For more on the why and how of the Sculpture Synopsis, see the first post in this series. The series is also available as a playlist on my YouTube Channel.
Characteristic examples
- Patrician with busts of ancestors (Togatus Barberini), 1st c. AD. Capitoline Museum, Rome.
- Augustus of Primaporta, ca. 20 BC. Vatican Museums.
- Trajan’s Column, 106-113 AD. Forum, Rome.
- Colossal head of Constantine, early 4th c. Capitoline Museum, Rome.
Date
753 BC (legendary founding of the city of Rome) to 476 AD (Odoacer and his Germans invade Rome and depose Romulus Augustulus, last emperor to rule the western part of the Roman Empire).
- Roman Republic: 510 to 31 BC, when Octavian Augustus becomes first emperor. There is little important art from the Republic.
- Roman Empire: 31 BC to 476 AD (in the west; in the east, as the Byzantine Empire, it continues until 1453).
Location
Begins in center of Italian peninsula; expands to most areas around the Mediterranean and much of western Europe, including England.
Dominant ideas
- Empire: propaganda is more important than accurate representation of world.
- Philosophy during the Republic: Stoicism and Epicureanism (see last week’s post), as well as an official Roman religion and rise of mystery cults (tenets include messiah to rescue suffering humanity). In the late Empire (3rd-4th c. AD), Stoicism and Epicureanism are replaced by Neo-platonism (Plotinus d. 270) and Neopythagoreanism, both combinations of religion and philosophy. In 312 Emperor Constantine adopts Christianity and in 313 makes it legal throughout the Empire; upper-class Romans begin converting.
Media
- Marble
- Bronze
Subjects
- Portraits of ancestors, politicians, & upper class men and women. Produced 1st c. BC to 3rd c. AD. See Patrician with Ancestors and Augustus of Primaporta at beginning of post.
- Records of historical events in the early Empire, 1st-4th c. AD. See Trajan’s Column at beginning of post.
- Mechanically reproduced copies of Greek works brought back from conquered Greek-speaking territories; 1st c. BC to 3rd c. AD. Without these copies, made for display in public buildings and in the homes of wealthy Romans, we would have very little idea what Greek sculpture looked like.
Style
- Early portraits are extremely realistic, copying earlier wax death masks: see Patrician with Ancestors at top of post.
- Portraits of emperors (beginning ca. 31 BC) are often somewhat idealized. See Augustus of Primaporta at top of the post.
- Major monuments to emperor’s accomplishments are designed as propaganda, to show his deeds in easily “readable” format. Typically the most important figure is front and center, often larger than other figures, whose faces and figures are cookie-cutter repetitions. Figures are squashed into the front plane, with little attempt to accurately represent three-dimensional reality.
Innovations in this period
None. On the other hand, the Romans produced some great and original works of architecture and engineering, many of them still standing. For example: Pont du Gard aqueduct at Nimes (40-60 AD), Colosseum (70-72 AD), and the Baths of Caracalla (216 AD).
Big names in art
None.
Other important examples of Roman sculpture
- Cicero, 1st c. BC. Capitoline Museum, Rome. One of the great orators and politicians of the late Roman Republic.
- Arch of Titus, 81 AD. Rome.
- Philip the Arab, 244-249 AD. Succeeded a murdered emperor, and was in his turn murdered, which perhaps explains the unhappy expression on the ruler of much of the civilized world.
- Sarcophagus with Dionysus & Four Seasons, ca. 260-270 AD. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Sarcophagus with Scenes from the Lives of Saint Peter and Christ. Early 4th c. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Where to see the originals of Roman sculpture
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- British Museum
- Louvre
- Vatican
- Most museums with a section of ancient art will have some Roman copies in their collection.
Further reading
- Mortimer Wheeler, Roman Art and Architecture
- Sandra Shaw, Windows on Humanity.
- Roman narrative reliefs are discussed in Innovators in Sculpture, Ch. 7.
- For fun: Robert Harris, Cicero trilogy: Imperium, Lustrum, Dictator.