What the Romans knew
Piero Scaruffi 2004
• Art
1
Mosaics
Villa of the
Laberii, Oudna,
Tunisia,
early 3rd c. AD
(Bardo Museum)
Ercolano (79AD)
Ostia
Piazza
Armerina,
Sicily
(4th c AD)
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What the Romans knew
Mask of Phobos/ Fear
(Halikarnassus, 4th AD)
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Carthage, 4th AD
What the Romans knew
Mosaic in the House of Neptune
and Amphytrite
(Hercolaneum 79 AD)
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What the Romans knew
The oldest known "knotted" carpet discovered in 1949 by Russian
archaeologists Rudenko and Griaznov in the Pazyryk valley of the
Altai Mountains in Siberia
5
What the Romans knew
• Mythological art: imitation of Greek art
Lacoon of 1st c AD,
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Vatican Museums)
What the Romans knew
• Political art: celebrating Rome, not only deities
• Roman sculpture is realistic (wrinkles and old
age, not just the perfect lineaments of Greek
statues)
• Portrait sculpture becomes a commodity for the
aristocracy
• State sculptors strive to depict the heroic quality
of the state heroes
• Greece had given gods a human form, whereas
Rome gives humans a godlike appearance
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What the Romans knew
• Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (180 AD)
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What the Romans knew
• Statue of a woman (2nd c AD)
(Pza Signoria, Firenze)
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What the Romans knew
• Statues of legends(2nd c AD)
(Getty Villa)
Hercules
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Leda and the swan
What the Romans knew
• Chronicle sculpture
– Roman sculptors are historians: Trajan column of
113 (whose story is almost impossible to view
from the ground!): 2500 people in 150 episodes
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What the Romans knew
• Ara Pacis
children
12
What the Romans knew
• Wall painting
– First style (200BC-90BC)
• Painted panels that imitate masonry (esp
marble)
• Samnite House in Herculaneum (late 2nd c.
BC)
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What the Romans knew
• Wall painting
– Second style (85-15 BC), the "architectural style”
• Space extends beyond the room
• Illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat twodimensional surface
• Proto-perspective techniques
• "Gardenscape" of the Villa of Livia in Roma (2x
BC)
• "Mystery Cult”, Villa dei Misteri, Pompeii (5x BC)
• Villa of Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale
14
What the Romans knew
• Wall painting
– Third style (15 BC - 62 AD)
• Walls divided into smaller panels which support
framed paintings (mostly of landscapes)
• Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscotrecase (10 BC)
– Fourth style (62 AD - 79 AD)
• Resembling an art gallery
• Ixion Room, House of the Vetti, Pompeii (70-79
AD)
• Domus Aurea of Nero, Roma (64-68 AD)
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What the Romans knew
• “Second style” of wall painting (the "architectural
style”)
– Space extends beyond the room
– Illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat
two-dimensional surface
– Proto-perspective techniques
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Fresco of the
Rite of Isis (
Hercolaneum)
Wall painting in
the house of the
Vettii, (Pompeii)
Mural from "The
House of Venus
on the Shell"
(Pompeii)
Wall painting in the Casa
della Caccia Antica (Pompeii)
Roman Painting
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Villa dei Misteri, Pompeii
• Villa dei Misteri, Pompeii
• Boscoreale
Second Style
Boscoreale
(Metropolitan Museum, New York)
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Villa dei Vetti, Pompeii
• Villa dei Vetti, Pompeii
Fourth Style
19
What the Romans knew
Roman Wall Painting : the
Gardenscape from the Villa of
Livia, Prima Porta, 9x AD
Roman Portraits: Faiyum
portrait of a noblewoman
Goddess of Flowers (Museo
Archeologico, Napoli)
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What the Romans knew
• Dura Europos, Syria (3rd c AD)
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What the Romans knew
• Pictorial space
Orestes and Iphigenia in Tauris (4th c AD)
(Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Napoli)
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What the Romans knew
Sarcophagus of 312 AD with gospel scenes
(Metropolitan Museum)
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What the Romans knew
• Sex
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