Roman Art and Architecture

B

1

First and Second Styles

The First Style, popular between about 120 and 80 bc (House of Sallust, Pompeii), is based on Greek interior decoration. It is sometimes called the Incrustation Style because painted plaster relief is used to imitate the appearance of the lavish marble-reveted walls of the very wealthy.

Painters working in the Second Style, from 80 to 15 bc, sought to create the illusion of vast spaces beyond the surface of the wall by using perspective. Colonnades, gardens, theatrical stages, and round temples were popular motifs. Extensive series of Second Style murals can be found today at Pompeii (Villa of the Mysteries, 50 bc), in a magnificent recently excavated villa at nearby Oplontis (also 50 bc), and elsewhere. Even the house of Augustus on the Palatine Hill in Rome was decorated (circa 25 bc) in this elegant style.

B

2

Third and Fourth Styles

The Third Style, from 15 bc to ad 63, is a highly refined style in which the illusionism of the Second Style is suppressed in favor of delicate linear arabesques on monochrome grounds. Probably the finest surviving suite of Third Style rooms comes from the Villa of Agrippa Postumus (10bc) at Boscotrecase. The Fourth Style, from ad 63 to 79, is the last and most complex style developed before the Vesuvian eruption. Architectural motifs were popular, but they were no longer rendered in a rational perspective; instead, fantastic, impossible-to-build structures adorn the walls of Fourth Style rooms, such as those in the House of the Vettii at Pompeii. In the Third and Fourth Styles the centers of the murals are frequently occupied by imitation panel paintings, usually depicting mythological subjects, although scenes of daily life, portraits, and other themes are also known.

The development of mural painting after the destruction of the cities of Vesuvius is less well documented. But painted rooms of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries may be found at Ostia and especially in the Roman catacombs, where Christian subjects were popular long before Constantine the Great’s conversion to Christianity.

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V

Other Arts

Wherever painted murals existed, colored floors were likely to be present. They were often simply painted in solid colors, but in many instances they were made up of marble slabs of many hues or of thousands of tiny mosaic cubes known as tesserae.

A

Mosaics

Roman mosaics have been excavated in all parts of the empire. They range from abstract patterns of black-and-white tesserae to ambitious multicolor figural compositions, such as the great floor from the House of the Faun at Pompeii. This floor reproduces a 4th-century bc Greek painting, the Battle of Issus, depicting a military engagement of the armies of Alexander the Great and King Darius III of Persia.

Roman ceilings were frequently painted and on occasion covered with mosaics, but they were also often decorated with stucco reliefs that in turn were generally painted. Particularly fine stuccoed vaults have been found in the Farnesina House (20 bc) and the Tomb of the Pancratii (ad 160) in Rome.

B

Gems, Cameos, Metalwork, and Glass

In ancient Rome the arts of metalwork, gem cutting (see Gemstones: Gem Engraving), glass, and the like were highly respected. Although artists’ names are seldom recorded, the name of the engraver of the emperor Augustus’s official seal, Dioscurides, is known. Cameos and intaglios (engraved gems) survive in great numbers with portraits, mythological figures, and the like. Some large cameos with narrative and allegorical scenes are also known; chief among them are the Gemma Augustea (early 1st century ad, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), celebrating Augustus, and the Grand Camée de France (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris), honoring Augustus’s successor, Tiberius.

Metalsmiths were active in producing precious metal jewelry as well as expensive tableware. Hoards of silver vessels have been found in a villa at Boscoreale and in the House of Menander at Pompeii. Both silver treasures were buried by the Vesuvian eruption and include pieces with abstract, vegetal, and figural ornament. The most widely distributed miniature works of art were the Roman coins struck in gold, silver, and copper. Under the empire the coins bore the portraits of the reigning emperors and their families on the obverse side and representations of deities and buildings or historical and allegorical narratives on the reverse.

Roman glass, despite its fragility, has survived in considerable quantities. Glass manufacture included molded and blown glass as well as such luxurious variants as cameo glass (Portland Vase, late 1st century bc, British Museum, London), mosaic glass (many examples, 1st century bc, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York), fondi d’oro (gold-enhanced glass, many examples, 4th century ad, Metropolitan Museum, New York City), and diatreta (cage cup) glass—one-piece glass vessels consisting of a cup or vase enclosed in a mesh carved from its outer surface (Lycurgus Cup, 4th century ad, British Museum).

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