ROMAN ART

IMPERIAL ROME

For several centuries Ancient Rome was the most powerful nation on earth, excelling all others at military organization and warfare, engineering, and architecture. Its unique cultural achievements include the invention of the dome and the groin vault, the development of concrete and a European-wide network of roads and bridges. Despite this, Roman sculptors and painters produced only a limited amount of outstanding original fine art, preferring instead to recycle designs from Greek art, which they revered as far superior to their own. Indeed, many types of art practised by the Romans - including, sculpture (bronze and marble statuary, sarcophagi), fine art painting (murals, portraiture, vase-painting), and decorative art (including metalwork, mosaics, jewellery, ivory carving) had already been fully mastered by Ancient Greek artists. Not surprisingly, therefore, while numerous Greek sculptors (like Phidias, Kresilas, Myron, Polykleitos, Callimachus, Skopas, Lysippos, Praxiteles, and Leochares, Phyromachos) and painters (like Apollodorus, Zeuxis of Heraclea, Agatharchos, Parrhasius, Apelles of Kos, Antiphilus, Euphranor of Corinth) were accorded great respect throughout the Hellenistic world, most Roman artists were regarded as no more than skilled tradesmen and have remained anonymous.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

The Colosseum

Rome's greatest contribution to the history of art is undoubtedly to be found in the field of architectural design. Roman architecture during the age of the Republic (knowledge of which derives largely from the 1st-century Roman architect Vitruvius) discovered the round temple and the curved arch but, after the turn of the Millennium, Roman architects and engineers developed techniques for urban building on a massive scale. The erection of monumental structures like the Pantheon and the Colosseum, would have been impossible without Rome's development of the arch and the dome, as well as its mastery of strong and low-cost materials like concrete and bricks.

Temple of Portunus

The Romans didn't invent the arch  it was known but not much used in Greek architecture  but they were the first to master the use of multiple arches, or vaults. From this, they invented the Roman groin vault - two barrel vaults set at right-angles  which represented a revolutionary improvement on the old Greek post-and-lintel method, as it enabled architects to support far heavier loads and to span much wider openings. The Romans also made frequent use of the semicircular arch, typically without resorting to mortar: relying instead on the precision of their stonework.

ROMAN SCULPTURE TYPES AND CHARACTERISTIC

Roman sculpture may be divided into four main categories:

historical reliefs; portrait busts and statues, including equestrian statues; funerary reliefs, sarcophagi or tomb sculpture and copies of ancient Greek works. Like architecture, a good deal of Roman sculpture was created to serve a purpose namely, to impress the public  be they Roman citizens or 'barbarians' - and communicate the power and majesty of Rome. In its important works, at least, there was a constant expression of seriousness, with none of the Greek conceptualism or introspection. The mood, pose and facial features of the Roman statue of an Emperor, for instance, was typically solemn and unsmiling. As Rome grew more confident from the reign of Augustus (31 BCE - 14 CE), its leaders might appear in more magnanimous poses, but gravitas and an underlying sense of Roman greatness was never far from the surface. Another important characteristic of Rome's plastic art was its realism. The highly detailed reliefs on Trajan's Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, for instance, are perfect illustrations of this focus on accurate representation, and have been important sources of information for scholars on many aspects of the Roman Legion, its equipment and battle tactics.