Rome’s Purpose for Sculpture and Painting
As has been the case throughout this course, I am once again intrigued by this week’s Learning Journal question. I had not previously thought about the purpose of Roman sculpture or considered if there were cherished Roman paintings, similar to the Mono Lisa. My research for this assignment surprised me. While the Romans no doubt enjoyed the esthetic of art, it was more to them. It was yet another tool for them to use, apply, exploit as a technology, the same as they did the arch, concrete, the covus, the aqueducts, etc. Below I explore these two art forms towards the end of Roman Republic and into the Empire period, roughly 200 BCE to 200 CE.
Sculpture
The Romans learned sculpture from the Greeks and the Etruscans. Roman sculpture artists worked with different materials, favoring bronze and marble. Beyond statuary forms, the Romans incorporated low relief sculpture into their architecture, recreating entire scenes and stories in a 3D view. Whereas Greek portrait sculpture tended to bear a neutral expression, Rome began to convey an emotional aspect, an attempt to add realism, down a subject’s wrinkles (Kamm, 2009; Trentinella, 2003).
For those who could afford it, there appears to have been …show more content…
Most scholars describe four periods or styles of Roman painting. The First Style being roughly 200-60 BCE. It interesting that the start of this period, 200 BCE, coincides with concrete’s entrance and the end of the second Punic war. A formal paper could explore each period in detail. The end of the fourth period seems to coincide with the destruction of Pompeii. Archeological evidence from later periods suggests a change in painting materials, ones that did not hold up as well the frescoes described by Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder (Cartwright, 2013b; DGRA,
As has been the case throughout this course, I am once again intrigued by this week’s Learning Journal question. I had not previously thought about the purpose of Roman sculpture or considered if there were cherished Roman paintings, similar to the Mono Lisa. My research for this assignment surprised me. While the Romans no doubt enjoyed the esthetic of art, it was more to them. It was yet another tool for them to use, apply, exploit as a technology, the same as they did the arch, concrete, the covus, the aqueducts, etc. Below I explore these two art forms towards the end of Roman Republic and into the Empire period, roughly 200 BCE to 200 CE.
Sculpture
The Romans learned sculpture from the Greeks and the Etruscans. Roman sculpture artists worked with different materials, favoring bronze and marble. Beyond statuary forms, the Romans incorporated low relief sculpture into their architecture, recreating entire scenes and stories in a 3D view. Whereas Greek portrait sculpture tended to bear a neutral expression, Rome began to convey an emotional aspect, an attempt to add realism, down a subject’s wrinkles (Kamm, 2009; Trentinella, 2003).
For those who could afford it, there appears to have been …show more content…
Most scholars describe four periods or styles of Roman painting. The First Style being roughly 200-60 BCE. It interesting that the start of this period, 200 BCE, coincides with concrete’s entrance and the end of the second Punic war. A formal paper could explore each period in detail. The end of the fourth period seems to coincide with the destruction of Pompeii. Archeological evidence from later periods suggests a change in painting materials, ones that did not hold up as well the frescoes described by Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder (Cartwright, 2013b; DGRA,