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Roman sculpture

Development
Portraiture
Religious and funerary a..
Gardens and baths
Technology
Architecture
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
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C O N T E N T S

Art Century Roman Sculpture

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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 Empire or Hellenistic "copies". At one time, this imitation was taken by 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 strengths of Roman sculpture are in portraiture, where they were less concerned with the ideal than the Greeks or Ancient Egyptians, and produced very characterful works, and in narrative relief scenes. Examples of Roman sculpture are abundantly preserved, in total contrast to Roman painting, which was very widely practiced but has almost all been lost. Latin literature and some Greek authors, particularly Pliny the Elder in Book 34 of his Natural History, describe statues, and a few of these descriptions match extant works. While a great deal of Roman sculpture, especially in stone, survives more or less intact, it is often damaged or fragmentary; life-size bronze statues are much more rare as most have been recycled for their metal.Hennig, 94–95

Most statues were actually far more lifelike and often brightly colored when originally created; the raw stone surfaces found today is due to the pigment being lost over the centuries.

Development

Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece and that of the neighbouring Etruscan art, themselves greatly influenced by their Greek Trade. An Etruscan speciality was near life size tomb effigies in terracotta, usually lying on top of a sarcophagus lid propped up on one elbow in the pose of a diner in that period. As the expanding Roman Republic began to conquer Greek territory, at first in Southern Italy and then the entire Hellenistic world except for the Parthian Empire far east, official and Roman patrician sculpture became largely an extension of the Hellenistic style, from which specifically Roman elements are hard to disentangle, especially as so much Greek sculpture survives only in copies of the Roman period.Strong, 58–63; Hennig, 66–69 By the 2nd century BCE, "most of the sculptors working at Rome" were Greek,Hennig, 24 often enslaved in conquests such as that of Corinth (146 BCE), and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded. Sculpting was not considered a profession by Romans — at most, it was accepted as a hobby. Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works.Henig, 66–69; Strong, 36–39, 48; At the trial of Verres, former governor of Sicily, Cicero's prosecution details his depredations of art collections at great length.

A native Italian style can be seen in the tomb monuments of prosperous middle-class Romans, which very often featured portrait busts, and portraiture is arguably the main strength of Roman sculpture. There are no survivals from the tradition of masks of ancestors that were worn in processions at the funerals of the great families and otherwise displayed in the home, but many of the busts that survive must represent ancestral figures, perhaps from the large family tombs like the Tomb of the Scipios or the later Mausoleum outside the city. The famous "Capitoline Brutus", a bronze head supposedly of Lucius Junius Brutus is very variously dated, but taken as a very rare survival of Italic style under the Republic, in the preferred medium of bronze.Henig, 23–24; Strong, 47 Similarly stern and forceful heads are seen in the coins of the consuls, and in the Imperial period coins as well as busts sent around the Empire to be placed in the of provincial cities were the main visual form of imperial propaganda; even Londinium had a near-colossal statue of Nero, though far smaller than the 30-metre-high Colossus of Nero in Rome, now lost.Henig, 66–71 The Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker, a successful freedman (–20 BC) has a frieze that is an unusually large example of the "plebeian" style.Hennig, 66; Strong, 125

The Romans did not generally attempt to compete with free-standing Greek works of heroic exploits from history or mythology, but from early on produced historical works in relief, culminating in the great Roman triumphal columns with continuous narrative reliefs winding around them, of which those commemorating Trajan (CE 113) and Marcus Aurelius (by 193) survive in Rome, where the italic=no ("Altar of Peace", 13 BCE) represents the official Greco-Roman style at its most classical and refined. Among other major examples are the earlier re-used reliefs on the Arch of Constantine and the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius (161),Henig, 73–82;Strong, 48–52, 80–83, 108–117, 128–132, 141–159, 177–182, 197–211 were cheaper pottery versions of marble reliefs and the taste for relief was from the imperial period expanded to the sarcophagus.

All forms of luxury small sculpture continued to be patronized, and quality could be extremely high, as in the silver Warren Cup, glass Lycurgus Cup, and large cameos like the Gemma Augustea, Gonzaga Cameo and the "Great Cameo of France".Henig, Chapter 6; Strong, 303–315 For a much wider section of the population, moulded relief decoration of pottery vessels and small figurines were produced in great quantity and often considerable quality.Henig, Chapter 8

After moving through a late 2nd century "baroque" phase,Strong, 171–176, 211–214 in the 3rd century, Roman art largely abandoned, or simply became unable to produce, sculpture in the classical tradition, a change whose causes remain much discussed. Even the most important imperial monuments now showed stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, in simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace. The contrast is famously illustrated in the Arch of Constantine of 315 in Rome, which combines sections in the new style with in the earlier full Greco-Roman style taken from elsewhere, and the Four Tetrarchs () from the new capital of Constantinople, now in Venice. Ernst Kitzinger found in both monuments the same "stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling... The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity — in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition".Kitzinger, 9 (both quotes), more generally his Ch 1; Strong, 250–257, 264–266, 272–280; also on the Arch of Constantine, Elsner, 98–101

This revolution in style shortly preceded the period in which Christianity was adopted by the Roman state and the great majority of the people, leading to the end of large religious sculpture, with large statues now only used for emperors, as in the famous fragments of a colossal acrolithic statue of Constantine, and the 4th or 5th century Colossus of Barletta. However rich Christians continued to commission reliefs for sarcophagi, as in the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, and very small sculpture, especially in ivory, was continued by Christians, building on the style of the consular diptych.Strong, 287–291, 305–308, 315–318; Henig, 234–240

File:Museo archeologico di Firenze, coperchio di sepolcro muliebre da Tuscania, terracotta con tracce di policromia III sec. d.c.JPG|Etruscan art sarcophagus, 3rd century BCE File:Capitoline Brutus Musei Capitolini MC1183 02.jpg|The "Capitoline Brutus", probably late 4th to early 3rd century BC, possibly 1st century BC.Strong, 47 File:D473-birème romaine-Liv2-ch10.png|A Roman navy bireme depicted in a relief from the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia in Praeneste (Palestrina),D.B. Saddington (2011) 2007. " the Evolution of the Roman Imperial Fleets," in Paul Erdkamp (ed), A Companion to the Roman Army, 201-217. Malden, Oxford, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. . Plate 12.2 on p. 204. which was built ;Coarelli, Filippo (1987), I Santuari del Lazio in età repubblicana. NIS, Rome, pp 35-84. exhibited in the Pius-Clementine Museum (Museo Pio-Clementino) in the Vatican Museums. File:Marco Porcio Caton Major.jpg|The Patrician Torlonia bust, believed to be of Cato the Elder. 1st century BC File:L'Arringatore.jpg| The Orator, , 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 File:Escipión africano.JPG|Bronze bust of Roman Isis priest, formerly identified as Scipio Africanus, mid 1st century BC File:Togato Barberini.jpg|The so-called "Togatus Barberini", a statue depicting a Roman senator holding portrait effigies (possibly imagines) of deceased ancestors; marble, late 1st century BC; head (not belonging): mid 1st century BC. File:Jules cesar.jpg|Arles bust, marble bust found in the Rhone River near Arles, File:Relief with Menander and New Comedy Masks - Princeton Art Museum.jpg|Roman, Roman Republic or Roman Empire, Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy, 1st century BC – early 1st century AD, Princeton University Art Museum File:Statue-Augustus.jpg| Augustus of Prima Porta, statue of the emperor Augustus, 1st century CE. Vatican Museums File:Great Cameo of France CdM Paris Bab264 white background.jpg|The cameo gem known as the "Great Cameo of France", , with an allegory of Augustus and his family File:Claudius Pio-Clementino Inv243.jpg|Bust of Emperor Claudius, , (reworked from a bust of emperor Caligula), It was found in the so-called Otricoli basilica in Lanuvium, Italy, Vatican Museums File:Napoli BW 2013-05-16 16-32-51 DxO.jpg|The so-called "Venus in a bikini", from the House of the Bikini, Pompeii, depicts her Greek counterpart Aphrodite as she is about to untie her sandal, with a small Eros squatting beneath her left arm File:Tomba dei decii, dalla via ostiense, 98-117 dc..JPG|Tomb relief of the Decii, 98–117 CE File:Pirro - Marte.jpg|Statue of Mars from the Forum of Nerva, early 2nd century AD, based on an Augustus original that in turn used a Hellenistic art of the 4th century BC, Capitoline MuseumsCapitoline Museums. " Colossal statue of Mars Ultor also known as Pyrrhus - Inv. Scu 58." Capitolini.info. Accessed 8 October 2016. File:Istanbul - Museo archeol. - Tyche e Plutone - sec. II d.C. - Foto G. Dall'Orto 28-5-2006.jpg|Polychrome marble statue depicting the goddess Tyche holding the infant Plutus in her arms, 2nd century AD, Istanbul Archaeological Museum File:024MAD Antinous.jpg|Statue of Antinous (Delphi), depicting Antinous, polychrome Parian marble, made during the reign of Hadrian (r. 117-138 AD) File:Greco-Roman male torso with legs to the knee, discovered on the site of the Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon, Lugdunum. Photo, Jamie Mulherron.jpg|Male torso with legs to the knees, discovered on the site of the Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon, Lugdunum File:Greco-Roman male torso discovered on the site of the Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon, Lugdunum. Photo, Jamie Mulherron.jpg|Male torso discovered on the site of the Odeon of Lyon in 1964. Marble. Lyon, Lugdunum. File:Buste 4 Bardo National Museum.jpg|Ancient bust of Roman emperor Lucius Verus (r. 161–169), a natural blond who would sprinkle gold dust in his hair to make it even blonder,Michael Grant (1994). The Antonines: The Roman Empire in Transition. London & New York: Routledge. , pp 27-28. Bardo National Museum, Tunis File:1699 - Archaeological Museum, Athens - A youth, possibly Commodus - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 11 2009.jpg|Remnants of a Roman bust of a youth with a blond beard, perhaps depicting Roman emperor Commodus (r. 177–192), National Archaeological Museum, Athens File:COMMODE HERCULE.jpg|Commodus dressed as Hercules, , in the late imperial "baroque" style File:0 Relief - Monument honoraire de Marc Aurèle - La soumission des germains (1).JPG|Marcus Aurelius receiving the submission of vanquished foes from the Marcomannic Wars, a relief from his now destroyed triumphal arch in Rome, Capitoline Museums, 177-180 AD File:Roman - Private Portrait of a Man - Walters 2366.jpg|Private portrait with both individualized and unforgiving naturalism and stylized influence of portraits of the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius in his beard and hairstyle. File:Isis - Vienna.jpg|Ancient Roman statue of Isis, in the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; first half of the 2nd century AD, found in Naples, Italy; made out of black and white marble. File:Table support with a Dionysiac group (AD 170-180) (3470740119).jpg|Marble table support adorned by a group including Dionysos, Pan and a Satyr; Dionysos holds a rhyton in the shape of a panther; traces of Red hair and Blond are preserved on the hair of the figures and the branches; from an Asia Minor workshop, 170-180 AD, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece File:Hércules Farnesio 01.JPG|The Farnese Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early 3rd century AD and signed by a certain Glykon, from an original by Lysippos (or one of his circle) that would have been made in the 4th century BC; The copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome (dedicated in 216 AD), where it was recovered in 1546 File:7137 - Piraeus Arch. Museum, Athens - Statue of Balbinus - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 14 2009.jpg|Ancient Roman statue of emperor Balbinus, dating from 238 AD, on display in the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus (Athens) File:MMA bronze 03.jpg|Bronze of Trebonianus Gallus dating from the time of his reign as Roman Emperor, the only surviving near-complete full-size 3rd-century Roman bronze (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Bronze portrait of Trebonianus Gallus, 05.30 File:Venice – The Tetrarchs 03.jpg| The Four Tetrarchs, , showing the new anti-classical style, in porphyry, now San Marco, Venice File:Pezzi bronzei di statua colossale di costantino, 330-37 ca. 01.JPG|Head and other fragments a colossal bronze statue of Constantine I, early 4th century AD, italic=no (Rome) File:4th century portrait of a Roman matrona, Hermitage.jpg|A marble portrait bust of a Roman matron, early 4th century AD, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg File:EAM - Bust of Menander.jpg|Bust depicting an idealized portrait of Menander of Ephesus, 4th century AD, Ephesus Archaeological Museum File:Multiplication Pio Christiano Inv31499.jpg|Detail of a sarcophagus depicting the Christian belief in the multiplication of bread loaves and fish by Jesus Christ, -375 AD, Vatican Museums File:Valens Honorius Musei Capitolini MC494.jpg|A Roman bust depicting either Valens or Honorius; marble, ca. 400 AD File:Consular diptych Probus 406.jpg|Honorius on the consular diptych of Anicius Petronius Probus (406 AD) File:0418 Befreiung einer belagerten Stadt Bodemuseum anagoria.JPG|Boxwood relief depicting the liberation of a be city by a relief force, with those defending the walls making a sortie; Western Roman Empire, early 5th century AD File:1900 - Archaeological Museum, Athens - 400-450 AD bust - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov. 11 2009.jpg|Portrait of an unknown man, found in the Agora of Athens, dating from around 400-450 AD; National Archaeological Museum, Athens File:Théodose II.JPG|Bust of Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450 AD); marble, 5th century AD File:(Toulouse) théodosienne de la villa romaine de Chiragan - Musée Saint-Raymond Ra 82.jpg |Bust of an Eastern Roman lady (Galla Placidia?) in the Musée Saint-Raymond de Toulouse, 5th century AD File:Philosopher-orator Louvre Ma3625.jpg|Bust of an unknown orator or philosopher from Tartus, now in the Louvre, 5th century AD

Portraiture

is a dominant genre of Roman sculpture, growing perhaps from the mos maiorum on family and ancestors; the entrance hall (atrium) of a domus displayed ancestral . During the Roman Republic, it was considered Roman virtues not to gloss over physical imperfections, and to depict men in particular as rugged and unconcerned with vanity: the portrait was a map of experience. During the Imperial era, more idealized statues of became ubiquitous, particularly in connection with the state religion of Rome. of even the modestly rich middle class sometimes exhibit portraits of the otherwise unknown deceased carved in relief.

Among the many museums with examples of Roman portrait sculpture, the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the British Museum in London are especially noteworthy.

Religious and funerary art

Religious art was also a major form of Roman sculpture. A central feature of a Roman temple was the cult statue of the deity, who was regarded as "housed" there (see aedes). Although images of deities were also displayed in private gardens and parks, the most magnificent of the surviving statues appear to have been cult images. Roman altars were usually rather modest and plain, but some Imperial examples are modeled after Greek practice with elaborate reliefs, most famously the italic=no, which has been called "the most representative work of Augustus art."Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 141. Small bronze statuettes and ceramic figurines, executed with varying degrees of artistic competence, are plentiful in the archaeological record, particularly in the Roman province, and indicate that these were a continual presence in the lives of Romans, whether for or for private devotional display at home or in neighborhood shrines. These typically show more regional variation in style than large and more official works, and also stylistic preferences between different classes.Hennig, 95–96

Roman marble sarcophagi mostly date from the 2nd to the 4th century CE,The Sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus is a rare example from much earlier after a change in Roman burial customs from cremation to inhumation, and were mostly made in a few major cities, including Rome and Athens, which exported them to other cities. Elsewhere the stela gravestone remained more common. They were always a very expensive form reserved for the elite, and especially so in the relatively few very elaborately carved examples; most were always relatively plain, with inscriptions, or symbols such as garlands. Sarcophagi divide into a number of styles, by the producing area. "Roman" ones were made to rest against a wall, and one side was left uncarved, while "Attic" and other types were carved on all four sides; but the short sides were generally less elaborately decorated in both types.Hennig, 93–94

The time taken to make them encouraged the use of standard subjects, to which inscriptions might be added to personalize them, and portraits of the deceased were slow to appear. The sarcophagi offer examples of intricate reliefs that depict scenes often based on Greek mythology and Roman mythology or mystery religions that offered personal salvation, and allegory representations. Roman funerary art also offers a variety of scenes from everyday life, such as game-playing, hunting, and military endeavors.Hennig, 93–94

Early Christian art quickly adopted the sarcophagus, and they are the most common form of early Christian sculpture, progressing from simple examples with symbols to elaborate fronts, often with small scenes of the Life of Christ in two rows within an architectural framework. The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (c. 359) is of this type, and the earlier Dogmatic Sarcophagus rather simpler. The huge porphyry Sarcophagi of Helena and Constantina are grand Imperial examples.

Scenes from Roman sarcophagi File:2164 - Taormina - Badia Vecchia - Sarcofago romano del sec. II d.C. - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 20-May-2008.jpg|Scenes of Orphic religion (2nd century) File:Sarcophagus Portonaccio Massimo.jpg|Portonaccio sarcophagus with a battle File:Greece hellenistic sculpture.jpg|Dionysus riding a panther and accompanied by attendants, 220-230 AD File:Sarcophagus nuts Chiaramonti Inv1304.jpg|Children playing with nuts (3rd century) File:0 Sarcophage - Chasse au Sanglier de Calydon - Musei Capitolini - MC0917 (1).JPG|Sarcophagus with the Calydonian hunt, Musei Capitolini, Rome. File:0 Sarcophage - Quatre saisons - Musei Capitolini - MC1185.jpg|Sarcophagus with the Four Seasons allegory
(3rd century), Musei Capitolini, Rome. File:0 Sarcophage de Quinta Flavia Severina - Musei Capitolini NCE88 (1).JPG|Sarcophagus of the Quinta Flavia Severina, Musei Capitolini, Rome. File:Early Christian sarcophagus from San Justo (M.A.N. 50310) 01.jpg|Early Christian marble sarcophagus with a high-relief representing scenes from the Old Testament and the New Testament, c. 310 AD File:1060 - Roma, Museo d. civiltà Romana - Calco sarcofago Giunio Basso - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 12-Apr-2008.jpg|Cast of Christ's trial before Pilate, with Pilate about to wash his hands. Detail from the Early Christian Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (d. 359)

Gardens and baths

A number of well-known large stone vases sculpted in relief from the Imperial period were apparently mostly used as garden ornaments; indeed many statues were also placed in gardens, both public and private. Sculptures recovered from the site of the Gardens of Sallust, opened to the public by Tiberius, include:

the Obelisco Sallustiano, a Roman copy of an Egyptian obelisk which now stands in front of the Trinità dei Monti church above the Piazza di Spagna at the top of the Spanish Steps
the Borghese Vase, discovered there in the 16th century.
the sculptures known as the Dying Gaul and the Ludovisi Gaul, marble copies of parts a famous Hellenistic group in bronze commissioned for Pergamon in about 228 BC.
the Ludovisi Throne (probably an authentic Greek piece in the Severe style), found in 1887, and the Boston Throne, found in 1894.
the Crouching Amazon, found in 1888 near the via Boncompagni, about twenty-five meters from the via Quintino Sella (Museo Conservatori).

Roman baths were another site for sculpture; among the well-known pieces recovered from the Baths of Caracalla are the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules and larger-than-life-sized early 3rd century patriotic figures somewhat reminiscent of Soviet Social Realist works (now in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).

Found in the Gardens of Sallust and the Gardens of Maecenas: Image:Niobid Sallustiani Massimo Inv72274.jpg|Falling Niobid, discovered in the site in 1906 (Museo Nazionale Romano), a Greek originalT. Ashby, "Recent Excavations in Rome", CQ 2/2 (1908) p.49. Image:Borghese Vase Louvre Ma86 n6.jpg|Borghese Vase Image:0 Cariatide - Horti Maecenatiani - Musei Capitolini (1).JPG|Caryatid statue, Musei Capitolini, Rome. File:0 Fontaine en forme de corne à boire (rhyton) - Musei Capitolini.JPG|Fountain in the form of a horn-shaped drinking cup (rhyton), Musei Capitolini, Rome. Image:0 L'Enfant au Masque - Palazzo Nuovo - Musei Capitolini.JPG|Child with a theatre mask, for a garden or house, Musei Capitolini, Rome.

Technology

Scenes shown on reliefs such as that of Trajan's column and those shown on sarcophogi reveal images of Roman technology now long lost, such as ballistae and the use of waterwheel-driven saws for cutting stone. The latter was only recently discovered at Hieropolis and commemorates the miller who used the machine. Other reliefs show harvesting machines, much as they were described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia.

Architecture

Compared to the Greeks, the Romans made less use of stone sculpture on buildings, apparently having few with figures. Important , such as the Pantheon for example, originally had sculpture, but hardly any have survived. Terracotta relief panels called have survived in good numbers. These were used to decorate interior walls, in strips.

The architectural writer Vitruvius is oddly reticent on the architectural use of sculpture, mentioning only a few examples, though he says that an architect should be able to explain the meaning of architectural ornament and gives as an example the use of .Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, Prayers in Stone: Greek Architectural Sculpture ca. 600-100 B.C.E. (University of California Press, 1999), pp. 13–14 online and 145.

Roman sculpture

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