Roman Art Under Constantine
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 11:50 PM | 0 comments  

The term “Constantinian” is used to describe official manifestations of the arts during the final three-quarters of the fourth century. The finest architectural developments and public projects intended for propaganda purposes were primarily urban in character. Towns underwent a gradual transformation, and although the forum continued to be the focus of urban life, pagan temples were slowly replaced by Christian buildings. Not all public buildings were intended for Christian purposes, however. In Rome, the great civic basilica begun by Maxentius and completed by Constantine epitomizes the new official architecture of Late Antiquity. Built on a rise, it consisted of a nave and lateral aisles of monumental proportions. The imposing central nave (250 x 80 feet, and ii s feet high) was roofed with a groin vault resting on eight columns of Proconnessian marble. The influence of this building on the great Christian basilicas has often been noted.

In the monumental apse at the west end of the building was erected a colossal statue of Constantine, of which only the head (8’/2 feet high), a hand, an arm and a few other fragments have survived. The statue might serve to represent the entire era. It depicted the Emperor seated on a throne, wearing the paludamentum, his raised right hand holding a sceptre, which (if Eusebius is to be believed) was topped by a cross. The Christian Emperor had been elevated to almost supernatural status, dominating mere mortals by the sheer size of his image. The statue also defined the stylistic features of Constantinian portrait use: a renewed Classicism of rigorous stamp, which was to influence many private portraits, particularly those carved on sarcophagi.

The vestiges of other major buildings mm the brief reign of Maxentius can still be seen in Rome, notably the original circular temple dedicated to the deified Romulus in the Forum and his own palace on the Via Appia. Palace architecture is particularly well illustrated by Diocletian’s palace at Split. Although it antedates the Constantinian period proper, this palace is representative of a form of residential architecture in which monumental and decorative sculpture were important elements. Built around the year 300 on the Dalmatian coast near Salonae, the complex was intended as a retreat for the Emperor when he abdicated, five years later. It is based on the rectangular plan of a castrum, with towers at the corners and flanking the gateways, and a great peristyle dominating the residential apartments overlooking the sea. The palace at Split is generally conservative in design, blending the forms of a military camp with borrowings from the great imperial palaces of Rome. Other sumptuous palaces of this kind are known to have been built at Antioch, Constantinople, and for also semi—private use at Piazza Armerina in Sicily.

The official sculpture of the Tetrarchic period finds typical expression in the Tetrarchs Group from Constantinople, carved in red porphyry in the early fourth century and now incorporated into the south-facing façade of St Mark’s, Venice. In Thessalonica, the imperial capital of Galerius, a whole new residential quarter was built around the Emperor’s palace and the circus. At the head of the street leading to the Tetrarch’s circular mausoleum was erected a triumphal arch, its supporting pillars decorated with historiated scenes. Two of these pillars, depicting Galerius’s military campaigns in 297, have survived. Four horizontal registers separated by striking decorative bands are carved, on the north—east, with battle scenes and, on the south—west, with more scenes of the same type alternating with historical and allegorical imagery. At one point in the story, Galerius and Diocletian are shown performing sacrifice at the start of the second stage of the war. The final reliefs mark the end of the campaign, culminating in Galerius’s adventus and triumph in 303 AD. Strongly influenced by the Hellenism of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Arch of Galersus bears witness to the eclipse of Rome by the new imperial capital cities in the early fourth century, and the emergence of new forms of abstract and symbolic thought.

To celebrate Constantine’s victory over Maxentius in 312, on the occasion of his decennalia in 355 the Roman Senate and people had a triumphal arch erected at the foot of the Palatine. It consisted of a triple gateway with freestanding columns, a model that had been used several times before. The Arch of Constantine is the repository not only of an important group of reliefs from the first quarter of the fourth century, but also of many older works: eight statues of Dacians from Trajan’s reign, which stand atop the columns, eight medallions from Hadrian’s time, eight reliefs from the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and the great upper frieze from Trajan’s era. Contemporary with the construction of the Arch itself are the circular reliefs representing the sun and moon on the east and west ends, the eight imperial busts of the smaller openings, the reliefs of victories and trophies carved on the plinths of the columns, the divinities carved on the keystones of the arches, the river gods of the side arches, and the victories and seasons of the central area. Most important of all is the historical frieze which, following a pattern set by the arches of Titus and Septimius Severus in Rome and that of Trajan at Benevento, runs above the side arches and continues at mid-height around the ends of the monument. This frieze is rightly considered to represent the ideology and style of the period.

Symptomatic of the formal canon of Late Antiquity (which tended to distort the Classical ideal) is the complete absence of elements derived from the Hellenistic tradition. There is also a certain irregularity in the composition and a lack of realism in the way the figures are arranged. The atmosphere of the imperial court is expressed in new iconographical renderings, with the Emperor depicted full-face in the centre, flanked by figures who seem to exist only in relation to his person. The Emperor’s new status as a Christian prince, also reflected in consular diptychs of the period, is here combined with an obvious intention to lay claim to the Roman imperial heritage by the redeployment of earlier sculptural reliefs.

A certain unity of style is to be found throughout the Mediterranean region, in official monuments of the kind we have been describing, in the decoration of such luxurious private residences as those at Piazza Armerina in Sicily or Centcelles near Tarragona, and in the portraits of those who feature in the iconography of Christian basilicas (Aquileia). During the first half of the fourth century, even on sarcophagi, there is a tendency towards portraits with bulging eyes, roundish heads and short hair, Later on, and even during the first half of the fifth century, this style is abandoned in favour of a rather flaccid form of Classicism. A good example is the statue of the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate, now in the Louvre.

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Art and The Decline Of The Roman Empire
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 10:01 PM | 0 comments  
ART AND THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Nowadays, we tend to use the term Late Antiquity to describe the final period of the Roman Empire and the changes associated with it. Although the final centuries, from the reign of the Severans until the ultimate fall of the Western Empire in the fifth century, are traditionally seen as a time of progressive decadence, the restructuring undertaken by Diocletian (284—305), and then by Constantine (307—337), signalled a clean break with the period of invasions that had characterized the second half of the third century. Their reigns saw a decisive centralization of power as well as the development of an imperial court, not only in Rome but also in Trier, Milan, Sirmium, Constantinople and even Ravenna. Constantine brought the Tetrarchic period to an end by making Christianity the official religion of the Empire. Ecclesiastical institutions very soon came to play an important role in urban life, as the episcopal form of church government became established. The Church sought to promote its image and Christianize the arts, including public and private monumental sculpture.

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The Third Centuty Of Roman Sculpture Art
Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 8:08 PM | 0 comments  
THE THIRD CENTURY OF ROMAN SCULPTURE ART

Under the Severans, from Septimius Severus (193—212) to Alexander Severus (222—235), Rome continued to play a central role in the cultural policy of the emperors. Major monuments were built. Foreign works of art, mainly of Asian origin, continued to be imported, and artists flocked to the city, particularly from Hellenistic centres. There was a notable import trade in sculpted marble sarcophagi. A wreck from the first half of the third century, found off Taranto, was carrying a cargo of twenty-four such items from the Eastern Mediterranean. The carvings on sarcophagi were imbued with a new spirituality, combining symbolism, mythology and oriental religion, and thus preparing the way for Christian themes. In the private iconography of sarcophagi, we now find the same relationship as had previously existed between the public figure and his portrait in official sculpture, with the deceased often represented taking part in hunting or battle scenes. The entire third century is rich in fine sarcophagi. The Ludovisi sarcophagus, for instance, at the Museo delle Terme, which dates from the early part of the century, features a true likeness of the deceased in the guise of a victorious warrior. At the same time, there was a vogue for pastoral or bucolic scenes covering all sides of the sarcophagus, which was another step on the road to Christian iconography.

Two outstanding works of public sculpture survive from the Severan period. The first, the gateway known as the Silversmiths’ Arch, was erected in 204 AD at the entrance to the Forum Boarium, the former business centre of Republican Rome. The monument in many ways anticipates Late Antique sculpture: the emperor and empress, who occupy almost all the available space, are depicted frontally, without depth, while foliage elements play an important part in the decoration. The chief monument of this period is, nevertheless, the Arch of Septimius Sevens, erected in the Roman Forum in 203 AD. It consists of three openings framed by free—standing columns on imposing bases, and an uninterrupted upper storey bearing the inscription. The four large historical reliefs above the lateral arches tell of Septimius Severus’s campaigns in Mesopotamia. These panels continue the Roman tradition of historical relief sculpture. According to Herodian, the military scenes were, inspired by paintings the Emperor sent to the Senate. Stylistically, they exhibit definite links with the reliefs of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, particularly the latter. However, the carved subjects are more isolated, in keeping with the general trend of official sculpture in the first quarter of the third century. Public relief sculpture and private sarcophagi were now developing on parallel lines and drawing on similar subject matter. The Palazzo Mattei sarcophagus, carved with hunting scenes, shows the direction things were taking in the second quarter of the century. It is sarcophagi of this type that enable us to follow the various stylistic trends of the period. In imperial portraits, too, we can chart a gradual liberation from Classical canons and at the same time the emergence of a new physical and psychological individualism.

During the third century, the provinces began to evolve sculptural forms of their own. Independence was in the air, encouraging the development of local styles, which were eventually to influence the art of Rome itself The materials and techniques used by local craftsmen were an important factor in the process of differentiation. From the time of Gallienus (253—268) until the Tetrarchy, Roman art abandoned the Hellenistic tradition and forms evolved in a new climate of artistic freedom. Not until the rime of Constantine did the Empire rediscover its unity this time under the influence of Christianity.
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The Augustan Myth Of Roman Empire
Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 10:57 PM | 0 comments  
THE AUGUSTAN MYTH

The emperors imposed new organs of government and a centralized administration, with themselves as head of the army and Pontifex Maximus. On the accession of Augustus (27 BC—14 AD), a new sense of optimism swept away the nightmare of the civil wars. Augustus announced his determination to re-establish Roman order

and encouraged literature and the arts. The result of this new centralizing force was an impressive unity of form. There was a clear intention to assimilate the myths of Rome’s origins in such works of art as the Ara Pacis or Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, which presents the exploits of its Trojan hero as prefiguring those of Augustus himself. In architecture, Augustus transformed the city of Rome, making extensive use of marble and surpassing the achievements of Julius Caesar by building his own forum exalt the gens lulia.

The statue of Augustus wearing a cuirass, from Livia’s suburban villa at Prima Porta on the Via Flaminia (Vatican), shows the Emperor in short military dress, paludamentum over his left arm and lance in hand. His right hand makes an energetic gesture as he calls for silence. In carving the figure, the sculptor clearly drew inspiration from famous models such as the Doryphorus of Polyclitus. This portrait epitomizes the new idealizing tendency characteristic of Augustan Classicism.

The Prima Porta statue is particularly noteworthy for the decorative reliefs on the Emperor’s cuirass. The composition is dominated by a personification of the sky, which hovers over the chariot of the Sun god as he follows the figures of Aurora and Phosphorus. Tellus, god of the Earth, accompanied by two putti and flanked by Apollo riding a griffin and Diana on a hind, occupies the lower part of the cuirass. The middle register is taken up by a highly symbolic scene which defines not only the ideology of Empire but the entire propaganda effort of Augustus’s reign. The king of the Parthians, Phraates IV, is shown restoring the standards lost by Crassus. He hands them to a Roman general, probably Tiberius, who pacified Germany and Pannonia in the years 12—8 BC. This gives us the clue to the date of the statue or its model. The statue therefore emphasizes Augustus’s support for Tiberius and exemplifies an emerging Neo-Classical style with an admixture of Neo—Atticism, evident in the reliefs of the cuirass.

The greatest, though not earliest, work of the Augustan age is the Ara Pacis, an altar dedicated to the Pax Augusta. This monument best sums up the prevailing sense of the sacred and the universal power at the heart of the imperial idea. On the fourth of July of the year 13 BC, the Roman Senate voted for the erection of an altar devoted to the Pax Augusta, on the Campus Martins, to celebrate Augustus’s return from Gaul and the Iberian peninsula. It took four years to complete. Fragments of the monument were discovered over a long period between the sixteenth century and excavations carried out in 1903 and 1937—38. The work has since been reconstructed from the recovered fragments, with aid from other figurative sources, particularly coins, though not on the original site. The Ara Pacis is rectangular in plan, with two wide doorways on the shorter sides. The altar proper is at the centre of the monument, which stands on a podium and was decorated, inside and out, with monumental reliefs separated by pilasters carved with candelabra of foliage. On the outside, the decoration is arranged in two horizontal bands, the lower adorned with foliage and acanthus motifs, the upper done in figurative relief The four panels flanking the doors are sculpted with mythical and allegorical scenes, while the longer sides feature two processions. The smaller panels display a general form of symbolism, in which peace leads to the prosperity of Rome. The processional scenes make a close association between the official aspects of religion, with its priests, and imperial power as mediated by the family o( Augustus. The procession is led by Agrippa, the principal heir of the dynastic line, who died in 52 BC. Identification of the members of Augustus’s household has raised a great deal of controversy over the years. At times, the extremely formal processions have been interpreted in very realistic and objective ways; at others, they have been viewed as idealistic presentations of the dynasty and the problems surrounding the succession.

The Ara Pacis is a monument which, in the style of its figured reliefs and the decorative power of its friezes, exemplifies the long-awaited independence of Roman art from Greek models. The Classicism of this period is marked by a predilection for marble and by innovations in form: relief sculpture itself, perspective, a sense of space and depth, and the detailed treatment of clothing. The impressive unity of inspiration and technique one feels in these works reflects an aristocratic approach to art, at the service of political power. In the Ara Pacis, we discern an emerging taste for the Neo—Attic style, which the Roman elites favoured to the point of making it an essential feature of official art. The spiritual and political tranquillity of this period of peace, replacing the anguish and dangers of earlier times, is evidenced by an eschewing of eclecticism and the choice of a new style pregnant with the Greek spirit. It marks one of the high points of Roman art. It is hardly surprising that historians of Neo—Classical art have given special emphasis to this period, although they have not always noticed its specifically Neo—Attic components. Its novel elements include the juxtaposition of figured and purely decorative friezes — a practice the Greeks would never have consented to — and the difference in style between the processional scenes and the smaller panels. This lack of organic and structural links, unheard of in the Greek world, betrays the Italo-Etruscan background against which the new style developed, drawing its inspiration from the artistic traditions of the Hellenistic kingdoms and from that of consular and Republican Rome.

A similar overlapping of Hellenistic models and local roots is apparent in the reliefs of the altar of the Vicomagistri, (Vatican) mentioned earlier. This continuous frieze depicting a religious procession was reconstructed from fragments discovered in 1939. Thought to date from the third or fourth decade of the first century AD, the frieze exhibits the same overall unity of style as the Ara Pacis, with similar inter—relationships between the figures. The presentation of foreground and background makes for a more realistic effect, and the portraits are considered to be true likenesses.

Closely related to these two monuments is another altar, the Ara Pietatis, voted by the Senate in 22 AD, but not dedicated until AD, by the Emperor Claudius. So close is the resemblance between these and the earlier reliefs, there is on doubt that the Augustan style outlived the Emperor himself. But official ideology did gradually change, as is evident if we compare the unreal, almost timeless, quality of the reliefs for Augustus’s altar with the very precise topographical indications of the Ara Pietatis, which harks back to an older tradition of triumphal painting. Neo-Atticism gradually gave way to the Neo-Hellenism that was to represent the hallmark of the first century. It is epitomized by the desire to imitate the works of the great Hellenistic courts in small artefacts of monumental conception, such as, for instance, the Gemma Augustea (Vienna) or the Grand Camée de France (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris).
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The Republican Era Of Roman Sculpture
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 7:36 PM | 0 comments  


THE REPUBLICAN ERA OF ROMAN SCULPTURE


We describe as “Republican” the art of the period between the foundation of Rome in 753 BC and the accession of Augustus. Artistic developments in Rome itself can be deduced from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were spectacularly preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Consideration of this period raises the thorny issue of the origins of Roman art, and particularly its relationship with the art of the Etruscans. The problem is epitomized by the Capitoline She-Wolf, if we accept it as the product of an Etruscan workshop or of the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, cast during the fifth century, or even the early fourth century BC. The bronze head of the Capitoline “Brutus”, mythical founder of the Republic, once belonged to a complete statue and ii believed to date from the first quarter of the third century BC. The steady gaze, strong features, power and sobriety of this piece bespeak a well—established Central-Italic tradition of individualized portraiture. This tradition was also nourished by works of art brought to Rome as war booty from the towns of Magna Graecia and Etruria. The foundation was being laid for the eclecticism of later Roman art.

The city of Rome, whose name is first recorded in the late fourth century on the Ficoroni Cut (in the Villa Giulia), was soon graced with important monuments, such as the Regia, a mid-sixth-century religious building which stood in the Forum, and numerous temples such as those in the Area Sacra beside the Largo Argentina. The basilica gradually developed as a rectangular building with a number of side aisles. The later Republican period saw the erection of the temples in the Forum Holitorium, urban development of the southern areas of the Campus Martius, and the building of the Tabularium on the Capitoline.

One of the oldest works known to us, which we must define as pre-Roman, was the great hypogeum of the Scipios on the Via Appia. Originally, it consisted of a large square chamber containing the principal tomb — now in the Vatican Museum at its centre. Two tufa heads from this complex are akin to works produced in southern Etruria in the late third and early second centuries BC. Of similar tradition are the reliefs of the Via del Mare procession, which can be seen in the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

The new social classes which emerged during the final prosperous stage of the Republic commissioned sculptors to work on various projects. The most characteristic monument of this new trend, possibly the first public relief sculpture, is the altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, fragments of which are preserved in the Munich and Louvre museums. The reliefs graced the base of a temple to Mars or Neptune in the Circus Flaminius, where the church of San Salvatore in Campo now stands. There were also statues, since lost, of Neptune, Amphitrite, Achilles and Nereids, which, according to Pliny, were made by one Skopas (not to be confused with the renowned sculptor of that name from Paros). Three sides are decorated with a marine procession celebrating the marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite, depicted in a chariot drawn by tritons. The fourth side shows animals being presented, in a scene which is certainly sacrificial in character, and yet contains elements of something quite different. Beside the altar stand the god Mars and the Censor with his assistants. This relief, which also owes something to a military environment, inaugurates a new type of composition centred on the censor. Though they all date from around 110 BC, the reliefs differ in style. The marine procession derives from a Hellenistic and Neo—Attic tradition, and is symbolic rather than realistic in content. The sacrificial scene is considered to be ,the starting point of Roman relief sculpture as we know it.

The use of commemorative reliefs spread rapidly during the first century AD. Examples are the frieze of the Arch of Augustus at Susa (Piedmont) and, in Rome, the base of the altar of the Vicomagistri, erected under Tiberius. Funerary reliefs, of the plebeian or popular kind described earlier, also became very popular in many Italian cities. Some tombs were commissioned by merchants or craftsmen who had grown wealthy, and they tended to embellish their last resting place in monumental fashion. Such tombs are often decorated with scenes from their working life or with funerary banquets.

The culmination of all these developments is to be seen in the frieze depicting preparations for a triumphal procession from the Temple of Apollo Sosianus (Palazzo dei Conservatori). It is based on the triumph celebrated by Sosius in 34 BC, though it was not actually sculpted until twenty or so years later. This relief, like the procession from an altar base which was discovered beneath the Cancelleria building (Vatican Museum), leads on to the mature Roman narrative style which found its fullest official expression on the lateral walls of Augustus’s Ara Pacis.

The attempt to fix a given moment in the life of an individual or group, in functions both public and private, is also evident in Republican portraiture. There is a clean break with the standardized portraits of Etruscan and Italic origin. The supposed portrait of Sulla (Venice) epitomizes the new trend in politically—motivated patrician portraiture, which was to become an essential instrument of propaganda under the new senatorial aristocracy.
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Silver And Ceramics Of Roman Sculpture Art
Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 11:28 PM | 0 comments  
SILVER AND CERAMICS

An archaeological find such as the Boscoreale. Treasure, probably buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 69 AD and now in the Louvre, is ample proof of the high quality of Roman silverware. The luxurious items were for the domestic use of people with the means to purchase heavy tableware in such prestigious material. The carafes, vases and salt cellars were hidden in haste. They are decorated in relief, and one cup, now destroyed, bore a scene of homage to Augustus. A similar hoard, unearthed at Hildesheim and now in Berlin, tends to indicate the absence of silversmiths’ workshops in these regions. The sixty or so pieces may well have been looted from a number of smaller collections in Italy. The delicate ornamental motifs of griffins, putti and foliage which completely cover the surface of the bowls and other vessels are proof of a very close relationship with the monumental art of the Augustan period, in particular the paintings and stuccowork of the Villa Farnesina. This type of silverware was also an important influence on ceramicists, who appear to have imitated it, particularly at Arezzo. The repoussé technique in vogue until the mid-first century AD, gradually gave way to casting. Gallo-Roman workshops, for instance, used the latter technique almost exclusively. Then, during the late third century, repoussé decoration seems to have made a comeback and became the standard technique in the late Empire. To this period belong silver caskets with pagan and Christian motifs, boxes and reliquaries, ewers or oinochoes (wine—jugs) and flasks. Plates continued to be east, and were sometimes decorated using the niello engraving technique. Among the characteristic artefacts of this period are the silver ewer owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Louvre oinochoe, which is decorated with hunting scenes, animals and leaf patterns. The motifs arc akin to those found in fourth- century mosaics. The links between the different media are worth emphasizing in this context.

As well as silver, pottery was widely used for household purposes. We have already seen how terracotta was sometimes used as a substitute material for small—format sculptures, architectural features, busts and portraits. But, in Roman times, it was ceramics that accounted for mass production in this field. Everyday pottery was made in various styles: with a black or brown glaze, particularly for drinking vessels; with a golden glint to it, reminiscent of a metal finish; with the inner surfaces in red or brown; with a polished, slip finish; or in a more basic style, with neither slip nor colour, for cooking purposes. Roman pottery was produced from moulds, with relief decoration reflecting the period, region, technique and workshop.

Towards the middle of the first century BC, black-glaze pottery, which had been produced in many local styles throughout the Mediterranean region, disappeared and was replaced by “Arretine” ware (terra sigillata), the essential characteristics of which were its fine, glossy surface and a colour ranging from deep orange to cherry red. The potters of Arretium (modern Arezzo) specialized in this fine tableware, which was manufactured in imitation of silverware. The decoration was generally limited to stamped relief motifs or incisions made directly in the clay, but some forms, such as bowls, craters and cups, were figured or ornamented with more complex scenes. Pottery of this kind was famous in ancient times. In the middle of the first century AD, Northern Italian and Gaulish imitations began to compete effectively with the Arretine ware, before being overtaken in their turn by a lighter orange tableware from North Africa. Roman ceramics are, of course, a study in themselves. It is only their iconography and certain decorative reliefs that interest us in our study of sculpture proper.

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Bronze Work Of Roman Sculpture Art
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 10:25 AM | 0 comments  
BRONZE WORK OF ROMAN SCULPTURE ART

The term bronze covets a number of copper-based alloys. In Roman times, the word aes was used for both copper and bronze, which is explained by the fact that adding another metal to copper improves its properties without changing its nature. For technical and economic reasons, there was a tendency to add more or less lead, which somewhat reduced the strength of the resulting alloy. The practice was nonetheless common, as it allowed the metal to be cast at lower temperatures, and made it flow more freely. Roman bronzes were therefore alloys of copper, tin, lead and sometimes zinc.

According to Polybius, who is quoted by Strabo, copper, lead and silver mines were intensively exploited by a large labour force. In the Republican era, mines were leased by the State. The Spanish mines supplied ingots to the whole Roman world. Bronze was used for many purposes: tableware, luxury household items, machinery, tablets of laws, architectural decoration, portraits of important people and statues to the gods. However, many bronze artefacts have not survived, partly owing to corrosion, but more often because they were melted down and recast at a later date. The value of the material and the unlimited scope for recycling it explains why so many works have disappeared. Some, of course, were transformed into bronze coins. In Classical times, bronze portraits and statues were in fact just as common as those made of stone or marble.

The recent discovery, near Cape Miseno, of an equestrian statue of Domitian, subsequently transformed into a portrait of Nerva, may be linked to the report of Dio Cassius, who states that, so the late second century AD, Didius lulianus refused the golden statue the Senate had decided to erect so his honour in these terms: “Give me a statue of bronze, which will last. I see that all the gold and silver statues in honour of my predecessors have been destroyed, while those made of bronze are still standing.” But Dio adds: “He was wrong, because the bronze statue that was dedicated to him, as he had desired, was, in its turn, destroyed after his fall.”

On the whole, bronze was little used for funerary portraits, but was very popular for commemorative statues erected in public places. The difference in price between bronze and marble statues was due mainly to the greater technical risks involved in casting bronze, whereas the marble carver’s task was more or less routine.

Examination of imperial statues shows that, after casting, bronze was often gilded, which increased its prestige. Recent restoration work has revealed traces of the layer of gold applied to the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, formerly on the Capitoline. Of the prestigious statues executed in bronze, we might mention the Capitolinc She- Wolf, the Head, of Brutus in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, the statue in the Museo delle Terme often believed to represent a Hellenistic sovereign (though in fact a likeness of Titus Quinctius Flaminius), the “Orator” in the Archaeological Museum in Florence, and a large number of imperial portraits. Whole groups of statues were sometimes executed in bronze, for instance the group of male and female figures and horses found at Cartoecto, now in the Ancona Museum. Given the large number of surviving imperial portraits from the provinces, workshops must have operated in quite far-flung places, a supposition confirmed by examination of the portrait of Hadrian recently acquired by the Louvre.

Though denying, directly or indirectly, from large-scale official sculpture, bronze statuettes were more or less mass produced in many regions. Study of those produced in an important legionary centre such as Carnuntum sheds light on the tastes and beliefs of the soldiery, trade in the region, workshops and imports. The groop of statuettes found in 1830 at Montorio, near Verona, is suggestive of a small household shrine in which Jupiter was the chief deity, surrounded by many other figures. The small bronze statuette from the Colomb Collection at Sistéron reveals that there was a trade in small—format replicas intended purely for the pleasure of the purchaser, in this case a fine new reproduction of the Farnese Antinous.

From Late Antiquity, fewer bronze statues, busts and portraits have survived. Instead, the material was used for utilitarian objects of various kinds: harnesses, tableware, weapons, knives and buckles. lo the religious field, bronze was used for many fine liturgical items; examples of these arc suspended and processional crosses, censers, vases and communion plates.

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The Capital Of Roman Sculpture
Saturday, August 28, 2010 at 10:56 PM | 0 comments  

THE CAPITAL OF ROMAN SCULPTURE

Given that Roman civilization was essentially urban, architectural sculpture was the bread and butter of the specialized stone—cutting workshops active in most towns of the Empire. Buildings were decorated with geometrical and foliage patterns carved in the stonework of friezes, entablatures, cornices and capitals. The latter were used to crown columns and pillars and bear the weight of architrave or springer. A capital consisted of a cushion (the echinus) surmounted by a plain or decorated block of greater or lesser thickness (the abacus) and was linked to the shaft of the column below by a number of mouldings. It was the member that most readily distinguished the architectural orders, even more so than the column or entablature. The Romans continued to use the three types of Greek capital — Done, Ionic and Corinthian and created the Tuscan, which had a fillet above the abacus and an astragal, or smooth moulding, round the neck of the column on which it sat. The composite capital was a mixture of the Ionic and Corinthian, sometimes decorated with winged victories or eagles. This type was probably developed in the time of Augustus, and the most elaborate examples so Rome itself are those gracing the Arch of Titus; the capitals of the Colosseum are probably not original. The fact that these capitals have two registers of acanthus leaves shows the predominance of the Corinthian order. In Southern Italy, the end of the Republican era, around 30 BC, seems the most propitious moment for the invention of these capitals. At Pompeii, the capitals of the great palaestra or the house of Octavius Quartio are proof of experimentation in this direction.

Whilst drawing inspiration from their Greek heritage, the Romans rethought it completely. In the area of decorative sculpture, the Corinthian order was the most widely used. The oldest building with Corinthian columns on the exterior is the monument to Lysicrates in Athens, which dates from around BC. But the history of the Corinthian capital as a form dates back even further, probably to the late fifth century. Hellenistic architects often hesitated to use Corinthian capitals in conjunction with the Ionic or Done orders. But despite its ancient history, the Corinthian was the preferred Roman order. The buildings now accepted as the starting point of Roman Corinthian date from the period between the death of Julius Caesar and approximately 25 BC. Three of these structures are widely known for their architectural features: the temple to Julius Caesar in the Roman Forum (42—29 BC), the Regia restored by Domitius Calvinus around 36 BC, and the Augustan Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, begun in 36 and dedicated in 28 BC. The first and third of these are Corinthian buildings with well- preserved capitals. The entablature of the Regia consisted of au architrave divided into two horizontal bands and crowned with a plain moulding. The continuous frieze was decorated with garlanded ox-skulls or bucrania. The cornice had dentils and modillions below the corona, while the flat surfaces between the modillions were decorated with low-relief floral motifs. A fourth building, the Temple of Saturn (about 20 BC), should be mentioned as well in this context, as it was almost certainly Corinthian in style when built. In all these buildings, the presence of modillions arranged at regular intervals below a projecting corona is an essential feature, hallmark of the origins of Roman Corinthian. The history of architectural decoration after the Battle of Actium (31 BC) and throughout the Augustan period is marked by a departure from the purity of the Classical orders and a taste for opulence and variety of detail. This light-hearted approach signalled the beginnings of the Roman style, as witnessed by the triumphal arch at Rimini, erected on the Via Flaminia in 27 BC. Of the different types of Roman capital, those sculpted with human figures are highly characteristic. Their origins can be traced back to Classical and Hellenistic Greece, and they became extremely popular in Southern Italy in the fourth century BC. They were subsequently taken up by Roman artists and produced in a great variety of forms: as portrait—bases in Provence, sculpted with the foreparts of animals (pro- tomes) in the Temple of Mars Ultor, and carved with continuous reliefs in the so—called Antonine baths in Carthage. Some of these capitals are of the highest quality, deserving of a place alongside statues and reliefs in the history of Roman sculpture. The capital in the Pigna Courtyard in the Vatican comes from the city baths built by Severus Alexander around 227 AD. It is carved with sporting scenes featuring a boxer, a gymnast and others.

During Late Antiquity, the capital underwent a transformation, in common with other elements of architectural decoration. The Theodosian capital is composite, with a double row of eight spiny acanthus leaves and, above, between the volutes, a row of upright leaves with five lobes replacing the Classical ovolo design. Below is a wreath of oblique spiny acanthus. This model was certainly created in the workshops of Constantinople and is the precursor of the various types of Byzantine capital. In some cases, their Christian character is indicated by the symbol of a cross.

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Sculptors And Patrons Of Roman Sculpture
Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 7:59 PM | 0 comments  

SCULPTORS AND PATRONS OF ROMAN SCULPTURE


In most cases, the names of those who sponsored the great works of Roman sculpture are known only from surviving inscriptions. Under the Republic, the Roman oligarchy honoured its most eminent members, and accepted similar honours from its dependents. At that time, statues were erected by the Senate to publicize the deeds of great men and promote their success. They were dedicated exclusively to magistrates, either by the Senate or by provincial towns and communities outside Rome. Although this continued in Imperial times, it was the Emperor who emerged as the principal patron. Within the imperial entourage, the circle of patrons might extend to the chief office holders of the city. In the private domain, portraits or reliefs of a funerary or religious nature were a matter of individual taste and wealth.

Most of the great works of Roman sculpture are anonymous, since the names of their authors have not been preserved. But this does not mean that the artists were unknown to their contemporaries. It is not surprising that the emperor and members of his entourage engaged the most renowned artists, and that such masters could command high prices, far higher than those paid to less skilful colleagues. Phny the Elder, referring in his .Natural History to the sculptor of the cult statue of Venus Geoetrix, which stood in the temple in Caesar’s Forum,

quotes Varro as saying that Arcesilaus was paid far more for his clay model than other sculptors normally received for a finished work. The prestige of a work of art was often measured in terms of its price. For instance, the Felicitas made by Arcesilaus for Lucius Lucullus cost one million sestertii, while Zenodorus was paid forty million for the colossal statue of Mercury that he undertook for the Arvernes of Gaul. The cost of the work was dictated by a market which was to a great extent made up of Greek imports. Thus, Cicero commissioned his friend Atticus to buy statues for a gymnasium on his behalf and, on another occasion, having purchased some Maenads, complained to his dealer, Fabius Callus, that he could not find a suitable place for them in his house.

In Roman society, artists or craftsmen might occupy different rungs on the social ladder, but craftsmen were not generally highly regarded. Lucian, writing in the second century AD, sets out the negative aspects of certain manual activities: “If you become a sculptor, you will be no more than a workman, tiring yourself physically, receiving only a meagre wage, (...) a common labourer, a man lost in the crowd, bowing and scraping to the rich, humble servant of the eloquent, living like a hare and destined to become the prey of the strong. Even if you were a Phidias or a Polyclitus and created a thousand masterpieces, it is your art that would be praised and, of those who admired your work, there would not be one, if he had any common sense, who would wish to take your place. Skilful as you might be you would always be regarded as an artisan, a mere mechanical, a man living by the work of his hands.” A first-century funerary altar so the Vatican Museum shows a sculptor at work. He is dcpicted seated, working on a funerary bust in a clipeus. A stele found ar Bordeaux shows a local sculptor sitting on a bench, wearing a smock and a skullcap, a hammer in his right hand and a chisel in his left. His name is Amandus and he is carving a stele in memory of his brother and fellow—sculptor Amabilis. The scene bears witness to a crafts— manes pride in his workmanship, which he considered worthy to feature on their tomb. Another stele, in the municipal museum of Urbino, shows sculptors engaged in carving sarcophagi. Such groups of craftsmen would set up workshops on the outskirts of towns, close to the burial grounds.

Signatures on works of sculpture are open to interpretation. Do they refer to the patron, the sculptor or the workshop involved? A workshop was a collective enterprise, whether its end products were statues, reliefs or sarcophagi. From roughing out to finishing, the stages of manufacture varied according to the nature and scale of the work, and of course colour was applied to fully completed and polished works and to unfinished decorative pieces. Division of labour was the rule, and the painter was an essential collaborator. The nature of the raw material was undoubtedly the most important variable: the organization of the work and the ultimate sale price would depend on whether a common local stone were used or an imported material requiring special treatment, such as marble. The work of the sculptor varied greatly: from mass production of statues and sarcophagi, where the distinctive features of the human figure were left undefined until the work was actually sold, to precise orders to a workshop or individual sculptor specifying iconographical features and symbolic requirements. Collaboration is evident when different styles can be detected in the same piece of work. Sculptors might also be asked to readapt earlier works to the taste of a new owner, update the iconography or style of a work, transform a public sculpture to meet the requirements of a new ruler, or maintain works offered to the state. In the case of sarcophagi, for instance, it is evident that the portrait was often sculpted a long rime after the reliefs.

There are also portraits and busts whose features and other details have been reworked in order to change their identity. Those of Nero, for instance, in the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, were reworked into portraits of Vespasian (69—79 AD) after Nero’s fall from grace and damnatio memoriae de facto. There are many examples of this practice. A head of Trajan at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow was carved from an older fragment of a man wearing a toga. Another instance is the colossal statue of Severus Alexander, adapted from a statue of Elagabalus following the latter’s damoatio memoriae. Resemblances between works geographically remote from one another, for instance the portrait of Hermes in Munich and a head kept in the Thessalonica Museum, may be explained by the circulation of models, or by the fact that sculptors tended to bring earlier portraits into line with new official directives.

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Religion And Politics Of Roman Sculpture
Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 7:56 PM | 0 comments  

RELIGION AND POLITICS OF ROMAN SCULPTURE


In Roman thinking, harmony in human affairs depended on concord between the gods and men and was achieved by the performance of religious rites, of which the most important were solemn offerings. Religion and spiritual aspirations were often the inspiration of Roman art. Reliefs relating to the cult of a god were very common, for instance, particularly in imperial times. This was partly because they were less expensive to produce than sculptures in the round, partly because they were better suited to narrating the legends associated with the god and could be combined with symbolic or secondary motifs. In the general quest for a higher, transcendent realm, Roman art developed its own architectural models, which differ from Greek antecedents in a feeling for space, larger dimensions, illusionistic decoration, lack of feeling for sculptural detail and the importance ascribed to the façade. Masters of the world following the Punic Wars, and seen as favoured by the gods, the Romans sought to create an art corresponding to their god-given vocation. Having glorified the gods and goddesses of eternal life and love — Venus, Diana and Bacchus — they went on to exalt the emperor as bringer of salvation. It would, of course, be inappropriate to see all Roman art as having a sacred function, but it is evident that the allegorical representation of a transcendent world is a frequent aspect of it. Sarcophagi bespeak the aspiration of the Roman soul, and the symbolic value of the scenes they depict helps explain the changes made by the Romans to the Greek myths.

Even portraiture exhibits a religious approach to life: in the third century, for example, the new way of representing the eyes indicates a change in the relationship between the individual and the gods.

Through sculpture, it is also possible to study the penetration of foreign cults into the Empire: the worship of Egyptian divinities introduced from Alexandria in the last two centuries before Christ and the mystery religions, particularly that of Mithras. Deriving from oriental prototypes in which the god is associated with a bull, Mithras was ofren depicted in reliefs of various kinds. The one in the Louvre, originally from Fiano Romano, shows the banquet of Mithras and the Sun, before a cylindrical altar with an undulating snake. The carcass of the bull is laid out in front of them. But not all such monuments illustrate the same text or doctrine, even when they are inspired by a known myth. Modes of representation vary according to tradition, region and period.
Religious observance could be public or private, and the State religion was propagated by the ritually ordained layout of the city itself. Sacrifice was one of the basic religious practices: ritual sacrifices performed on fixed days, sacrifices of an expiatory or propitiatory nature, and thanksgivings. They might involve the death of animals, or a modest libation. Rich and poor alike solemnly performed these rites, advertising the fact within their family circle and the public at large. The ceremonies were frequently marked by the kind of processions shown on Roman reliefs. The altar in the vestibule of the Vatican Belvedere expresses the dynastic programme of Augustus, with the apotheosis of Caesar, or more probably Agrippa, which prefigures his own, Victory bearing a shield, and Augustus himself delivering the Latin to the magistri. Another altar in the Vatican Museum, which includes female subjects, illustrates the social policy of the Emperor, who sought to involve all groups in acclaiming different aspects of the State.

In the Roman world, a multitude of altars were set up in honour of emperors, in addition to those dedicated to the Lares and those associated with the worship of gods. Any study of sculpted altars must take into account the differences between cult altars and votive pillars, altars dedicated to gods and those used to invoke the divinities for funerary purposes. Votive altars are themselves an offering and are often simple in their decoration. From art of the most official kind (Ara Pacis, Arch of Titus, statues of emperors as gods) to the most private and varied manifestations of faith (Source of the Seine and Mont Sacon sanctuaries) and the many statues of gods remarkable fur their original form or a particular private interpretation, religion and the use made of it by those in power was undoubtedly the driving force behind Roman art, albeit with many variations.

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The Historical Relief Of Roman Art
Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 8:53 AM | 0 comments  



THE HISTORICAL RELIEF OF ROMAN ART

From the beginning .of the first century BC, reliefs carved in stone or marble, together with paintings, were adopted as a means of expressing dominant ideological tendencies.The politico-religious doctrines on which Sulla established his power were expressed in the frieze in Via della Consolazione, with its weapons and trophies. Towards the middle of the century, scenes of contemporary political life, together with nautical subjects, featured on the base of an altar which stood on the Campus Martius, near the Circus Flaminius. A generation later, the glory of Augustus was celebrated in epic form in the reliefs of the Ara Pacis, while, some years earlier, Cartilius Publieola had commissioned scenes of his military exploits for his tomb at Ostia. At Glanum and elsewhere, low- relief replaced mural painting as the means of representing the stage-by-stage development of an event, with ,the successive episodes juxtaposed like the frames of a cartoon. It is true that legendary episodes had already been illustrated in this way on the altar of Zeus at Pergamon, but continuous narrative had generally been the preserve of painting, in the home, on tombs and in certain public settings.

The Odyssey frieze in the Vatican Library, the frescoes of the Esquiline columbarium narrating the origins of Rome, or the mural painting of the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, may he cited as examples.

The creation of sculpted reliefs depicting a continuous story and a taste for historical narrative arc the two key elements in the new Roman artistic tradition, which was as much an expression of Empire as a way of iconographically justifying the imperial succession. Continuous historical narrative was not without precedent in Creek art, as the roots of Hellenistic triumphal art can be traced back to the fifth century BC in the western regions of Asia Minor. The two chief innovations destined to provide a setting for Roman historical relief were the historiated column and the triumphal arch. The Greeks had made use of the votive column, but when the triumphal column first appeared in Rome in the third century BC, it was a monument in its own right and therefore fitted to become, under the Empire, a support for decoration on a grand scale. Trajan’s Column is both a celebratory and a funerary monument, while, that of Marcus Aurelius had no funerary purpose. Its base is an altar. It stood, as it does today, in the centre of a vast square, possibly enclosed by colonnades to the north and south, and definitely flanked by a temple to the deified Marcus on the west. Crowned with a statue of the Emperor, the column originally stood over 160 feet high.

Sculpted reliefs became widespread in imperial times. More than thirty-eight arc known to have been carved in the time of Augustus and the Julso-Claudian emperors, including such famous examples as the Villa Medics procession and the Suovetaurilia in the Louvre. A similar number were produced under the Flavians, not to mention the reliefs for the Arch of Titus and the two Cancelleria friezes, which served as models. But the full flowering of the continuous narrative style occurred in Trajan’s time:

on the column bearing his name, of course, but also in the great frieze on the Arch of Constantine. The group depicting the Emperor on horseback attacking his enemies, the work of great masters, can be said to plunge us into a new artistic realm, prefiguring, even before the Column of Marcus Aurelius, the art of the late Empire. The twelve relief panels decorating the two façades of the triumphal arch at Benevento form a stage-by-stage biography of Trajan. The inner walls of the arch depict the Emperor’s involvement in local affairs, in the presence of an old man and a youth, Ordo and Populus. These figures, personifying the constituent elements of the city state, appear on many other monuments, for instance the triumphal arch of the Severans at Leptis Magna.

The military spirit of the reliefs of Marcus Aurelius’s Column, combining ancient Italic traditions with borrowings from frontier regions, reflect the angst caused by the sudden collapse of confidence in the Empire and the need to find a new ideal to restore it. The role played by the Column, the reliefs housed in the Palazzo dei Conservatori and those re-used on the Arch of Constantine — which may originally have decorated the arch giving access to the square in which the Column stood — was decisive in forming the new style. Its elements arc repeated on many sarcophagi, contributing to the spread of the ideology. There is a tendency to focus on the sarcophagus of one of Marcus Aurelius’s generals depicting a battle against barbarians, whilst neglecting other examples, for instance the group of sarcophagi showing the death of Meleager, the finest of which came from the Borghese collection and is now housed in the Louvre. In the case of the Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum, the four large panels above the lateral bays represent the Emperor’s eastern expeditions. They epitomize the older realistic style of Roman sculpture, of the time of Julius Caesar, but also incorporate the aesthetic of the Trajanic and Aurelian columns in breaking down the events into a certain number of typical episodes (marches, battles, addresses to the troops, sieges, negotiations and so on). It is relatively easy to identify the scenes by comparing the reliefs with the works of the Roman historians Dio Cassius and Herodian. Herr again, the style of composition, emotional agitation and technical details can fruitfully be compared with reliefs on sarcophagi, particularly the so-called Pietralata group depicting battle scenes, dating from between 185 and 200 AD. That all these monuments prefigure the style of Late Antiquity is because much of the history of Roman sculpture can be written in terms of the development of the historical relief The art of imperial columns continues right down to those of Theodosius and Arcadius, though these are only a step away from Byzantine art and the theology of victory they exemplify is different.

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