Piero Scaruffi 2004 Art

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What the Romans knew

Piero Scaruffi 2004

• Art

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Mosaics

Ercolano (79AD)

Villa of the

Laberii, Oudna,

Tunisia,

early 3rd c. AD

(Bardo Museum)

Piazza

Armerina,

Sicily

(4th c AD) Ostia

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What the Romans knew

Mask of Phobos/ Fear

(Halikarnassus, 4th AD)

Carthage, 4th AD

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What the Romans knew

Mosaic in the House of Neptune

and Amphytrite

(Hercolaneum 79 AD)

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What the Romans knew

The oldest known "knotted" carpet discovered in 1949 by Russian

archaeologists Rudenko and Griaznov in the Pazyryk valley of the

Altai Mountains in Siberia

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What the Romans knew • Mythological art: imitation of Greek art

Lacoon of 1st c AD,

Vatican Museums)

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What the Romans knew

• Political art: celebrating Rome, not only deities

• Roman sculpture is realistic (wrinkles and old

age, not just the perfect lineaments of Greek

statues)

• Portrait sculpture becomes a commodity for the

aristocracy

• State sculptors strive to depict the heroic quality

of the state heroes

• Greece had given gods a human form, whereas

Rome gives humans a godlike appearance

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What the Romans knew

• Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (180 AD)

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What the Romans knew

• Statue of a woman (2nd c AD)

(Pza Signoria, Firenze)

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What the Romans knew

• Statues of legends(2nd c AD)

(Getty Villa) Hercules Leda and the swan

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What the Romans knew

• Chronicle sculpture

– Roman sculptors are historians: Trajan column of

113 (whose story is almost impossible to view

from the ground!): 2500 people in 150 episodes

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What the Romans knew

• Ara Pacis children

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What the Romans knew

• Wall painting

– First style (200BC-90BC)

• Painted panels that imitate masonry (esp

marble)

• Samnite House in Herculaneum (late 2nd c.

BC)

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What the Romans knew

• Wall painting

– Second style (85-15 BC), the "architectural style”

• Space extends beyond the room

• Illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat two-

dimensional surface

• Proto-perspective techniques

• "Gardenscape" of the Villa of Livia in Roma (2x

BC)

• "Mystery Cult”, Villa dei Misteri, Pompeii (5x BC)

• Villa of Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale

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What the Romans knew

• Wall painting

– Third style (15 BC - 62 AD)

• Walls divided into smaller panels which support

framed paintings (mostly of landscapes)

• Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscotrecase (10 BC)

– Fourth style (62 AD - 79 AD)

• Resembling an art gallery

• Ixion Room, House of the Vetti, Pompeii (70-79

AD)

• Domus Aurea of Nero, Roma (64-68 AD)

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What the Romans knew

• “Second style” of wall painting (the "architectural

style”)

– Space extends beyond the room

– Illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat

two-dimensional surface

– Proto-perspective techniques

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Roman Painting

Fresco of the

Rite of Isis (

Hercolaneum)

Wall painting in

the house of the

Vettii, (Pompeii)

Mural from "The

House of Venus

on the Shell"

(Pompeii)

Wall painting in the Casa

della Caccia Antica (Pompeii)

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• Villa dei Misteri, Pompeii

• Boscoreale

Boscoreale

(Metropolitan Museum, New York)

Second Style

Villa dei Misteri, Pompeii

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• Villa dei Vetti, Pompeii

Fourth Style

Villa dei Vetti, Pompeii

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What the Romans knew

Roman Wall Painting : the

Gardenscape from the Villa of

Livia, Prima Porta, 9x AD

Roman Portraits: Faiyum

portrait of a noblewoman

Goddess of Flowers (Museo

Archeologico, Napoli)

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What the Romans knew

• Dura Europos, Syria (3rd c AD)

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What the Romans knew

Orestes and Iphigenia in Tauris (4th c AD)

(Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Napoli)

• Pictorial space

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What the Romans knew

Sarcophagus of 312 AD with gospel scenes

(Metropolitan Museum)

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What the Romans knew

• Sex