marble statue was originally painted.

Imperial Rome

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The Ara Pacis (or ‘Altar of Augustan Peace’) was a monument dedicated in 9 BC to commemorate Augustus; return to Rome after establishing Roman rule in Gaul.

Included on this monument was the Imperial Procession – a relief showing the family members and other who attended the dedication. (This is much different than the ‘Procession of the Gods’ frieze located on the Parthenon in Athens.)

Ara Pacis, 13-9 BCE.

EARLY EMPIRE ROMAN.

Imperial Rome

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Augustus Caesar was elevated to Divine Status after his death (as memorialized with the Ara Pacis)… Here is an onyx cameo of the ‘crowning’ of Augustus as Jupiter – King of the Gods. His adopted son, Tiberius, holds a lance and steps out of the chariot on the left, ready to be the next Emperor.

This piece combines:• The idealized heroicism of Classical Greek Art• The dramatic action of Hellenistic Art• The Roman realism and depiction of historical events Gemma Augustea, Onyx

ca 1st Century AD, EARLY EMPIRE ROMAN

Imperial Rome

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Pompeii & theCities of Vesuvius

Aerial view of the amphitheater, Pompeii, Italy, ca 80 B.C.

The forum was an oasis in the heart of Pompeii - an open, airy plaza. Throughout the rest of the city, every square foot of land was developed. At the southern end of the town, immediately after the Roman colony was founded in 80 B.C., Pompeii’s new citizens erected a large amphitheater. It is the earliest such structure known and could seat some twenty thousand spectators. The word- amphitheater means “double theater”, and the Roman structures closely resemble two Greek theaters put together, although the Greeks never built amphitheaters. Greek theaters were placed on natural hillsides, but supporting an amphitheater’s continuous elliptical cavea required building an artificial mountain- and only concrete, unknown to the Greeks, was capable of such a job. Barrel vaults also form the tunnels leading to the stone seats of the arena.

Arena is Latin for “sand”, which soaked up the contestants’ blood. Instead of refined performances, the Amphitheater held mostly bloody gladiator combats.

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Brawl in the Pompeii amphitheaterPompeii, Italy, ca. A.D. 60-79

This painting that is found on the wall of a Pompeian house depicts an incident that occurred in the amphitheater in A.D. 59. A brawl broke out between the Pompeians and their neighbors, the Nucerians, during a contest between the two towns.

The fight left many wounded and led to a 10 year prohibition against such events.

The painting shows the cloth awning (velarium) that could be rolled down from the top of the cavea to shield spectators from either sun or rain. It also has the distinctive external double staircases that enabled large numbers of people to enter and exit the cavea in an orderly fashion.

Pompeii & theCities of Vesuvius

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The Roman House

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Atrium of the House of the VettiiPompeii, Italy, second century B.C., rebuilt A.D. 62-79

One of the best preserved houses at Pompeii, partially rebuilt and an obligatory stop on every tourist’s itinerary today, is the House of the Vettii, an old Pompeian house remodeled and repainted after the earthquake of A.D. 62

The photograph was taken in the fauces. It shows the impluvium in the center of the atrium, the opening in the roof above, and in the background, the peristyle garden with its marble tables and mural paintings.

The house was owned by two brothers, Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva, probably freedmen who had made their fortune as merchants. Their wealth enabled them to purchase and furnished houses that would have been owned only by patricians.

Pompeii & theCities of Vesuvius

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Dionysiac mystery friezePompeii, Italy, ca. 60-50 B.C.

Pompeii & theCities of Vesuvius

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Dionysiac mystery friezePompeii, Italy, ca. 60-50 B.C.

Especially striking is how some of the figures interact across the corners of the room. Nothing comparable to this existed in Hellenistic Greece. Despite the presence of Dionysos, satyrs, and other figures from Greek mythology, this is a Roman design.

Pompeii & theCities of Vesuvius

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Early Empire

General view of wall paintings from Cubiculum M of the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor

Boscoreale, Italy, decorated ca. 50-40 B.C.

In the early Second Style Dionysiac mystery frieze, the spatial illusionism is confined to the painted platform that projects into the room. This cubiculum is a prime example of mature Second Style designs in which painters created a 3-D setting that also extends beyond the wall.

All around the room the painter opened up the walls with vistas of Italian towns and sacred sanctuaries. Painted doors and gates invite the viewer to walk through the wall into the created world. Their attempt at perspective was intuitive and it not conform to the “rules” of linear perspective that would later be discovered by the Renaissance masters.

Although this painter was inconsistent in applying it, he demonstrated a interest in, but lacking knowledge of linear [single vanishing-point] perspective. It was most successfully employed in the far corners, where a low gate leads to a peristyle framing a tholos temple [see detail on next slide].

Intuitive perspective was a favored tool of Second Style painters seeking to transform the usually windowless walls of Roman houses into “picture-window” vistas that expanded the apparent space of the rooms.

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Early Empire

Detail of tholos from Cubiculum M of the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor

Boscoreale, Italy, ca. 50-40 B.C.

Illusionism:

The Second Style is, in most respects, the antithesis of the First Style. Some scholars have argued that the Second Style also has precedents in Greece, but most believe it is a Roman invention.

The Second Style evolved in Italy around 80 B.C. and was popular until around 15 B.C., when the Third Style was introduced.

Second Style painters aimed not to create the illusion of an elegant marble wall, as First Style painters sought to do. Rather, they wanted to dissolve a room’s confining walls and replace them with the illusion of an imaginary three-dimensional world, which they did only pictorially.

The First Style’s modeled stucco panels gave way to the Second Style’s flat wall surfaces.

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Republican Era /Early EmpireGardenscape - Villa of Livia

Primaporta, Italyca. 30-20 B.C.

Second Style picture-window wall

Second Style painters favored linear perspective seeking to transform usually windowless walls of Roman houses into “picture-windows” vistas that expanded the apparent space of the rooms.

Recession is suggested by atmospheric perspective, which creates the illusion of distance by the greater reduction of color intensity, the shift of color toward an almost neutral blue, and the blurring of contours as the intended distance between eye and object increases.

- The flimsy fence is the only architectural element- The wall seems to frame the landscape- The fence, trees, and birds in the foreground are precisely painted, while the details of the dense foliage in the background are indistinct.

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4th style, Rome, Italy4th style wall painting in room 78 of the

Domus Aurea (“golden house”) of Nero 64-48 A.D.

In the Fourth Style the obsession with illusions returned once again.

This style became popular around the time of the Pompein earthquake

In the Golden House of Nero, where this mural is located, all the walls are a creamy white with landscapes and other motifs painted directly on the white walls.

The paintings that are on the walls are “irrational fantasies” They depict fragments of buildings, columns supporting half pediments, double story columns supporting nothing at all.

Architecture became just another motif in the artist’s design.

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Herculanium, ItalyNeptune and Amphitrite wall mosaic

62-79 A.D.

The house of Neptune and Amphitrite takes its name from this mosaic. Shown here are Neptune, sea god, and his wife Amphitrite set into an elaborate niche.

They preside over the running water of the fountain in the courtyard in front of them.

Mosaics were usually confined to floors in the ancient world. In the Roman times, however, mosaics were used to decorate walls and even ceilings. This foreshadowed the extensive use of mosics in the Middle Ages.

The subject chosen for Roman mosaics were diverse although mythological themes were immensily popular.

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Pompeii and the Cities of VesuviusPortrait of a husband and wife;

Pompeii,Italy AD 70-79

Originally formed part of a Fourth Style wall of an exedra, recessed area on the opening of the atrium of a Pompeian house.

Standard attributes of Roman marriage portraits are displayed here with the man holding a scroll and the woman holding a stylus and a wax writing tablet. These portraits suggested high education even if it wasn’t true of the subjects.

The heads are individualized to the subject’s features, not simply standard types.

This is the equivalent of modern wedding photographs.

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Pompeii and the Cities of Vesuvius Still life with peaches, detail from a wall painting; Heraculaneum, Italy; AD 62-79

Roman painters’ interest in the likeness of individual people was matched by their concern for recording the appearance of everyday objects.

This still life demonstrates that Roman painters sought to create illusionistic effects while depicting small objects. Here they used light and shade with attention to shadows and highlights.

The illusion created here is the furthest advance by ancient painters in representational technique. It appears that this artist understood that the look of things is a function of light. Also, the goal was to paint light as one would strive to paint the touchable object that reflects and absorbs it. This illusion of light marks the furthest

advance by ancient painters in representational technique; it would not be seen again until the Dutch in the 1700’s.

Still Life, Dutchca. 1700

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Augustus Rome's first emperor. He also added many territories to the empire.

Claudius He conquered Britain.

NeroHe was insane. He murdered his mother and his wife and threw thousands of Christians to the lions.

TitusBefore he was emperor he destroyed the great Jewish temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

TrajanHe was a great conqueror. Under his rule the empire reached its greatest extent.

HadrianHe built 'Hadrian's Wall' in the north of Britain to shield the province from the northern barbarians.

Diocletian He split the empire into two pieces - a western and an eastern empire.

ConstantineHe was the first Christian emperor. He united the empire again chose his capital to be the small town Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople.

Romulus AugustusHe was the last emperor of Rome, nicknamed Augustulus which means 'little Augustus'.

JustinianHe was the last 'great' emperor. He conquered many territories, created the 'Justinian Code' and built the fantastic church Santa Sophia.

Constantine XIThe last emperor of Constantinople. He died defending his great city against the Turks.