Speranza
Large polychrome terra-cotta images, such as the Apollo of Veii (Villa Giulia,
Roma), sandstone tomb effigies, and tomb paintings reveal a native feeling for
voluminous forms and bold decorative color effects and an exuberant, vital
spirit.
From c.400 B.C. through the Hellenistic age, the vitality of the archaic
period gave way to imitation of the Greek classical models combined with a
native trend toward naturalism (Mars of Todi, Vatican).
The merging of these
trends produced the establishment of Hellenistic realism in Roman Italy at the
end of the republic and the beginning of the empire (Orator, Museo Archeologico,
Florence; Capitoline Brutus, Conservatori, Rome.).
After the conquest of
Greece (c.146 B.C.), Greek artists settled in Rome, where they found a ready
market for works executed in the Greek classical manner or in direct imitation
of Greek originals.
While the many works by these copyists are of interest
principally for their reflection of earlier Greek art, they throw light on the
eclecticism of Roman taste, and their influence was of paramount importance
throughout the development of Roman art. Roman portraits, however, have an
origin very remote and altogether Italianate.
It was a Roman custom to have a
death mask taken, which was then preserved along with busts copied from it in
terra-cotta or bronze.
By the time of the empire, the Roman conception of art
had become allied with the political ideal of service to the state.
In the
Augustan period (30 B.C.–A.D. 14) there was an attempt to combine realism with
the Greek feeling for idealization and abstract harmony of forms.
This
modification is seen in the famous Augustus from Prima Porta (Vatican), which
represents the first of a long series of the distinctly Roman type of portrait.
Under the emperors from Tiberius through the Flavians (A.D. 14–A.D. 96) portrait
busts reveal in general a growing concern with effects of pictorial refinement
and psychological penetration.
The magnificent reliefs from the Arch of Titus,
Rome, commemorating the conquest of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, mark a climax in the
development of illusionism in historical relief sculpture.
From the time of
Trajan (A.D. 98–A.D. 117) the influence of the art of the Eastern provinces
began to gain in importance. The spiral band of low reliefs on Trajan's Column
(Rome), commemorating the wars against the Daci, employs a system of continuous
narration. In the period of Hadrian (117–138) there was a reversion to the
idealization of the Augustan style and at the same time a growing sense of
voluptuousness. Major works from the later period of the Antonines (138–192) are
the column and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (Rome).
From the time
of Caracalla to the death of Constantine I (211–337) the rapid assimilation of
Eastern influences encouraged a tendency toward abstraction that later developed
into the stiff iconographic forms of the early Christian and Byzantine eras. The
reliefs of the friezes from the Arch of Constantine, Rome (c.315), may be
regarded as the last example of monumental Roman sculpture.
Friday, July 20, 2012
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