Chapter 6
The Etruscans
Sailors settled in the area of modern day italy
Rich soil and metals found in the hills of Etruria, traded with Greeks
Etruscan temples, wood and mud brick
Raised podium, pseudoperipteral (engaged columns)
Variants of Greek orders
Figural sculpture and painting, realism, lively, reach out into neg. space
Tombs, resemble famuly homes, “Necropolis” (city of the dead)
Excavated from tufa bedrock, partially or completey underground
The Romans
Originally small agricultural twn dominated by the Etruscans
Heroic mytholigical origins, Romulus and Remus
children of Mars (God of War) abandoned at birth
Assimilated Greek religion and culture, adopted religions of conquered
The Republic 509-27 BCE
Democratic form of government, Senate
Portrait sculpture
“Verism” (realism), belief in afterlife (underworld)
Structural systems of arch, barrel vault, sequence of barrel vaults
Cement and contcrete, Ashlar masonry
Roman temples
Smaller, pseudoperipteral, raised podium, columns of single piece
Variants on Greek orders, Roman composite order (Corinthian/Ionic
Engaged columns, smaller architraves
Early Empire 27 BCE-96 CE
Urban culture (spread city building), highways, infrastructure, aqueducts
Augustus, territorial expansion through conquest
Scultpture
Idealizing, propoganda, Etruscan influence
Roman houses
Atrium house, turned inward to open courtyard, atrium
Atrium, peristyle garden, cubiculum, imluvium, compluvium
Fresco wall painting
1st style flat illusion of marble encrustation
2nd style 3-d illusion, chiaroscuro
3rd style ornamental
4th style compendium of all three “all the way”
Illusionism, reflection, cast shadow, approximate perspective,
Aerial perspective
Flavian Amphitheater, drum, tiered seating, velerium
Concrete and Ashlar masonry, ascending orders
Flavian sculpture
Blends idealsizing and realism
Forum of Trajan
Basilica, equesrian monument, column of Trajan
“de-naturing” of classicism, mass productionof art
Hadrian
“Grecophile”, architect, Spaniard one of the “good emperors”
Pantheon
Combines tholos and temple front, designed by Hadrian
Largest unsuppoeted interior space of antiquity (145’ diameter)
Concrete dome, coffered dome, oculus, piers
Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
Lost wax casting, 11”6” high, gilded bronze
Floor mosaics
Illusion, cast shadow, chiaroscuro, tessarae (chips of stone)
Unswept floor mosaics
The Late Empire 3rd and 4th centuries CE
Caracalla
African emperor
Baths of Caracalla, caldarium, tepidarium, frigidarium, gymnasium
Tetrarchs, power shared between two emperors and two “spares”
Denaturing (loss) of classicism
Large eyes, squat (short) proportions, no contrapostto
Arch of Constantine
Recycled parts of other monuments, loss of classicism
Basilica Nova (AKA Basilica of Maxentius and Constantinse)
Sequence of barrel vaults, buttressing