Roman Art Part 2, Pompeii and Herculaneum

Roman Art: Pompeii and Fresco Styles

Roman Art Part 2, Pompeii and Herculaneum

POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM Pages 205 – 216 Gardner’s 10th ed.

The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, August 24, 79 CE (First century CE)

1.Was covered with fertile slopes and vineyards before the explosion

2.Pompeii was still in process of rebuilding after an earthquake in 62 BCE

3.Many prosperous towns around the Bay of Naples were buried in a single day including Pompeii and Herculaneum

4.Researchers in the 18th century discovered the ruins which lay uninterrupted for 1700 years.

5.Their discovery permits a reconstruction of the art and life of a Roman town during the LateRepublic and Early Empire.

Pompeii Today

1.Streets are still there with heavy pavement and sidewalks

2.Stepping stones across the street so pedestrians wouldn’t step in puddles

3.Enough space between stepping stones for wagon wheels to go through and make deliveries

4.Tourists visit the concrete vaulted public baths, open air theater, amphitheater, and indoor concert hall

5.VILLAS – Roman country homes – contain beautifully painted walls and gardens, some kitchens still have the utensils in place

6.Called the LivingCity of the Dead

7.Many of the great works of art have been moved to the NaplesArcheologicalMuseum

Architecture

1.The Forum (G-255)

Center for civic life, built at the intersection of main roads
Open air structure only for pedestrian traffic, surrounded by colonnades (Corinthian columns). Shows the influence of Hellenistic design.
Outside the open-air part, secular and religious structures
A temple
A BASILICA – a long narrow building used as courthouse and for government offices

2.An Amphitheater

Earliest known amphitheater – 70 BCE
Gladiator battles and wild animal hunts
Arena (sandy floor) used for soaking up blood
A fresco shows a brawl that broke out between Pompeian people and the neighboring Nucerians in 59 CE – many wounded and amphitheater was closed for a decade
Notice the velarium (cloth awning) and double stair case (efficient entrance and exit)
Major contrast functionally and architecturally with Greek theaters (G-151)
STUDY CHART

Location / Pompeii, Italy / Epidauros, Greece
Appearance/type / Amphitheater (double Greek theater, giant oval / Theater (semicircular plan, open on one side
Architectural materials/structure / Concrete, barrel vaults support under the seating, barrel vault to enter arena / Stone seats and steps
Function / Mass entertainment, spectacles / Refined performances of comedies and tragedies
Treatment of surrounding area / Subjugation of nature, make an artificial mountain to create an amphitheater / Work with nature, place the theater on the hillside

3.The Roman House (Domus) (G-256, 257)

Fauces (throat of the house) – a narrow foyer opened to…
Atrium – Central reception area, opening in roof (compluvium) to let light in and allowed rain water to collect
Impluvium – basin below the opening in the roof to catch water, cisterns could be used to store the water for the household
Cubicula – small bedrooms
Triclinium – dining room
Small kitchen and interior garden (peristyle garden) in back
Evidence of similar homes found in Etruscan paintings
Roman home was important. Romans entertained guests and wanted to look important.
Roman homes had an internal focus. Plain on the outside, great attention to the interior, shut out the traffic and noise from the street
Example: House of the Vettii (G-256)
A must-see for tourists
Vettii brothers owned the house
Example: House of the Faun
Shows the craze for all things Greek
Named after Hellenistic-style bronze statue that stood in one of its two atriums
Occupied an entire city-block!
Two huge peristyle gardens!
Mosaics decorate the floors of many of the rooms
Alexander Mosaic (Battle of Issus)
Battling Darius of Persia
Copy of a Hellenistic panel painting

Frescoes

1.Most complete record of changing fashions of interior decoration in the world

2.True frescoes – pigment was applied on wet plaster, a painstaking process, applied several layers of plaster with a trowel, if wealthy enough, mixed marble dust in with plaster

3.How many homes do you know that have custom-painted murals in every room?

Four styles of Pompeian Frescoes

1.First-Style

Simulates costly marble panels
Like using paneling in your home to simulate expensive wooden panels
Hellenistic Greek precedent

2.Second-Style

Creates the illusion of a three-dimensional world inside the room
Example: Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii (G-259)
Use of Pompeian Red
Used privately to celebrate the rites of Dionysus
Mystery religion popular with women
The rites were kept secret by the women
Walls provide clues
Women may have role played Ariadne, daughter of King Minos (Remember when Theseus ditched her on the island of Naxos?), uniting in marriage to Dionysus
Illusion of a shallow ledge on which all the figures stand
Figures from different walls interact with each other
Woman with wings uses a whip that hits the back of a kneeling woman with a bare back on the right wall (part of an initiation?)
Mature Second-Style – creates a three-dimensional world outside of the room (See example of reconstructed cubiculum M of House of P. Pannius at Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Amazing sense of depth and perspective
Transformed windowless rooms to “picture windows”
Another example – Gardenscape from Villa of Livia (wife of Caesar Augustus) from Primaporta (north of Rome)
Understanding of atmospheric perspective – gives a sense of depth – as objects recede into the distance, they appear fuzzier and less distinct, colors may appear bluish or purple in the distance
All four walls had gardenscapes
Fence, trees, and birds in foreground are precisely painted, details of foliage in background are indistinct

3.Third-Style – Delicate linear fantasies on monochromatic backgrounds

Not trying to imitate marble panels, not trying to create illusion of three-dimenionality
Notice very thin colonnettes, feather-weight canopy, tiny floating landscape in the center, all on a monochrome black background – Landscape is like a painting in a frame
Does this look like a window into another world? Which landscape is better – Livia’s or this one?

4.Fourth-Style – Combines some elements of all the styles

Example: Room for Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House)
Sea creatures, birds, and other motifs on monochromatic backgrounds
Views outside the room as well as some illusions
Example – Frescoes on Triclinium P of House of Vettii
Notice the elements of the other styles placed together in a crowded manner

5.Still – life with Peaches

Important example of the Fourth-Style
Found in Herculaneum
Roman painters were interested in everyday objects as well as buildings and landscapes
Artists paid close attention to shadows and highlights
Worked directly from the arrangement
Fruit, the stem and leaves, and glass jar set on different shelves – gives the illusion of the casual as if these objects were in a cupboard.
Art historians have not found evidence of anything like these Roman studies of food and inanimate objects until Dutch still-life paintings of the 17th century!!
Not exact in drawing, perspective, or rendering of light and shade like the Dutch
Ancients still understood that the appearance of objects was a function of light – AMAZING!

6.Portrait of Husband and Wife fresco

Shows diverse tastes of Roman frescoes
Romans kept imagines (portrait busts) in homes, why not have painted portraits, too
Man holds a scroll, woman holds a stylus and wax tablet – standard in Roman marriage portraits
Indicates fine education – even if it wasn’t true and the individuals were uneducated and illiterate
Roman equivalent of modern wedding portraits in which brides and grooms wear rented formal clothes that they will not wear again
Heads are not of a standard type – Sensitive studies of the features of the man and woman

Mosaics

1.Usually on floors in ancient times but Romans had mosaics on walls and ceilings, precursor of early Christian mosaic tradition.