Cross-curricular themes between ART & CLASSICAL STUDIES
The Roman Art & Architecture course in Leaving Certificate Classics is based on
Mortimer Wheeler, Roman Art & Architecture, Thames & Hudson, London, 1964
The course may be broken down into 3 main categories
1. Fine Art: wall paintings, mosaics & sculpture
2. Public building: temples, basilicas, baths, aqueducts, theatres & amphitheatres
3. Town Planning
The main cross-over is with Fine Art studied in 5th Year.
Wall Painting
Key terms
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Buon fresco: the technique where pigment is painted into wet plaster
Trompe d’oeuil: trick of the eye painted imitation marble panels
Multi-point perspective: where objects in the foreground break the background into zones
of perspective
Spatial extension: the illusion of extra space in a room created by a painting
Art for Art’s sake: where a painting has no other function besides itself
Narrative: where the painting tells a story
Mundane scenes: the Roman artist was as interested in common place scenes as he was in
the lives of the rich
Romanticism: In the industrial centres like Pompeii and Herculaneum painters idolized the a
quaint, simple life in the country. Quaint people, doing quaint things in quaint places.
Sacro-idyllic landscape: paintings exhibit a reverence for the landscape (tied to Romanticism)
Impressionism: where artist focus on light and colour instead of form
Surrealism: beyond the real – a Roman fairyland
Baroque: a dynamic, overly self-confident and somewhat gaudy style of painting that shows
off wealth and splendour at the cost of taste and subtlety.
Mosaics
Key terms
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Opus tesslatum: a work of tesserae (a simple mosaic of geometric patterns)
Opus vermiculatum: a wormlike work (complicated mosaic) where tesserae are laid in wavy
patterns following the contours of figures in the scene
Grout: a puttylike cement used to bind tesserae together
Monochrome: black and white
Polychrome: multi-coloured
In situ: on site – mosaics executed on location
Emblemata: an insert panel created off-site in a mosaicist’s studio
Cross-curricular themes between ART & CLASSICAL STUDIES
Free-standing Sculpture
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Idealism: Greek statues were carved to imitate the gods – flawless, symmetrical, youthful,
beautiful
Realism: the Romans preferred men to look like mortals scars and all
Dignitas et gravitas: 2 Roman ideals at work in sculpture. Roman statues were dignified, not
savage and they were solemn and grave, neither emotional nor dead
Portrait: a work of art that represents an actual person or people
Relief Sculpture
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High relief: heavy carvings that stand far out from their backgrounds
Low relief: light carvings that seem to merge with their backgrounds
Pseudo-continuous style: like a comic strip of episodes from the same narrative
Anecdotal style: where juxtaposed scenes from a narrative are presented
Foreshortening: where a subject’s form is altered to facilitate perspective, e.g. an
outstretched arm is perceptibly shorter than one at a man’s side ... yet Roman relief
sculptors either hadn’t mastered perspective (unlikely given the achievements of wall
painting and mosaics) or deliberately sacrificed perspective for the sake of content
Pictograph: a scene that represents more than it seems
Apotheosis: to become a god e.g. Augustus Caesar
Art History themes and subjects touched on by Classical Roman Art & Architecture
Multipoint perspective & Spatial extension are manifest in the 2nd Pompeian Style (aka The
Architectural Style) c.80BC – c.20BC. Here walls are decorated with architectural elements: columns,
arches, architraves. These split the wall into zones of perspective, some of which were used for
pictorial art like the 2 still life scenes from the peristyle garden in the House of Julia Felix, Pompeii or
the Garden of Livia in the House of Livia in Prima Porta, near Rome. These scenes created the illusion
of extra space and made the dark claustrophobic rooms that they decorated seem bigger. They
offered a window onto another world, just out of reach but there. They also made rooms seem
brighter, cosier and more lavish.
Romanticism is at work in the 3rd Ornamental or Decorative Pompeian Style, c.20BC to the
earthquake of AD62. Pompeii was a thriving and sprawling Roman city in the Augustan Age (late 1st
century BC to early 1st century AD). Its chief industry was wool. Many of the Pompeian wall paintings
present us with a sacro-idyllic landscape where quaint people, do quaint things in quaint places.
Wheeler likens the Roman wall paintings to the paintings of 18th century English Romantics. I often
place Constable alongside a Pompeian romantic painting to illustrate the point.
Impressionism is at work in several paintings of the 3rd style. Wheeler himself likens the attention
given to colour and light in both the Garden of Livia (2nd Style) and Houses at Noon, Pompeii to the
work of Renoir and calls them masterpieces of Impressionism but several others can be easily
likened to Monet.
Cross-curricular themes between ART & CLASSICAL STUDIES
Mundane scenes are given close attention by the Impressionistic Roman artists and I often refer to
Manet and Degaz.
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