Roman Art
Cicero
Roman art grows out of Etruscan
art, and at first it is a lot like Etruscan art. Because of this,
it has a close relationship to Greek
art as well. Roman art as a type of its own really gets going around
500 BC with the beginning of the Roman
Republic. Roman people were particularly interested in portraiture:
in making statues that really looked like one particular person, especially
a famous person. Greek people were more interested in ideals: what is
the most beautiful man? what is the most athletic man? But the Romans
were more interested in reality.
A lot of people living in Rome seem to have believed,
also, that having a good image of somebody's face was important to keeping
their
ghost happy after they died
so they wouldn't haunt you. So throughout the time of the
Roman
Republic and all the way through the Roman Empire we see a lot of
portraits.
Ara Pacis
About 200
BC, the Romans
began
conquering Greece, and
this changed their art styles a lot. As the Roman soldiers marched through
Greece, they saw a lot of
Greek
art in the
temples,
and in the cemeteries, and in public squares and people's
houses.
The Romans thought of the Greeks as being cooler than they were, so
whatever the Greeks were doing in art, the Romans wanted some. They
brought home a lot of the Greek art they saw (either by buying it or
by stealing it, or maybe sometimes the Greeks gave it to them for presents),
and they also brought back Greek sculptors (often as
slaves)
to make more art for them in Rome.
Augustus'
Ara Pacis, for example (the Altar of Peace),
shows a lot of influence from Greek art in the fancy swirls on the front,
in the
frieze which is so much like the
Parthenon
frieze, and in the
meanders underneath
the
frieze.
For some general books about Roman art, check out these from Amazon.com
or from your library:
Ancient
Roman Art, by Susie Hodge (1998). For kids.
Roman
Art: Romulus to Constantine, by Nancy and Andrew Ramage (4th Edition
2004). The standard textbook.
A
Coloring Book of Ancient Rome, from Bellerophon Books (1988). For
kids.
