The Roman sculpture developed in the area of influence of the ‘ Roman Empire, with its center in the city, between the sixth century BC and the fifth century AD Originally derived from the Greek sculpture, mainly through the mediation Etruscan, and then directly, through contact with the colonies of Magna Graecia and with Greece itself in the Hellenistic period. Rome, however, has its own indigenous and independent art and school even if it is part of the continuous relationships and traffic throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond.
The study of Roman sculpture is complicated by its relation to Greek sculpture. Many examples of even the most famous Greek sculptures, such as the Apollo Belvedere and Barberini Faun, are known only from Roman Imperial or Hellenistic “copies”. At one time, this imitation was taken by art historians as indicating a narrowness of the Roman artistic imagination, but, in the late 20th century, Roman art began to be reevaluated on its own terms: some impressions of the nature of Greek sculpture may in fact be based on Roman artistry.
Greek tradition continued to be a constant reference throughout the course of sculptural art in Rome, but contradicting an ancient and widespread opinion that the Romans were only mere copyists, it is now recognized that not only were they able to assimilate and develop their sources with skill, but also to make an original and important contribution to this tradition, visible especially in the portrait, a genre that enjoyed singular prestige and which left examples of great technical skill and high expressiveness, and in the decorative sculpture of the great public monuments, where a narrative style of great strength and typically Roman character developed.
The strengths of Roman sculpture are in portraiture, where they were less concerned with the ideal than the Greeks or Ancient Egyptians, and produced very characterful works, and in narrative relief scenes. Examples of Roman sculpture are abundantly preserved, in total contrast to Roman painting, which was very widely practiced but has almost all been lost. Latin and some Greek authors, particularly Pliny the Elder in Book 34 of his Natural History, describe statues, and a few of these descriptions match extant works. While a great deal of Roman sculpture, especially in stone, survives more or less intact, it is often damaged or fragmentary; life-size bronze statues are much more rare as most have been recycled for their metal.
Most statues were actually far more lifelike and often brightly colored when originally created; the raw stone surfaces found today is due to the pigment being lost over the centuries.
After the consolidation of the Roman Empire, other foreign influences, especially Eastern ones, brought about a progressive separation from the Greek canon towards a formal simplification of abstract tendency, which established the bases of Byzantine, early Christian and medieval art. This process, however, was interspersed with various periods of recovery of classicism, which in addition to strengthening the symbolic link with the past were useful for maintaining the cultural and political cohesion of the vast territory. Not even Christianizationof the empire could determine the exclusion of classical-pagan references from Roman sculpture, and until the fifth century, when political unity finally broke, classical models continued to be imitated, but adapted to the themes of the new social, political order and religious who had established himself.
As much as this synthesis tries to maintain itself in a more or less orderly chronology and tries to establish the specificity of each phase, the study of Roman sculpture has proved to be a challenge for researchers since its evolution is anything but logical and linear. Attempts to impose a formal development model as an organic system on the history of Roman sculpture are inaccurate and unrealistic. Despite the differences between scholars on many points, we now have a more or less clear idea about the general characteristics of each evolutionary stage, but the way in which these characteristics evolved and transformed from one stage to another has proven to be a very complex process that is still far from being well understood.eclecticism, even more pronounced than that observed during Hellenism, together with the presence of well differentiated styles in the sculpture produced in the same historical moment for the different social classes, and also within a single class, taking into account the needs of each theme and situation, make the matter even more intricate.
In addition to the great intrinsic merit of the Roman sculptural production, the generalized habit of copying older Greek works and the persistence of allusions to Greek classicism throughout its history, even through primitive Christianity, kept alive a tradition and an iconography that otherwise they could have been lost. Thus we owe to Rome a good part of our knowledge of the culture and art of ancient Greece, and in addition Roman sculpture – together with Greek sculpture – was of fundamental importance in the formulation of the aesthetics of the Renaissance and Neoclassicism, attesting to its vitality and meaning in modern times, as well as being considered today as one of the most important artistic bodies of Western culture, as evidenced by the immense amount of specialized studies of which it is the object and the charm it still exerts on the great public.
Overview
Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece and that of the neighbouring Etruscans, themselves greatly influenced by their Greek trading partners. An Etruscan speciality was near life size tomb effigies in terracotta, usually lying on top of a sarcophagus lid propped up on one elbow in the pose of a diner in that period. As the expanding Roman Republic began to conquer Greek territory, at first in Southern Italy and then the entire Hellenistic world except for the Parthian far east, official and patrician sculpture became largely an extension of the Hellenistic style, from which specifically Roman elements are hard to disentangle, especially as so much Greek sculpture survives only in copies of the Roman period. By the 2nd century BC, “most of the sculptors working in Rome” were Greek, often enslaved in conquests such as that of Corinth (146 BC), and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded. Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works.
A native Italian style can be seen in the tomb monuments of prosperous middle-class Romans, which very often featured portrait busts, and portraiture is arguably the main strength of Roman sculpture. There are no survivals from the tradition of masks of ancestors that were worn in processions at the funerals of the great families and otherwise displayed in the home, but many of the busts that survive must represent ancestral figures, perhaps from the large family tombs like the Tomb of the Scipios or the later mausolea outside the city.
The famous bronze head supposedly of Lucius Junius Brutus is very variously dated, but taken as a very rare survival of Italic style under the Republic, in the preferred medium of bronze. Similarly stern and forceful heads are seen in the coins of the consuls, and in the Imperial period coins as well as busts sent around the Empire to be placed in the basilicas of provincial cities were the main visual form of imperial propaganda; even Londinium had a near-colossal statue of Nero, though far smaller than the 30-metre-high Colossus of Nero in Rome, now lost. The Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker, a successful freedman (c. 50-20 BC) has a frieze that is an unusually large example of the “plebeian” style. Imperial portraiture was initially Hellenized and highly idealized, as in the Blacas Cameo and other portraits of Augustus.
The Romans did not generally attempt to compete with free-standing Greek works of heroic exploits from history or mythology, but from early on produced historical works in relief, culminating in the great Roman triumphal columns with continuous narrative reliefs winding around them, of which those commemorating Trajan (113 CE) and Marcus Aurelius (by 193) survive in Rome, where the Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”, 13 BC) represents the official Greco-Roman style at its most classical and refined, and the Sperlonga sculptures it at its most baroque. Some late Roman public sculptures developed a massive, simplified style that sometimes anticipates Soviet socialist realism. Among other major examples are the earlier re-used reliefs on the Arch of Constantine and the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius (161), Campana reliefs were cheaper pottery versions of marble reliefs and the taste for relief was from the imperial period expanded to the sarcophagus.
All forms of luxury small sculpture continued to be patronized, and quality could be extremely high, as in the silver Warren Cup, glass Lycurgus Cup, and large cameos like the Gemma Augustea, Gonzaga Cameo and the “Great Cameo of France”. For a much wider section of the population, moulded relief decoration of pottery vessels and small figurines were produced in great quantity and often considerable quality.
After moving through a late 2nd century “baroque” phase, in the 3rd century, Roman art largely abandoned, or simply became unable to produce, sculpture in the classical tradition, a change whose causes remain much discussed. Even the most important imperial monuments now showed stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, in simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace. The contrast is famously illustrated in the Arch of Constantine of 315 in Rome, which combines sections in the new style with roundels in the earlier full Greco-Roman style taken from elsewhere, and the Four Tetrarchs (c. 305) from the new capital of Constantinople, now in Venice. Ernst Kitzinger found in both monuments the same “stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling… The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity – in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition”.
This revolution in style shortly preceded the period in which Christianity was adopted by the Roman state and the great majority of the people, leading to the end of large religious sculpture, with large statues now only used for emperors, as in the famous fragments of a colossal acrolithic statue of Constantine, and the 4th or 5th century Colossus of Barletta. However rich Christians continued to commission reliefs for sarcophagi, as in the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, and very small sculpture, especially in ivory, was continued by Christians, building on the style of the consular diptych.
Materials
Due to Etruscan influence, the first materials used by sculpture in Rome are terracotta and bronze. However, the artists quickly took advantage of a material very easily accessible in the region, limestone or travertine tuff. From the ii th century BC. BC, Roman sculptors began to use stones from Greece, mainly marble from the Pentelic and that from Paros. At the time of Julius Caesar, the opening of the Luna marble quarries (current Carrara) upsets the habits of artists: from now on, the majority of the statues and monuments of the city of Rome will be made of this material, Carrara marble. The more modest works produced in the provinces generally use local resources. The taste for colored stones like granite gray or porphyry develops under the Flavian (end of the i st century).
The majority of sculpted works that have survived to modern times are made of stone. As a result, it is difficult to assess the original share of sculptures in bronze or precious metals (gold, silver), most of which have been remelted to recover the starting material.
Technology
Scenes shown on reliefs such as that of Trajan’s column and those shown on sarcophogi reveal images of Roman technology now long lost, such as ballistae and the use of waterwheel-driven saws for cutting stone. The latter was only recently discovered at Hieropolis and commemorates the miller who used the machine. Other reliefs show harvesting machines, much as they were described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia.
Roman sculpture and society
Rome was a society with great visual sensitivity. The visual arts acted as a kind of literature accessible to the great masses, as a large majority of its population was illiterate and unable to speak the erudite Latin circulating among the elite; through these, the prevailing ideology was reaffirmed and was a means of disseminating the image of great personalities. In this context, sculpture enjoyed a privileged position that occupied all public and private spaces, filling cities with a proliferation of works of various artistic techniques.
Much of the sculpture produced in Rome belongs to the religious theme, or is related in some way. And often, too, portraits were associated with sacred themes. As in any other culture, Rome produced images for religious worship and they were present everywhere, from large public temples to the most modest dwellings. Their presence became a common occurrence in large sculptures in bronze and marble – statues, large sarcophagi, architectural reliefs, cameos engraved in precious stones – in small terracotta statues, simple funeral plaques, wax mortuary masks – the cost of which was within the reach of the humblest classes; even in coins, which can be understood as a miniature relief and which were accessible to the great popular mass. Jaś Elsner explains:
«Such images, in search of imperial subjects of all forms of social, economic and religious life, helped to build a symbolic unity between the various peoples that made up the Roman world, focusing their sense of hierarchy on a supreme person. When an emperor died, his heirs could praise his sculptures as a god – proclaiming continuity in succession and erecting temples in his honor. When an emperor was overthrown, his images were violently suppressed in damnatio memoriae, the suppression of memory that visually informed the population of changes within political authority (…). the polytheismit was not a religion of scriptures and doctrines, the structure of a hierarchical, centralized church; it was rather a set of places of worship, rituals, and myths, run by communities and often by hereditary priests. He was eclectic and diverse, broad, pluralistic and tolerant. Images and myths provide the ancient world with the main forms of “theology.” »
When Christianity became the official religion, the role of art changed radically, although it did not lose its central importance. The Christian god was not known by images, but by the scriptures, his prophets, and commentators. However, the sculpture and its repertoire of conventional naturalistic representations were adopted by the new church, used for the composition of allegories., and continued to be used as a decoration in the secular, public and private spheres; until the end of the empire, it served as a historical record, for the practice of portraiture, or as a way of emphasizing the classical heritage shared by all, in order to establish cultural unity at a time when the peripheries were beginning to develop their own culture with a high degree of independence, and it was increasingly difficult to keep the territory unified.
Development
Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece and that of the neighbouring Etruscans, themselves greatly influenced by their Greek trading partners. An Etruscan speciality was near life size tomb effigies in terracotta, usually lying on top of a sarcophagus lid propped up on one elbow in the pose of a diner in that period. As the expanding Roman Republic began to conquer Greek territory, at first in Southern Italy and then the entire Hellenistic world except for the Parthian far east, official and patrician sculpture became largely an extension of the Hellenistic style, from which specifically Roman elements are hard to disentangle, especially as so much Greek sculpture survives only in copies of the Roman period. By the 2nd century BCE, “most of the sculptors working at Rome” were Greek, often enslaved in conquests such as that of Corinth (146 BCE), and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded. Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works.
A native Italian style can be seen in the tomb monuments of prosperous middle-class Romans, which very often featured portrait busts, and portraiture is arguably the main strength of Roman sculpture. There are no survivals from the tradition of masks of ancestors that were worn in processions at the funerals of the great families and otherwise displayed in the home, but many of the busts that survive must represent ancestral figures, perhaps from the large family tombs like the Tomb of the Scipios or the later mausolea outside the city. The famous “Capitoline Brutus”, a bronze head supposedly of Lucius Junius Brutus is very variously dated, but taken as a very rare survival of Italic style under the Republic, in the preferred medium of bronze. Similarly stern and forceful heads are seen in the coins of the consuls, and in the Imperial period coins as well as busts sent around the Empire to be placed in the basilicas of provincial cities were the main visual form of imperial propaganda; even Londinium had a near-colossal statue of Nero, though far smaller than the 30-metre-high Colossus of Nero in Rome, now lost. The Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker, a successful freedman (c. 50–20 BC) has a frieze that is an unusually large example of the “plebeian” style.
The Romans did not generally attempt to compete with free-standing Greek works of heroic exploits from history or mythology, but from early on produced historical works in relief, culminating in the great Roman triumphal columns with continuous narrative reliefs winding around them, of which those commemorating Trajan (CE 113) and Marcus Aurelius (by 193) survive in Rome, where the Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”, 13 BCE) represents the official Greco-Roman style at its most classical and refined. Among other major examples are the earlier re-used reliefs on the Arch of Constantine and the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius (161), Campana reliefs were cheaper pottery versions of marble reliefs and the taste for relief was from the imperial period expanded to the sarcophagus.
All forms of luxury small sculpture continued to be patronized, and quality could be extremely high, as in the silver Warren Cup, glass Lycurgus Cup, and large cameos like the Gemma Augustea, Gonzaga Cameo and the “Great Cameo of France”. For a much wider section of the population, moulded relief decoration of pottery vessels and small figurines were produced in great quantity and often considerable quality.
After moving through a late 2nd century “baroque” phase, in the 3rd century, Roman art largely abandoned, or simply became unable to produce, sculpture in the classical tradition, a change whose causes remain much discussed. Even the most important imperial monuments now showed stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, in simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace. The contrast is famously illustrated in the Arch of Constantine of 315 in Rome, which combines sections in the new style with roundels in the earlier full Greco-Roman style taken from elsewhere, and the Four Tetrarchs (c. 305) from the new capital of Constantinople, now in Venice. Ernst Kitzinger found in both monuments the same “stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling… The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity — in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition”.
This revolution in style shortly preceded the period in which Christianity was adopted by the Roman state and the great majority of the people, leading to the end of large religious sculpture, with large statues now only used for emperors, as in the famous fragments of a colossal acrolithic statue of Constantine, and the 4th or 5th century Colossus of Barletta. However rich Christians continued to commission reliefs for sarcophagi, as in the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, and very small sculpture, especially in ivory, was continued by Christians, building on the style of the consular diptych.
Etruscan-Roman Tradition
Between the seventh and sixth centuries BC the Etruscans dominated the central-northern part of the Italian peninsula, and at least some of the semi-legendary kings of Rome were Etruscans. Their art, which was already largely an interpretation of the archaic Greek style, became the art of the Romans. As they would later do with Greek art, the Romans not only copied the formal Etruscan models, but in their wars against them they appropriated their works of art and took them for the decoration of their capital. The first sculptures made in Rome that are known to date from the sixth century BC and their style is totally Etruscan. The famous Apollo of Veii, from this era, gives us a good information on the aesthetic trends then in force.
The Etruscans were experts in various sculptural genres, from funeral statuary and sarcophagi to monumental groups, and in many respects anticipated the aesthetics of the prosaic that the Romans would later develop. They were masters in the “genre scenes”, which represented common life, people of the people in characteristic activities, and also in the portrait they showed themselves first-rate architects. But perhaps where they had been most original was in funerary art. They developed a specific typology for funeral urns, which consisted of a chest decorated with reliefs and closed by a lid in which there was a reclined portrait of the deceased, full-body, sometimes accompanied by his spouse, a model that the Romans would adopt in many of their sarcophagi.National Etruscan Museum, and the Hypogeum of the Volumni, a crypt in Perugia with various sarcophagi, are well known examples. Despite the progressive abandonment of the Etruscan tradition during the Hellenistic phase that would come later, traces of it will still be found until the time of Augustus.
Hellenism and neo-atticism
Meanwhile, Greece evolved towards its classicism, whose apogee occurred in the fourth century BC. At that time Rome began its expansion towards the south, already independent of the Etruscans after almost a century of struggles for regional supremacy, coming into contact more intimate with Greek art through the colonies of Magna Grecia, whose sophisticated culture impressed the Romans. Then, the nobles of Rome began to desire Greek works in their palaces, and hired Greek artists to make copies of the most famous compositions, sometimes paying fabulous prices for them.
A little later, Alexander the Great conquered Greece and brought his art to India via Persia and also to Egypt. The impact of this expansion had two meanings, one on conquered peoples, defining new orientations for their culture and their art, and an inverse one on Greek culture itself, which assimilated a variety of oriental elements. With the fragmentation of the Alexandrian empire after the conqueror’s death, various realms of local roots were formed – Bithynia, Galatia, Paflagonia, Pontus, Cappadocia, Egypt of the Ptolemaic dynasty-, who incorporated new Greek customs, then evolving in their own way. The name Hellenism is due to this fusion of oriental and Greek influences. Interest in the past was a distinctive feature of the period. The first museums and libraries were founded, as in Pergamum and Alexandria, biographies of the most notable artists came out, art criticism developed and travelers described the geography, history and customs of the various regions they visited in the first tourist guides ever written.
The historicism of the period meant that earlier styles were emulated in an eclectic synthesis, but with a progressive secularization in the theme and a preference for dramatic and lively works, the expressive intensity of which has been compared by some to the Baroque style. L ‘ childhood, the death and old age, and even the’ humor, issues almost unprecedented in classical Greek, were introduced and widely cultivated. In addition, a feverish taste developed among the elites of various countries for collecting art, where the Romans would prove to be the most enthusiastic.
In 212 BC, the Romans conquered Syracuse, a rich and important Greek colony in Sicily, adorned with a profusion of Hellenistic works of art. Everything was sacked and brought to Rome, where it replaced the line of Etruscan sculpture that was still cultivated. The sacking of Syracuse was the final impulse for the definitive establishment of the Greek norm in the heart of the Republic, but it also found opposition.
Marco Porcio Catone denounced the sacking and decoration of Rome with Hellenic works, considering this a dangerous influence for the native culture, and regretting that the Romans applauded the statues of Corinth and Athens and ridiculed the decorative terracotta tradition of the ancient Roman temples. But everything was in vain. Greek art had subdued Etruscan-Roman art in general taste, to the point that Greek statues were among the most sought after war prey and were ostentatiously exhibited in the triumphal processions of all the conquering generals.
In the triumph of Lucius Emilio Paolo Macedonico after the conquest of Macedonia in 168 BC, two hundred and fifty carriages full of statues and paintings paraded, and in the conquest of Achaia in 146 BC, which decreed the end of Greek independence and submission to the Roman Empire, Pliny says that Lucio Mummius Achaicus literally filled Rome sculptures. Shortly thereafter, in 133 BC, the empire inherited the kingdom of Pergamum, where there was a thriving and original Hellenistic sculpture school.
In this period the demand for statuary was now enormous and in Athens the sculpture workshops worked practically only for the Roman connaisseurs, who demonstrated their refined taste by demanding works that imitated the classicist production of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, avoiding expressive excesses of later Hellenism, forming a revivalist school that took the name of Neoatticism and which continued to thrive in Rome itself until the second century BC The school of Neoatticism represents the first appearance in history of a movement that can legitimately be called Neoclassicism.
When for some reason it was impossible to obtain originals, especially in the case of works already celebrated, marble or bronze copies were made, but apparently the Romans did not make an important evaluation or aesthetic distinction between an original and a copy, as it is common today. Among the hundreds of models existing in Greek production, the Romans favored just a hundred or so, which were copied on a large scale, establishing a standardization of the imagination. Today this repetitiveness sounds monotonous, but for the culture of the time it created positive links with prestigious symbolic and ideological traditions.
In other cases the adaptations were freer, and had a pastiche character, in the sense that they used elements of various parts for the creation of a new work, or transformed statues of gods into Roman portraits, with an exact copy of the body of a famous creation, but replacing the head with that of some Roman personality. Example of this custom is the beautiful statue of Marco Claudio Marcello preserved in the Louvre Museum, made by Cleomene in the first century BC from a Greek original representing Hermes Logios (Mercury speaker) 400 years earlier, probably by Phidias. Fortunately for us contemporaries, the practice of the slavish copy of many Greek masterpieces for the Romans was responsible for the conservation of a vast classical and Hellenistic iconography whose originals ended up lost in the Middle Ages.
Of the artists active in this period, few names are remembered, and since there was still no native (ie Roman) school, they are all Greek. In addition to the aforementioned Cleomenes, Aristea and Papia of Aphrodisia, authors of magnificent centaurs today in the Capitoline Museums, and Pasitele, originally from Magna Grecia, but who became a Roman citizen, distinguished themselves among this neo- school in Rome. His compilation of a catalog of the world’s most famous sculptures was famous. As a sculptor he is attributed a Jupiter in gold and ivory and numerous works in bronze.
Roman Empire
A change in the earlier purely Greek trend towards the formation of a national sculpture school in Rome occurred between the end of the second century BC and the beginning of the first century BC. A good example is the Altar of Enobarbus, considered a precursor of the great imperial art of Augustus. Created as an offer by Cneo Domizio Enobarbo for the end of the military campaign in Brindisi, it was installed in front of the temple of Neptune which he had ordered to build on the same occasion. The altar was decorated with various friezes, some with more or less conventional and common mythological scenes in the Greek tradition, but one of them is a cult scene, which represents a priest preparing a sacrifice, flanked by the offerer, soldiers and other assistants, who already highlights the transfer from traditional classical style to a typically Roman narrative way, in a chronicle of daily life and at the same time of the successes of its political model.
With Augustus, Rome became the most influential and rich city of the empire, resplendent with marble, and also the new center of Hellenistic culture, as Pergamum and Alexandria had been before, attracting a large number of Greek craftsmen. And just as Alexander’s successors had contributed to the survival of Greek art, enriching it with new themes, now, when it comes to the Augustean EraRome would have given its own and original contribution to the continuity and renewal of a tradition that had already gained prestige over the centuries and dictated the character of all the art produced there. But more than the mere transfer of cultural attention to Rome, what brought about a change in hitherto purely Greek art and the appearance of a genuinely Roman school was the formation of one’s idea of empire and the application of Greek technique to the typical theme of this new Rome.
In the consolidation of the empire, the minting of coins, which are actually miniature bas-reliefs, was of great importance. Julius Caesarlegalized in Rome a Hellenistic and Eastern practice of imprinting the effigy of the ruler alive in current currencies, when until then only images of divinities or historical figures already disappeared appeared, and Augustus directed this practice with even greater conscience and political pragmatism, imposing the his visual presence and the message of the government in the daily life of all citizens to the borders of the empire, and exemplifying how art and the political agenda could combine efforts to ensure a large-scale social control system. This use would have put pressure on society that is difficult to estimate today: suffice it to say that there were anecdotes about the unacceptability of the coins that showed the image of hated emperors such as Nero.
The first great monument of imperial sculpture was the Ara Pacis (32 BC), which was also a masterpiece of Roman architecture. Dedicated to the goddess Pax, it celebrated the successful return of the emperor from a double military campaign in Gaul and Spain. The monument was decorated with friezes and reliefs that showed processions, allegorical scenes from mythology and sacrifices. In one of the scenes, Tellus, Mother Earth, is represented, which is a quite different interpretation from her Greek counterpart, Gea. Here it does not embody a violent and irrational force of nature, as seen in Greek vases and friezes, but it is a delicate and truly maternal image of protection and nutrition. Other scenes make emphatic mention of the benefits of the Pax Augustea, and provide a clear view of the values that at that time appeared to the Romans as true – that only the material prosperity offered by a strong and peaceful state could have promoted consistent development in culture and art – an idea repeatedly affirmed in the laudatory poetry of the time. In addition, Eugénie Strong states that in this immense altar groups appear in art for the first time in which both spectators and protagonists participate in the same scene, but adds:
«A careful study of the reliefs of the Ara Pacis tends to highlight that we are in the presence of an embryonic art, still far from maturity; the sculptor is heir to the vast experience of Hellenistic art, but has not yet learned to select or condense it. He seems overwhelmed by the novelty and magnificence of his theme and, in the indecision on how it should represent it, he tries a bit of everything. But it is a valid attempt, and starting from it, in more than a century of practice, we will see the triumphs of Flavian art. The artists of the Augustean Era are neither academic nor decadent, much less servile imitators. They are pioneers who walk new paths that will take more than a hundred years to be fully exploited. ”
If in purely artistic terms the maturity had to wait some time to develop, in ideological terms the work was quite advanced. Augustus proved to be a capable ruler, and that he counted on the support of the people. From his first consulate, he accumulated charges on charges until he was offered empire by the Senate and the status of Augustus- in truth originally a title and not a name, meaning “divine” – at the request of the people. His reign was a period of relative peace and prosperity. He organized his country and favored the arts, not without taking advantage of it to promote his personal image, as it was generally used among the powerful. Many of the emperor’s statues survive in museums around the world, showing him with a variety of attributes, military, civil and divine.
One of the most famous is the Augusto di Prima Porta, which is actually an elaboration on the Doriforo di Policleto, showing that, despite the sensitive changes in the culture of his time, the Greek tradition continued to be revered and the ancient models copied, both for their intrinsic qualities and because they represented a paternity for Roman culture that gave greater dignity to the new condition of Rome imperial, with the figure of the emperor as the greatest of all patrons and heroes.
Other historians consider the Julio-Claudian dynasty as a period of greatness in Roman art. The aspects Strong considers indicative of a phase of uncertainty on aesthetics – the same spirit of investigation on various fronts, the search for new lighting effects and surface treatment, new forms to create an effective narrative sense, studying nature and trying to solve the problems of group representation in perspective- they are also indicated as signs of consolidation of an authentic national sculpture school, an impression that is strengthened by observing the achievements in the field of portraits that were being followed by the Republic. However, it is certain that the influence of the Attic School’s Neoclassicism remained strong, and the idealized Greek models continued to be favored for the spread of imperial majesty, combined with a taste for verisimilitude that established an innovative model followed for many years.
Types of sculpture
Portrait
Portraiture is a dominant genre of Roman sculpture, growing perhaps from the traditional Roman emphasis on family and ancestors; the entrance hall (atrium) of a Roman elite house displayed ancestral portrait busts. During the Roman Republic, it was considered a sign of character not to gloss over physical imperfections, and to depict men in particular as rugged and unconcerned with vanity: the portrait was a map of experience. During the Imperial era, more idealized statues of Roman emperors became ubiquitous, particularly in connection with the state religion of Rome. Tombstones of even the modestly rich middle class sometimes exhibit portraits of the otherwise unknown deceased carved in relief.
It is in the portrait that Rome gives its most characteristic contribution to the tradition founded by the Greeks, a contribution that matured much earlier than in other sculptural genres and that meant that the development of sculpture in Rome was divided into two fields, with different evolutionary rhythms, the portrait and other genres. From the time of the Republic the portrait was increasingly valued and with time it cyclically oscillated between an idealizing classicist trend and another of great realism, partly derived from the typical expressiveness of Hellenistic art. And among the portraits, the bustand the isolated head were the most frequent forms. Full-body portraits were less common, though not uncommon. The preference for the bust and the head was a typical Roman cultural trait that created a huge market throughout the Mediterranean basin, and is explained primarily for economic reasons, being these pieces much cheaper than a whole statue, but also for the conviction that a better individual identification could be obtained with them. For the Romans, in fact, it was the head and not the body nor the clothes or the accessory attributes the center of interest in the portrait.
Robert Brilliant says:
«… the specific identity of the subject, established by the particular features of the head, had been conceived as a symbolic appendix that did not take into account the integrity of the body. It seems that the sculptors created the head as the main key for identification, and placed it in a well-orchestrated environment similar in concept, if not intention, to the ready-made sets, with an opening for the face, common among photographers from the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, the countless headless togate statues that survive from antiquity are analogous to scenographies without actors, even more so when the body was made by aides in advance, waiting for the head sculpted by the master sculptor. »
With the rise of Vespasiano, founder of the Flavia dynasty, the mixed style of idealism and realism practiced by the artists of the Julio-Claudian dynasty underwent a change, with the resumption of Hellenistic forms and a great emphasis in the realistic description of the subject, even when it was about the emperor. The technique also expanded with an innovative use of perforation, and the female portraits of this stage are generally adorned with very complicated hairstyles.
With Traiano, however, the cycle changes again and tends towards idealization, brought to an even greater degree with Adriano, whose Hellenistic preferences were well marked. Even the portraits of Marcus Aurelius present the realistic characterization, showing a further advance towards the psychological and emotional description that in the portraits of Caracalla reach a high degree of expressiveness and exert a great impact in the art of the whole empire. But from then on, oriental influence and interest in geometric elements lead portraits to acquire a progressively more stylized and abstract appearance. With Costantinothis trend reaches its highest point, together with a feeling of monumentality that recalls the classicism of the era of Augustus. The style developed under his reign would have been a direct precursor of Byzantine art and represents the end of the golden age of Roman sculpture.
While emperors used portraits primarily for the reaffirmation of their power and political agenda, they were used in the funeral context in the private sphere. Busts, accompanied by inscriptions listing family members and friends of the deceased, decorated altars, tombs and funeral urns. This tradition was linked to a long history of exhibiting mortuary masks of wax or terracotta of illustrious ancestors in the funerary processions of the elites, to celebrate and demonstrate their patrician lineage. These masks were proudly kept in the family shrine, the lararium, together with busts of bronze, terracotta or marble. It is supposed that the custom of making mortuary masks, which faithfully copy the facial features of the dead, was one of the causes for the development of the taste for realism in Roman portraiture.
Statues
In the case of the statuary, an interesting problem arises for modern researchers when these statues represented the portraits of the emperor in his deified condition, especially in the periods when the realist description was in force with more force, since an inconsistency between the representation form of body and head. While the head often showed itself with all the signs of aging, the bodies were represented in accordance with the ancient canons of classical Greek sculpture, idealized in a condition of eternal strength and youth. These strange works, when not playful, to modern eyes, accustomed to appreciating a statue as a homogeneous whole, are understandable when we remember the conventions that governed the art of the portrait,
Thus, it was suggested that in reality it was an agreement between two different parts, one for the representation of the body in symbolic terms and another for the descriptive representation of the head with the aim of being able to clearly identify the character, with a refusal of the literal interpretation of the whole. The same conventions seemed to hold private statuary when it came to representing the geniusof the subject, and in this case belonged to the group of funeral monuments. With the same purpose, the head of some famous statue of a god was often simply replaced with that of a Roman patrician or emperor, but there seems to have been no difficulty for the Romans in the clear differentiation between cult and symbolic statues, between a statue of a god and a statue of a person as a god. Nor did they hesitate to simply remove the head of a statue of any person and replace it with that of another, when some damnatio memoriae was performed. This practice was commented naturally in the literature of the time, which confirms the independence between the head and the body in the Roman imagination.
Other types of statues, decorative and cult, in Roman art added nothing essentially new, and their specimens, although many of great quality, show nothing that had not been thoroughly experienced before by the classical Greeks and Hellenists, and Roman copies of this seminal production continued to be produced until the fifth century. However, from the second century, and with greater force starting from Constantine I, the growing penetration of Eastern influence led to a progressive elimination, with some recovery periods, of the Greek canon, leading to the formation of a synthetic and abstract style that would have been the bridge for the affirmation of Byzantine art and the early Middle Ages.
Religious and funerary art
Religious art was also a major form of Roman sculpture. A central feature of a Roman temple was the cult statue of the deity, who was regarded as “housed” there (see aedes). Although images of deities were also displayed in private gardens and parks, the most magnificent of the surviving statues appear to have been cult images. Roman altars were usually rather modest and plain, but some Imperial examples are modeled after Greek practice with elaborate reliefs, most famously the Ara Pacis, which has been called “the most representative work of Augustan art.” Small bronze statuettes and ceramic figurines, executed with varying degrees of artistic competence, are plentiful in the archaeological record, particularly in the provinces, and indicate that these were a continual presence in the lives of Romans, whether for votives or for private devotional display at home or in neighborhood shrines. These typically show more regional variation in style than large and more official works, and also stylistic preferences between different classes.
Roman marble sarcophagi mostly date from the 2nd to the 4th century CE, after a change in Roman burial customs from cremation to inhumation, and were mostly made in a few major cities, including Rome and Athens, which exported them to other cities. Elsewhere the stela gravestone remained more common. They were always a very expensive form reserved for the elite, and especially so in the relatively few very elaborately carved examples; most were always relatively plain, with inscriptions, or symbols such as garlands. Sarcophagi divide into a number of styles, by the producing area. “Roman” ones were made to rest against a wall, and one side was left uncarved, while “Attic” and other types were carved on all four sides; but the short sides were generally less elaborately decorated in both types.
The time taken to make them encouraged the use of standard subjects, to which inscriptions might be added to personalize them, and portraits of the deceased were slow to appear. The sarcophagi offer examples of intricate reliefs that depict scenes often based on Greek and Roman mythology or mystery religions that offered personal salvation, and allegorical representations. Roman funerary art also offers a variety of scenes from everyday life, such as game-playing, hunting, and military endeavors.
Early Christian art quickly adopted the sarcophagus, and they are the most common form of early Christian sculpture, progressing from simple examples with symbols to elaborate fronts, often with small scenes of the Life of Christ in two rows within an architectural framework. The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (c. 359) is of this type, asnd the earlier Dogmatic Sarcophagus rather simpler. The huge porphyry Sarcophagi of Helena and Constantina are grand Imperial examples.
Coffin
The use of sarcophagi was common among the Etruscans and Greeks, but in Rome it was used extensively only from the second century, when the habit of cremationof the dead was replaced by burial, and expanded throughout the empire. Their production was established in three main centers – Rome, Attica and Asia – and divided into some different models. One, the most common, was a case decorated with figurative reliefs and with a more or less smooth lid; another type showed another equally decorated lid, where the full-body sculptural portraits of the deceased could appear, as if they were sitting at a banquet, a model that derived from Etruscan art. Both gave origin to specimens decorated with reliefs of extraordinary sophistication and complexity. A third type, confined to Rome, had an abstract or floral decoration and animal heads, mainly lions, at the ends.
The Asian production center was characterized by a preference for large boxes and architectural forms, with columns around, interposed statues and an imitation of door on both sides, ornamental plaques and a prism-shaped roof with acroteri, which simulated a real home or temple, and they could also have a platform for placing them at the top. This type, unlike the others, was often decorated on all four sides, could be an independent monument, installed outdoors in some necropolis, while the others usually appeared in niches in the tombs and their decoration was limited to parts that remained visible. The Roman practice of burial in sarcophagi continued in the Christian era, constituting one of the main means for the development of thereligious iconography.
Architectural surveys
In the tradition of monumental altars, commemorative columns and triumphal arches, the decorative reliefs used in these architectures were a fertile field for the development of a narrative style typical of the Romans. Classicist precursors were the Anobarbus Altar and the Ara Pacis. Another one that deserves a mention is the frieze of the Basilica Emilia (c. 54 – 34 BC) in the Roman Forum, in a vigorous Hellenizing style, lively, with drastic glimpses and completed with scenes of landscapes. Of the Julio-Claudian dynastyalmost nothing survived, but a testimony that can give us an idea of the style of this period is a frieze found in Rome, which shows a procession of magistrates and priests carrying votive statuettes, together with helpers, musicians and other figures. His interest lies in the aerial perspective effect produced by the insertion of figures in the background on the line of the procession, a resource that was later widely used in historical scenes.
The decoration of the Arch of Titus (ca. 81 – 82) was considered as the highest point of the Flavian style. The panels that decorate it and that show the triumph of Titus have excellent aesthetic qualities and demonstrate a great ability in the use of the glimpse for the representation of the emperor ‘s quadriga, where the chariot appears seen from the front towards the viewer but the artist manages to create the impression that he is making a right turn. The other panel represents the sacking of Jerusalem, uses this resource with the same success, in another context, and both have their illusory effect reinforced by the rational use of light and shadow. But in truth it is difficult to speak of a “Flavian style”, since in other places there are more static reliefs, of a fairly classicist and anti-pictorial nature.
At the reign of Trajan belongs the famous Trajan’s Column, commemorating the campaign in Dacia between 101 and 106. It is a large column completely covered by a continuous frieze that forms a spiral towards the top, and is a perfect example of the narrative style of Roman historical reliefs. The episodes merge into each other without interruption, except occasionally a tree that acts as a separation. Trajan appears several times in different situations. In total, almost 2,500 figures are carved, and the technical level is maintained throughout the complex. An innovative feature is the abandonment of perspective and the use of figures disproportionate to their surrounding landscape, which dilates the oriental influence that penetrated at this time. Today we only see marble forms, but its effect when it was completed must have been surprising because, in accordance with the practice of the time, all the scenes were painted and adorned with metal details. It is possible that its author wasApollodorus of Damascus.
Shortly thereafter the trend reversed towards classicism. The Arco di Traiano in Benevento stands out, in an exceptional state of conservation – only the sculptures were completed under Adriano – and the eleven panels of a similar style, but even better executed, which represent the emperor Marcus Aurelius in various scenes. Four of them are now in the Capitoline Museums, and the others were reused in the imperial era for the decoration of the Arch of Constantine. The Column of Marcus Aureliusit is another great example of the classicist prevalence in this phase; although there are a multitude of figures that pile up in the continuous spiral of the frieze that surrounds the monument, a sense of order, elegance, rhythm and discipline is preserved which is absent in Trajan’s column.
This interlude of classicism, however, would have ended with Septimius Severus, whose arch again approaches Eastern art in its system of proportions and in the shortening of the organization of independent scenes, in which four large panels narrate the campaigns in Mesopotamia. From the third century practically nothing survived, and what we have as remains are small friezes showing rough and sketched figures. The same style continues throughout the fourth century, as can be seen in the upper friezes of the north and south of the Arch of Constantine, which show a marked contrast with the other older panels, from the era of Marcus Aurelius. The last significant examples of Roman architectural sculpture are in the base of the obelisk of Theodosius I in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, which already seems an art closer to the Byzantine than Roman universe.
Gardens and baths
A number of well-known large stone vases sculpted in relief from the Imperial period were apparently mostly used as garden ornaments; indeed many statues were also placed in gardens, both public and private. Sculptures recovered from the site of the Gardens of Sallust, opened to the public by Tiberius, include:
the Obelisco Sallustiano, a Roman copy of an Egyptian obelisk which now stands in front of the Trinità dei Monti church above the Piazza di Spagna at the top of the Spanish Steps
the Borghese Vase, discovered there in the 16th century.
the sculptures known as the Dying Gaul and the Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife, marble copies of parts a famous Hellenistic group in bronze commissioned for Pergamon in about 228 BC.
the Ludovisi Throne (probably an authentic Greek piece in the Severe style), found in 1887, and the Boston Throne, found in 1894.
the Crouching Amazon, found in 1888 near the via Boncompagni, about twenty-five meters from the via Quintino Sella (Museo Conservatori).
Roman baths were another site for sculpture; among the well-known pieces recovered from the Baths of Caracalla are the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules and over life-size early 3rd century patriotic figures somewhat reminiscent of Soviet Social Realist works (now in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).
Other uses
Among the minor applications of sculpture there are statuettes of domestic worship, figurines and masks of the theater, cameos, decorated objects, amulets and children’s toys. Less celebrated than the great genres, however, they are no less important than those, and often give a more exact, intimate and sincere idea of the Roman mentality, mainly of the people, beyond the imposing official representations.
Cameos
In these minor genera, cameos are the most luxurious, limited to the upper classes and generally used as jewelry. Carved in semiprecious stones such as agate, chalcedony, jasper, amethyst and onyx, they are considered miniature sculptures by the appreciation that John Ruskin made of them, when until then they were considered a form of engraving. This form of carving was introduced to Rome by the Hellenistic Greeks, who were the first to achieve a high degree of refinement in this genre. Its small size must not mislead us as to the expertise required for this type of work, since intense concentration and enormous sensitivity are required to work the grain of the stone and its different layers to obtain subtle shades of color and effects of light and transparency.. Its dating is very problematic, and many pieces indicate that they have been reworked at different times. The best specimens have become avidly disputed collector’s pieces, and among them we can mention the fantastic Augustan Gem, a large piece of two-tone onyx carved with two scenes composed of various characters.
During the imperial period, cameos enjoyed great prestige, which inspired the Romans to invent a glass derivation, which offered the advantage of allowing greater control over color and transparency, but was even more difficult, long and expensive to work with. of the stone, presenting considerable technical challenges, which have not yet been completely explored by contemporary glassmakers. However, entire cameos of glass cameo with carved decoration, such as the famous Portland Vase and Vase of the Seasons.
Toys
Toys are found in all cultures, and the Romans were no exception. Literary references abound from the Hellenistic period, and everything indicates that there was an enormous variety of objects intended for children’s entertainment, from traditional dolls to carts with wheels, furniture, figures of warriors and animals, and even miniature houses of metal, wood or terracotta. Toys are excellent objects for studying the economic and social conditions of the time.
Private worship Statuettes
In the religious sphere, the statuettes of private worship of many deities of the Roman pantheon and of family and regional deities stand out. The habit of anthropomorphismof the gods was inherited by the Etruscans and Greeks, and therefore practically all natural forces and abstract powers assumed a human aspect for the Romans and received a cult, although their religion was not rigidly organized and private worship (more than public) had an important role. Museums are filled with statuettes of domestic worship, which demonstrates their wide spread throughout the empire. Their artistic quality is very variable, and it is to be believed that those used by ordinary people are ordinary and unattractive, but there are examples of great refinement. In this field it was not the aesthetic aspect of the statuettes that had value, but their efficacy for the Romans as bridges of communication between mortals and the supernatural.
The amulet statuettes have a similar function. In the complex and multifaceted Roman religion, magic played a not insignificant role, and amulets found their place in it. The Greeks and Etruscans used them, and several classical authors speak of them favorably, such as Pliny and Galen. Even the Romans made it a generalized custom, especially during the late imperial era. Although amulets were generally small and portable objects, not necessarily figures, a series of statuettes that perform the same function survive, portraying the protective spirits of the houses associated with the ancestors, the Lares, deeply revered in domestic shrines, or Priapus, the phallic god, whose image was considered a powerful remedy against the evil eye, sterility and impotence, and which was placed in the external part of the entrance of the houses.
Decorated utensils
Finally, a brief mention remains of the vases, table services, lamps, door handles and many other types of utensils with a decoration that approaches sculpture proper, a very varied category of pieces that testifies to the wide application of sculpture in ancient Rome. The lamps and braziers could be decorated with relief images showing religious, mythological and erotic scenes, in accordance with the location to which they were intended and could have one or more very ornate feet. Even plates, pots, bowls and vases could have reliefs, or handles and necks of extravagant shapes. In ceramics we can distinguish the type of sealed earth, a kind of vase decorated with engravings and reliefs, which had wide diffusion, and thedecorative antefixes, installed on the edges of the roofs, which could be made in abstract or figurative forms.
Late imperial sculpture
As mentioned above, the last centuries of the empire (from the third to the fifth century) saw the birth of a totally new cultural context. Sometimes this phase of transformation has been seen as an artistic decadence, but it is fair to remember that the Greek canon was the result of a well-defined era and context, and although it has shaped the artistic origins of Rome and much of its path times and territory had changed, and classicism was beginning to become a thing of the past and a symbolic or historical reference rather than a living reality. Now Rome had its own history, and entered a period of intense exchanges with great ancient cultures of the Near East, whose body of ideas, religions, art and aspirations became an integral part of Roman culture. Similarly, the numerous imperial provinces, which extended from Spain, Gaul and Britain to Persia, Arabia, the Caucasus and North Africa, developed syncretistic styles with their local traditions, creating works that were accepted for both metropolitan and provincial vision., although interpreted differently in each place.
In an age of cultural effervescence and of great diversity of aesthetic principles, the permanence of the classical elements in all parts, modified, it is certain, in different degrees, still allowed to keep channels of communication open and acted as a kind of lingua franca artistic. Syncretism was always a characteristic of Roman art, but in the late imperial era it assumed a role of crucial importance. After the Christianization of the empire, the norms of pagan art were adopted by Christian emperors without hesitation, although adapted to new themes. When Constantinople became the new capital, it was filled with architectural and artistic allusions to “ancient Rome”, a declared desire to maintain the continuity of ancient traditions, even if they had to be reformed to meet the needs of a new context. In reality there was no literal permanence of classicism, which would have been impossible: what happened was a “selective” continuity.
This process was conscious and voluntary, as the literature of the time confirms. Some formal prototypes were kept, while a large repertoire of other models was simply doomed to oblivion. The masking of the rapid social and political changes that took place under the elected forms derived from the classical heritage provided an important cultural cohesion at a time when the building blocks of the empire tended to diversity, and when the fragmentation of the state was already becoming a threat real. In reality there was no literal permanence of classicism, which would have been impossible: what happened was a “selective” continuity. This process was conscious and voluntary, as the literature of the time confirms. Some formal prototypes were kept, while a large repertoire of other models was simply doomed to oblivion. The masking of the rapid social and political changes that took place under the elected forms derived from the classical heritage provided an important cultural cohesion at a time when the building blocks of the empire tended to diversity, and when the fragmentation of the state was already becoming a threat real. In reality there was no literal permanence of classicism, which would have been impossible: what happened was a “selective” continuity. This process was conscious and voluntary, as the literature of the time confirms. Some formal prototypes were kept, while a large repertoire of other models was simply doomed to oblivion.
The masking of the rapid social and political changes that took place under the elected forms derived from the classical heritage provided an important cultural cohesion at a time when the building blocks of the empire tended to diversity, and when the fragmentation of the state was already becoming a threat real. as confirmed by the literature of the time. Some formal prototypes were kept, while a large repertoire of other models was simply doomed to oblivion. The masking of the rapid social and political changes that took place under the elected forms derived from the classical heritage provided an important cultural cohesion at a time when the building blocks of the empire tended to diversity, and when the fragmentation of the state was already becoming a threat real. as confirmed by the literature of the time. Some formal prototypes were kept, while a large repertoire of other models was simply doomed to oblivion. The masking of the rapid social and political changes that took place under the elected forms derived from the classical heritage provided an important cultural cohesion at a time when the building blocks of the empire tended to diversity, and when the fragmentation of the state was already becoming a threat real.
The elite continued to receive classical education and remained conservative. Its members read consecrated authors, and through them they became familiar with the ancestral tradition, developing a taste for it. The cities, aristocratic villas and theaters were decorated with still pagan images. The conversion of Constantine to Christianity in 312 brought about a break with this tradition, even if not immediately or in complete form.
According to Rachel Kousser:
«The fourth century aristocracy thus had to negotiate a place for itself in this contradictory world, without causing an open conflict. The monuments that were built retained the traces of this negotiation: traditional in form, oblique in content, they document the creation of a new consensus. The most successful works of art that resulted were providentially non-specific; their goal was not to proclaim a defined and unique identity of their customers, but rather to suggest a large amount of common values, which remained open to a variety of interpretations.
Therefore, instead of emphasizing the bonds of these works with particular religious ideologies, political affiliations, and so on – which would ultimately indicate a separatist character – (…) they are resonant and unifying. For 4th century aristocrats, these images based on models of classical statues were useful vehicles for a balanced and efficient self-representation; there was talk of a past shared by all and a divided present. In this way, they helped to ensure the survival of classical forms in medieval art. (…) The resulting works of art looked familiar. Although today they seem monotonously conventional to many modern scholars, they had value in late antiquity. These works identified the new Christian order with the venerable tradition, a tradition that considered the naturalistic representation of the human form as the greatest achievement of sculpture. In this sense, »
The prestige of pagan statues remained high until the fourth century AD; not even the rise of Christianity and the ban on the ancient cult by Theodosius I in 391 caused an immediate destruction of religious and decorative images. Prudentius, at the end of the fourth century of our era, still recommended that the statues of pagan idols be preserved as “examples of the skill of the great artists, and as a splendid ornament of our cities”, and Cassiodorustells how efforts were still made in the 4th century to preserve the ancient pagan sculptures as evidence of imperial greatness for posterity. Despite this, later the politics of the papacy and the empire changed, and the monuments of antiquity began to be looted in order to recover the material for use in other works, stimulating a puzzling iconoclastic wave throughout the empire that decreed the disappearance of the vast majority of the fabulous collection of works of art accumulated over the centuries.
Use of color as a mimetic and expressive resource
As a complement to the work of stone cutting or bronze casting, the final effect of the carved piece was modified with the addition of polychromy on the surface, a practice inherited from the Greeks and commonly carried out, as historical accounts show, and which gave to sculptures a totally different aspect from how we see them today in museums, only of stone or bronze. This historical fact, although known for at least two centuries, still causes surprise today, and in fact gave rise to an erroneous concept, even among archaeologistsand museum conservatories who believed that the original works were made leaving the appearances of the material used, an obvious error that was perpetuated until recently. This decorative use of pigments was actually a fundamental fact in ancient art, and there were no statues, friezes or reliefs that did not receive at least color details when they were not completely painted.
In addition to painting it was used to insert pieces of other colored materials such as silver and gold, enamel, mother of pearl and glass, to bring out certain features or anatomical parts, and certain types of colored marble and noble stones such as onyx, alabaster and sardony, rich in multicolored veins and transparencies, could be used in some parts of the garments of the statues to create more luxurious effects. Recent research published together with thematic exhibitions of great works with the restoration of their original colors, have offered a completely new vision of classical art.
Legacy
The Romans were the first people to be proud to flourish in the shadow of a foreign culture. Virgil, in his Aeneid, had the ghost of Anchise turned to Rome, not yet born, to declare that in the arts and sciences she would always be inferior to the Greeks, but would overcome them in war and public administration. In another part the poet boasted that his muse had been the first to sing in verse in the manner of Theocritus, and other similar cases abound in contemporary literature of the time. As has been shown, all Roman sculpture production was an immense debtor of the Greek example, and the same happened with other arts, such as poetry, music and architecture. This is a fact, but it was interpreted by influential authors such as Arnold Toynbee and Roger Fry as a demerit of the Romans, seeing them as an essentially imitative people, a subspecies of Hellenists, and whose only artistic value would have been to transmit posterity to the Greek heritage.
This opinion reflected the position of criticism in the late 19th century, which in essence blamed the Romans for not being Greek, but ironically it derives from the Romans themselves, who maintained in relation to their role as epigones an attitude which was at the same time proud and modest. But as we have seen this did not prevent their sculptors from developing certain traits of evident originality, recognized by other critics, making that accusation, although based on clear evidence, not entirely correct.
On the other hand, judging an ancient culture from a modern point of view is always a reckless maneuver. The Romans were characterized by generally possessing a high public spirit and a strong aversion to individualism and eccentricity, which always frightened the Greeks, and ancestral traditions, public and family, were always the subject of extreme veneration. Virgil tells in ‘ Aeneid, the story of Aeneas carrying on his shoulder in his father’s flight from Troy, which became a model of pietyRoman, honorable duty towards the fathers, and even in times devastated by political disputes and immoral and decadent elites, even if behaviors that today we see as cruel and bizarre, among the most appreciated qualities in a Roman, were common throughout society they were thrift, severitas, frugalitas and simplicitas – thrift, austerity and dignity, frugality and simplicity – repeatedly praised in contemporary literature. Taking these factors into account, its apparent lack of originality becomes relative and a cultural identity trait. In all ways, sculpture offers us a lot of material to be able to study all the Roman legacy and understand its peculiar attitude in the cultural sphere.
Falling into the darkness of the Middle Ages, both for the previous destruction of most of the examples and for the change in the conception of art and cultural values, Roman sculpture had an opportunity in the Renaissance to make a new appearance on the art scene. And more than an apparition, it was in fact a fundamental element for the development of a new aesthetic of this era. Raffaello, aware of the vastness of the loss of ancient works in earlier times, deplored the habit of reusing marble and bronze to create other objects, and the discovery of various high quality specimens of Roman sculpture in this period caused sensation in Renaissance society, stimulating copies and new interpretations, the anxious search for other remains in countless archaeological excavations, and the appearance of a stream of engraved reproductions. Their influence on the sculpture of the period is absolutely undeniable.
During the Baroque the interest in ancient statuary did not diminish. Masters such as Bernini were well-known lovers of Greek and Roman art, and its production owes much to ancient examples and classical themes. Nor did it decline during the following periods. In the eighteenth century, the costume of the ” European Grand Tour ” was formed among the elites, Rome was the obligatory visit, and the desire for knowledge and the acquisition of the art of classical antiquity turned into a mania, determining the appearance of the Neoclassicism. Between the 18th and 19th centuries several important private collections were formed in various countries, and that in Englandin particular, they also served to guarantee the owners’ good social reputation and to facilitate their access to public offices.
Although neoclassical artists admired Greek production, their reinterpretation of the classical style was actually based primarily on Roman principles, for the simple fact that the works known at that time were almost all Roman, and not Greek. In the mid-nineteenth century, with the reopening of Greece towards the west after a long Turkish domination, with the realization of various archaeological researches that brought to light a large quantity of original Greek works, and under the influence of the romantic current, the taste of the public tended towards Hellenism, but even then Roman art fell out of favor,new wealthy North Americans kept this tradition high. In the twentieth century, however, the modernist revolution led to a drastic decrease in the ability of Roman art to inspire the new generations of artists, although the sculpture collections of ancient Rome continue to the present day to attract multitudes to all the museums where they are exposed and are an important part of the heritage of a civilization whose memory remains surprisingly alive, and from which our own culture was born.