Art

 Roman Art    The Romans were known for their massive empire, brutal gladiators, and brilliant commanders, but the artistic side of  Rome   was also impressive.   History  Roman art began as developments in Etruscan art, and early developments greatly resemble the Etruscan style because of their previous influence in Italy    [1]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Beginning in 500 BCE, however, Roman art began to gain a style of its own  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[4]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, and this style was changed again in 200 BCE when the Romans conquered  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Greece  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[5]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Romans appreciated the Greeks’ Hellenistic style of art, and greatly imitated it; the Romans even captured conquered Greek sculptors as slaves  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[4]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">From the time of  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Greece  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">’s conquering to about 200 CE, Roman style continued to imitate Hellenistic style. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">By the third century CE, depictions of battles became more common, with gore and pain prominent  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[1][6]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The spread of Christianity, however, gave artists reason to focus on the soul. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">This focus led to more emphasis on the eyes in portraiture, and less attention to detail in terms of proportion  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[5]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">By the time of the fall of the  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Roman Empire  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, this was the style; unreal bodies and proportions, with the head and face as the main focus, often with religious themes  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[5]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Girl With Dove [2] displays the Roman style of unrealistic proportions and emphasis on the soul.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Styles and Mediums <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">As stated before, Roman art was influenced by styles of previous cultures, and the cultures of the conquered people. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">This diversity led to the creation of a blend of styles into a form that was distinctly Roman. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Portraiture <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Roman portraits were shown in sculpture, frescoes, and mosaics. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">These were heavily influenced by Hellenistic styles. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Hellenistic art, though, exaggerated features of people to make them seem more beautiful, while an aspect of Roman culture kept them from doing this  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[4]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">A common Roman belief was that unless an artist reproduced the actual likeness of a person in depictions of him, his ghost would haunt the artist  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[1]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">For this reason, portraiture was common in all forms of Roman art throughout its history, and maintained realism as a prominent theme until the Roman adoption of Christianity, after which proportions in the body were less of a priority to the artists. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Effort and detail were spent on the face, especially the eyes, and people were often shown looking up at heaven  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[5]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Frescoes <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Decorating the walls of <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Rome  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">’s buildings was a unique style of decoration called frescoes. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Frescoes, still created today, are a form of mural painted on layers of wet plaster for durability and staying power  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[5]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Frescoes showed <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mosaics <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mosaics also covered Roman walls. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Made out of tessellating pieces of tile, these mosaics depicted battles, leaders, everyday and religious scenes, portraits, and simply patterns  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[5]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">One of the most famous of these, dating from around 200 BCE, is  // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The Battle of Issus  // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, which shows Alexander the Great and his army facing the Persians  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[6]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">This, along with other Roman mosaics, is an early example of propaganda, and was used as such at the time. The Battle Of Issus Mosaic [3]. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Sculpture <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Roman sculpture was perhaps the empire’s most notable art form. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Both relief and physical sculpture were created by the Romans. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Relief is a form of sculpture in which images are engraved into stone, as exemplified most famously in the famous Column of Marcus Aurelius. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The column stands one hundred feet high and is covered in engravings of battle scenes from the campaigns of Marcus Aurelius  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[7]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Secondly, the Romans created physical sculpture, which was most often used for portraiture rather than the scenes commonly engraved in relief sculpture. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Realism is a defining characteristic of the Roman sculptures of people, in contrast to the Hellenistic tradition of exaggeration for the sake of beauty. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">These realistic recreations of actual people were often used in the people’s tombs and funerals, and prominent political and military figures had statues of themselves erected to commemorate victories as well, and were even used as forms of propaganda like the mosaics  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[8]  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">
 * 1)  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Carr, Karen. "Roman Art" Kidipede - History for Kids. 2007. December 2, 2008. http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/index.htm.
 * 2) http://www.georgeortiz.com/ROMAN/index.html <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> (images)
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/images/pompeii_art_alexander_great.jpg (images)
 * 4)  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">West, Shearer.    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The Bulfinch Guide to Art History. 1. Bullfinch Pr, 1996.
 * 5)  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"Roman Art."    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Ancient Empires    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">2 Dec 2008 <http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0210200/ancient_rome/rome.htm>.
 * 6)  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Wheele, Mortimer.    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Roman Art and Architecture. 3.  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">New York  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1968.
 * 7)  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Platner, Samuel.    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">    <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">A 1929 Topography of Ancient  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Rome  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">.  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">London  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">:  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Oxford  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">University  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Press, 1929.   <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">
 * 8) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Trentinella, Rosemarie. "Roman Portrait Sculpture: Republican through Constantinian ". In  // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History  // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">.  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">New York  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">: The  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Metropolitan  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Museum  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ropo/hd_ropo.html.  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">October 2003.