Roman Republican art is the artistic production that took place in Roman territory during the period of the Republic, conventionally from 509 BC to 27 BC.
The military, political and economic development of the Roman Republic did not coincide with the development of an autonomous artistic civilization. In the Republican period at least three artistic moments can be distinguished: the first as a continuation of archaic culture, where production in the city did not manifest any stylistic characteristic of its own; a second linked to the conquest of Greece and the arrival of huge spoils of works of art; and a third phase starting during the reign of Sulla, when specifically Roman artworks began to appear.
509 BC traditionally marks the expulsion of the Etruscan kings and the beginning of the Republic. Artistic production remained influenced by Etruscan culture, as well as from the Greek cities of Campania. Until 390 BC, Rome was a single city in central Italy benefited from a position that favored commercial transit. With the retreat of the Etruscans from Campania after the Battle of Cumae, the commercial traffic weakened and the city was forced to expand its territory. From 390 to 265 BC, the Romans managed to conquer sub-Apennine Italy.
Religious activity in Rome at that time was intense and many temples were constructed. Each had its own statues, mostly bronze, which decorated the city. Some references on the coins and on contemporary finds of Tarquinia, Chiusi, Perugia, and Volterra allow us to make hypotheses on the appearance of these statues. They represented practical art placed for the purposes of storytelling or modest decoration.
This scarcity of artistic interest is well justified by the framework of the Roman mentality, intended as an expression of a population used to fighting against nature, poverty and neighboring populations. The Roman patrician was typically a tough, violent and tenacious man, forged by fatigue, having practical and immediate interests. They generally disregarded anything that did not bring immediate utility. In the second century BC, for example, the Senate arranged for the demolition of a newly constructed stone theater "as a useless and harmful thing to our customs".[1]
A unique example of sculpture of superior production and craftsmanship is the Capitoline Brutus, the object of numerous dating hypotheses ranging from the 4th to the 1st century BC. The strong, expressive composition distances it from Greek and Etruscan art, indicating an evolution of Italian style.[2]
Spoils of war
Haec ego, quo melior laetiorque in dies fortuna rei publicae est, [...] eo plus horreo, ne illae magis res nos ceperint quam nos illas. Infesta, mihi credite, signa ab Syracusis inlata sunt hunc urbi. Iam nimis multos audio Corinthi et Athenarum ornamenta laudantes mirantesque et antefixa fictilia deorum Romanorum ridentes. Ego hos malo propitios deos et ita spero futuros, si in suis manere sedibus patiemur.[3]
This information, brighter and better the experience is [...] the more I fear that these things will capture us and we them. Danger, believe me, they are the signs of this were brought from Syracuse city. They are too many people praising and admiring those which adorn Athens and Corinth and of earth; I hear the gods, Roman gods. I prefer that these gods who are propitious, and I trust that they will be if we remain in their present abodes.
In 280 BC, the army of Pyrrhus of Epirus clashed with the Romans in Italy, the first large direct contact between Romans and Greek people. This was followed in 272 BC by the capture of Taranto, the capture of Reggio in 270 BC, and the league with Syracuse during the first Punic war (264 - 241 BC). The admission of the Romans to the Isthmian Games in 228 BC was equivalent to the entry of Rome into Greek civilization.
The capture of Syracuse in 212 BC was decisive, following which Marcus Claudius Marcellus brought back a huge number of Greek works of art to Rome. This marked a turning point in Roman culture and artistic practice. Even then there were those who reproached Marcellus "for having filled with idleness and chatter and for having led to urban discussion of art and artists [...] those people accustomed to fighting and cultivating the fields, avoiding any softness and frivolity.".[4]
Subsequently, after the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, Rome would cement itself as a powerful force in the Mediterranean leading to opportunities to import Greek art that were continuous and frequent. This includes the victory against Philip V of Macedonia (194 BC), the war against Antiochus III, the capture of Magnesia ad Sipylum in Asia Minor (198 BC), the victory over Perseus of Macedon, and the capture of Corinth (146 BC). This also marked the arrival of architects in Rome such as Hermodorus of Salamis and sculptors such as Polycles. While the admiration for Greek works was vast, the understanding of the artistic and historical value of these works remained a rare prerogative of the city's elite.
In less than a century, Rome was home to a large group of wealthy art collectors. They themselves, as Cicero testifies in the Verrine, had a certain modesty in publicly confessing their appreciation for art, knowing that society viewed it negatively. Many frowned upon the implied superiority of Greek culture. The controversy on the subject focused on contrasting positions of the Scipionic Circle, open to Hellenic cultural suggestions, and the conservatism of Cato and his followers.
After the victory against Antiochus III, the quantity of Greek works in Rome was so large that Livy wrote: "[was] the end of the wooden and terracotta simulacra in the temples of Rome, replaced by imported works of art."[5]
The first white marble buildings in Rome were two small constructions, a somewhat "shy" debut: the temple of Jupiter Stator and the temple of Juno Regina, enclosed by an arcade, one of which was the work of Hermodorus of Salamis, whose statues of divinities were sculpted by artisans from Delos. In 136 BC, Hermodorus built a temple in Campo Marzio, which contained two colossal statues of Mars and Aphrodite. Among the best preserved remains of that era is the Temple of Hercules Victor.
Copying works
After the populated circle of passionate art collectors had formed, the Greek originals were no longer sufficient to meet the demand. A mass copy trade was started. Statues and paintings inspired by classical pieces were imported from the Neo-Attic workshops in Athens.
Naturally, after the huge influx of foreign art in Rome, coming from different schools and referring to very different periods, a certain amount of time was needed to assimilate and begin to understand these artistic legacies. As Romans attempted to interpret this foreign art, they developed distinctly eclectic characteristics. Early Roman originals saw the presence of contrasting styles within the same work, influenced by several different cultures simultaneously. This is apparent in the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus and Ara Pacis.
Plebeian art
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (March 2020)
Triumphal painting
Fresco with historical scene from the Esquiline Necropolis, one of the first examples of Roman fresco painting
At the end of the fourth century, a painter Fabius Pictor was active in the decoration of the Temple of Salus in 304 BC. Painting at that time had a mainly practical, ornamental and, above all, celebratory purpose. It has been hypothesized that Fabius' decoration was of a narrative and historical nature, and that Republican painting with scenes from the Samnite Wars in the Esquiline Necropolis could be derived from these works.
From the third century BC, there is documentation of "triumphal" paintings, that is, paintings brought to the triumph parades with the narratives of events of the victorious military campaign or the appearance of the conquered cities. Triumphal painting was influential on Roman historical reliefs.
Age of Sulla and Caesar
From 130 BC, through the dictatorship of Sulla, and up to the first consulate of Caesar in 59 BC, Rome had developed its own political and cultural ideology.
In these years sees the birth of clearly identifiable Roman artistic culture. When contact with art became usual for a Roman citizen, the new "Roman" artistic identity with its own characteristics began to develop.
After Sulla rose to power in 92 BC, Rome saw the most remarkable innovations in architecture, wall painting, and in the formation of realistic portraiture.
During the reign of Sulla, the traditional wooden structures with Etruscan terracotta cladding or stuccoed tuff gave way to buildings built of travertine or other limestone. This was influenced by Hellenistic architecture, but adapted to a simpler, more modest form. The architectural elements had been raised from strictly pragmatic, allowing a decorative use that gave great freedom to architects.
At the time of the Macedonian wars, the first marble buildings were constructed in Rome. Lucius Licinius Crassus, relative of the more famous Marcus Licinius Crassus, was the first to use marble in the decoration of his private home on the Palatine Hill in 100 BC.
After the fire of 83 BC, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was rebuilt with stone, with marble columns from Athens and with a new chryselephantine simulacrum of Jupiter. The construction of the Tabularium dates back to 78 BC. This building had semi-columns leaning against the pillars from which the arches started. This scheme was also used in the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor in Tivoli.
Roman Republican portraiture is characterized by verism influenced by Hellenistic portraiture, and survives mainly as marble and bronze sculpture. Roman portrait busts are thought to derive in part from death masks or funerary commemorations, as elite Romans displayed ancestral images (imagines) in the atrium of their home (domus).
Portraiture in Republican Rome was a way of establishing societal legitimacy and achieving status through one's family and background. Exploits wrought by one's ancestors earned them and their families public approbation, and more; a pompous state funeral paid for by the state. Wax masks would be cast from the family member while they were still living, which made for hyper-realistic visual representations of the individual literally lifted from their face. These masks would be kept in the houses of male descendants in memory of the ancestors once they had passed. These masks served as a sort of family track record, and could get the descendants positions and perks,[6] similar to a child of two alumni attending their alma mater.
Republican Rome embraced imperfection in portraiture because, though there were different levels of power each class of society had, everybody had little insecurities, this type of untouched physical representation fostered a sense of community by implying that while there were existing inequalities, that did not change the fact that they were Romans.
The Orator, c. 100 BC, an Etrusco-Roman bronze statue depicting Aule Metele (Latin: Aulus Metellus), an Etruscan man wearing a Roman toga while engaged in rhetoric; the statue features an inscription in the Etruscan alphabet
Veristic portrait bust of an old man, head covered (capite velato), either a priest or paterfamilias (marble, mid-1st century BC)
Head of an old Roman, c. 60 BC. The realistic rendering of old age (baldness, face and neck wrinkles) corresponds to the esthetic ideal of the end Republic.
A funerary relief with members of the gens Vibia, late 1st century BC.
This period is defined by a Roman painting style called Pompeian, named such due to the studies of the conspicuous finds of Pompeii.
Along with the sculptures, numerous Greek paintings had arrived in Italy. Many painters had moved to Rome from Greece, Syria, and Alexandria. Pliny the Elder denounced the decadence of painting.
It was typical for a stately home to have every corner of the wall painted, with extraordinary quantity of pictorial decorations. These works, however, were not the result of the Roman inventiveness, but were a last remnant of purely Greek artistry.
Among the most interesting examples of the time there are the frescoes with scenes of the Odyssey from the Via Graziosa house, dating from 50 to 40 BC. These were most likely copies made (with some errors, as in the Greek names of the characters) of an Alexandrian original dating from around 150 BC.
The first evidence of mosaic tiles in Rome dates back to the end of the third century BC. Mosaic art was used practically as a means to waterproof the clay floors and make it more resistant to trampling. Eventually, cultural exchanges with Greece and Egypt changed the aesthetics and compositions developed. Greek workers brought classic mosaic motifs, including doves and scenes from the Nile.
The wall mosaic was born at the end of the Republic, towards the first century BC. In Pompeii and Herculaneum, mosaics were used to waterproof exedras, as they were often decorated with fountains.
One of the most notable examples of mosaic from this period is the Nile mosaic of Palestrina. It is an accurate depiction of the course of the Nile, with scenes of hunting, fishing, rituals and banquets.
Notable artists
The list of notable Roman artists from the period includes:
(in Italian)Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli & Mario Torelli, L'arte dell'antichità classica, Etruria-Roma, Utet, Torino 1976.
(in Italian) Pierluigi De Vecchi & Elda Cerchiari, I tempi dell'arte, volume 1, Bompiani, Milano 1999
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (December 2008)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Italian article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,966 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Arte romana repubblicana]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|it|Arte romana repubblicana}} to the talk page.
Venus is a Roman goddess, whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.
Ancient art refers to the many types of art produced by the advanced cultures of ancient societies with different forms of writing, such as those of ancient China, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The art of pre-literate societies is normally referred to as prehistoric art and is not covered here. Although some pre-Columbian cultures developed writing during the centuries before the arrival of Europeans, on grounds of dating these are covered at pre-Columbian art and articles such as Maya art, Aztec art, and Olmec art.
The art of Ancient Rome, and the territories of its Republic and later Empire, includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be minor forms of Roman art, although they were not considered as such at the time. Sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by Romans, but figure painting was also highly regarded. A very large body of sculpture has survived from about the 1st century BC onward, though very little from before, but very little painting remains, and probably nothing that a contemporary would have considered to be of the highest quality.
Since ancient times, Greeks, Etruscans and Celts have inhabited the south, centre and north of the Italian peninsula respectively. The very numerous rock drawings in Valcamonica are as old as 8,000 BC, and there are rich remains of Etruscan art from thousands of tombs, as well as rich remains from the Greek colonies at Paestum, Agrigento and elsewhere. Ancient Rome finally emerged as the dominant Italian and European power. The Roman remains in Italy are of extraordinary richness, from the grand Imperial monuments of Rome itself to the survival of exceptionally preserved ordinary buildings in Pompeii and neighbouring sites. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages Italy remained an important centre, not only of the Carolingian art, Ottonian art of the Holy Roman Emperors, Norman art, but for the Byzantine art of Ravenna and other sites.
The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill. It was surrounded by the Area Capitolina, a precinct where numerous shrines, altars, statues and victory trophies were displayed.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
The Capitoline Museums are a group of art and archaeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The historic seats of the museums are Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo, facing on the central trapezoidal piazza in a plan conceived by Michelangelo in 1536 and executed over a period of more than 400 years.
Verism was a realistic style in Roman art. It principally occurred in portraiture of politicians, whose imperfections of the face were exacerbated in order to highlight their old age and gravitas. The word comes from Latin verus (true).
Classical sculpture refers generally to sculpture from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as well as the Hellenized and Romanized civilizations under their rule or influence, from about 500 BC to around 200 AD. It may also refer more precisely a period within Ancient Greek sculpture from around 500 BC to the onset of the Hellenistic style around 323 BC, in this case usually given a capital "C". The term "classical" is also widely used for a stylistic tendency in later sculpture, not restricted to works in a Neoclassical or classical style.
The study of Roman sculpture is complicated by its relation to Greek sculpture. Many examples of even the most famous Greek sculptures, such as the Apollo Belvedere and Barberini Faun, are known only from Roman Imperial or Hellenistic "copies". At one time, this imitation was taken by art historians as indicating a narrowness of the Roman artistic imagination, but, in the late 20th century, Roman art began to be reevaluated on its own terms: some impressions of the nature of Greek sculpture may in fact be based on Roman artistry.
The Temple of Concord in the ancient city of Rome refers to a series of shrines or temples dedicated to the Roman goddess Concordia, and erected at the western end of the Roman Forum. The earliest temple is believed to have been vowed by Marcus Furius Camillus in 367 BC, but it may not have been built until 218 BC by L. Manlius. The temple was rebuilt in 121 BC, and again by the future emperor Tiberius between 7 BC and AD 10.
Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BCE, when the Greek mainland was taken, and essentially ending in 30 BCE with the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt following the Battle of Actium. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and His Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It follows the period of Classical Greek art, while the succeeding Greco-Roman art was very largely a continuation of Hellenistic trends.
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 10th and 1st centuries BC. From around 750 BC it was heavily influenced by Greek art, which was imported by the Etruscans, but always retained distinct characteristics. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta, wall-painting and metalworking especially in bronze. Jewellery and engraved gems of high quality were produced.
The Art & History Museum is a public museum of antiquities and ethnographic and decorative arts located at the Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark in Brussels, Belgium. The museum is one of the constituent parts of the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) and is one of the largest art museums in Europe. It was formerly called the Cinquantenaire Museum until 2018. It is served by the metro stations Schuman and Merode on lines 1 and 5.
Roman portraiture was one of the most significant periods in the development of portrait art. Originating from ancient Rome, it continued for almost five centuries. Roman portraiture is characterised by unusual realism and the desire to convey images of nature in the high quality style often seen in ancient Roman art. Some busts even seem to show clinical signs. Several images and statues made in marble and bronze have survived in small numbers. Roman funerary art includes many portraits such as married couple funerary reliefs, which were most often made for wealthy freedmen rather than the patrician elite.
Fortuna Huiusce Diei was an aspect of the goddess Fortuna, known primarily for her temple in the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina at Rome. Cicero lists her among the deities who should be cultivated in his ideal state, because "she empowers each day". She thus embodies an important aspect of time as it figures in Roman religion: every day of the year had a distinct and potent nature, which the public priests were responsible for knowing and aligning the community with by means of the religious calendar.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
The Capitoline Brutus is an ancient Roman bronze bust commonly thought to depict the Roman consul Lucius Junius Brutus, usually dated to the late 4th to early 3rd centuries BC, but perhaps as late as the 2nd century BC, or early 1st century BC. The bust is 69 cm (27 in) in height and is currently located in the Hall of the Triumphs within the Capitoline Museums, Rome. Traditionally taken to be an early example of Roman portraiture and perhaps by an Etruscan artist influenced by Hellenistic art and contemporary Greek styles of portraiture, it may be "an archaizing work of the first century BC". The Roman head was provided with a toga-clad bronze bust during the Renaissance.
Augustan and Julio-Claudian art is the artistic production that took place in the Roman Empire under the reign of Augustus and the Julio-Claudian dynasty, lasting from 44 BC to 69 AD. At that time Roman art developed towards a serene "neoclassicism", which reflected the political aims of Augustus and the Pax Romana, aimed at building a solid and idealized image of the empire.
Painting in ancient Rome is a still poorly understood topic in the history of painting, as its study is hampered by the scarcity of relics. Much of what we know today about Roman painting is due to a natural tragedy. When the volcano Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 it buried two thriving cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Much of the population perished, but the buildings were partially preserved under the ashes and hardened lava, and with them their decorative wall paintings. From the study of this remaining collection, it has been possible to form a very suggestive panorama of the fertile and diverse artistic life of Ancient Rome between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire, but this body of works is actually only a tiny fraction of the great quantity of painting produced in the entire Roman territory in the course of its long history, and precisely because this fraction is very rich, the loss of more significant and abundant testimonies from earlier and later periods, in techniques other than fresco and from other Romanized regions besides Campania is regrettable.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
