ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN ART

Funerary paintings

Known for necropoli

Tombs (round structures; door leading to a large interior chamber brightly painted)

With symbols of Etruscan lifestyle

Have massive reserve piers with Ionic-like capitals

Entire families, with servants, buried in one tomb

Inspired by Greek buildings (pediments, columns, cella)

Of wood and terra-cotta, NOT stone

With flight of stairs, NOT uniform steps

Sculptures on rooftops

Greek Temples vs. Etruscan Temples

Greek Temples Etruscan Temples

Colonnade
Around entire perimeter. Columns only in front.
:

Steps: Three steps around perimeter. Steps on in front.

Porch: In front of, and behind, the cella. Only in front of the cella.

Podium: Small, consisting of three steps. Tall, with steps only in front.

Cella: One room. Three rooms.

 Closed and decorated with sculpture
Pediment: Open and not decorated.
.

Sculpture: In pediments, metopes, and frieze. On the roof.

Etruscan Painting

ROMAN ART

Artworks considered noble and imposing, yet were still produced in a manner that seemed
realistic

Shared a passion for capturing reality in

trompe l’oeil illusionistic effects (painted objects appear to be real

Naturalistic garden scenes

Still life paintings

Trompe l’Oeil Doorway (illusionistic effects inherited from the Greeks)

Villa of the Mysteries Frescoes

Take the form of a frieze (horizontal decorative band of a classical building) , covering three
walls of a large saloon)

Republican sculpture

Veristic, busts of noblemen; realistic ( a form of idealization – wisdom, determination,

experience)

Full-length statues concentrate on the heads

Bodies symbolize valor and strength

Holds busts of ancestors as a sign of patrician heritage

Verism

a sort of hyperrealism in sculpture where the naturally occurring features of the subject
are exaggerated, often to the point of absurdity

Characteristics of Early Imperial Sculpture

Inspired by Classical Greece

Adopted the contrapposto, ideal proportion, and heroic poses of Greek statuary

Less individualized forms

Iconography more associated with the divine

Characteristics of Late Imperial Structure

Figures lack individuality

Crowded

Pushed forward on the picture plane; depth and recession rejected

Proportions truncated – contrapposto ignored

Bodies almost lifeless behind masking drapery

Emperors represented as military figures rather than civilian rulers

Key Ideas

Reflects ambitions of powerful empire

Revolutionary in understanding the powers of arch, vault, and concrete

Paintings (frescoes) survive in the walls of Pompeiian villas

Shows interest in the basic elements of perspective and foreshortening

Indebted to Greek models

Images

Tomb of the Leopards 480-470 B.C.E., Tarquinia, Italy

Sarcophagus from Cerveteri, 520 B.C.E., terra-cotta, Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome
Capitaline Wolf, 500 B.C.E., bronze, Capitoline Museum, Rome

Dionysiac Mystery Frieze, c. 60-50 BCE, fresco, Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii

Mosaic of Street Musicians (Dioskurides of Samos-mosaicist) Museo Acheologico Nazionale,

Naples, Italy; recovered from the Villa of Cicero in Pompeii

Garden Room, Villa of Livia, Prima Porta (Near Rome) Late 1st century, BCE. Fresco.

Head of a Roman Patrician from Otricoli, c. 75-50 BCE, marble (Palazzo Torlonia, Rome);
represents gravitas (seriousness of mind) and virtus (virtue)

Augustus of Primaporta, 1st century C.E., marble, 2.03 meters high (Vatican Museums)

Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus: Battle of Romans and Barbarians (Ostrogoths), c. 250-260 C.E.,
marble, National Roman Museum, Rome

The Tetrarchs, c. 305 C.E., porphyry, Saint Mark’s, Venice