History of Ancient Art Part 18

The Roman dwelling-house was, in the earliest ages, identical with that of Etruria, and, indeed, of all Central Italy. Although related to h.e.l.lenic prototypes, the peculiarly Italian atrium, without columnar supports for the roof, remained in use even after the general introduction of the Greek peristyle. At Pompeii a combination of these two varieties of court is met with, the front s.p.a.ce being a simple atrium, and that further within a peristyle. Each enclosure was surrounded by chambers. (_Figs._ 290 and 291.) The mosaic and painted decoration of the floors and walls will be treated in a later section.

The small chambers were lighted only through doors opening from the inner courts, and did not share in the architectural importance a.s.signed to the larger halls, which, in the last years of the republic and in the imperial period, transformed the houses of the wealthy into veritable palaces. With the luxury of the table, the magnificence of the dining-room was increased; and, with the growing taste for literature and art, extensive libraries and galleries of pictures became prominent features. Many of the forms adopted for this palatial architecture appear to have been derived from the later Greeks; the designation of halls, as those of Egypt and of Kyzicos, employed by Vitruvius, pointing to the sovereignties of the Diadochi. This enlargement of extensive rooms by columns was, however, in a great degree supplanted by vaulting, in which case the columns were introduced merely as decorative members.

Much attention was devoted to a lavish enrichment of these rooms, the shafts being colored marble monoliths, the lacunae of the vaulted ceilings overlaid with bronze or richly gilded, and the capitals being sometimes formed of solid metal. One of the halls in these palatial residences, the private basilica, though it may not have been universal, deserves especial consideration because of its great importance in later times. Such courts of justice are mentioned by writers of the Augustan age as forming part of the dwellings of men of condition, "because in their houses councils were held upon public and private matters, and civil cases decided." These halls were naturally modelled in a great degree after the public basilicas upon the forums, such as the Porcian, aemilian, Semp.r.o.nian, and Opimian basilicas, which had been built during the republic; but they appear, when compared with the primitive type of the Roman basilica, to have differed fundamentally in two respects. In the first place, the hall, being surrounded by the chambers of the dwelling, could not be provided with windows like the free-standing, forensic basilicas, and a clerestory rising above the adjoining rooms was consequently adopted. This rendered necessary a second modification.

To impose a heavy wall of masonry, besides the timbered ceiling and roof, upon a double story of columns must have seemed inadmissible to the Roman taste for substantial construction. The aisles upon the front and rear were consequently given up, the columns and galleries remaining upon the sides only, the ma.s.sive masonry of the enclosure thus receiving the thrust of the clere-story wall, and greatly increasing its stability. (_Fig._ 292.) This loss of continuity could have been of no great disadvantage in the private basilica, as it did not serve, like the free-standing public structures, for traffic and promenades, as well as for sessions of justice. The galleries over the side aisles were frequently omitted, and it appears to have been in these halls that the connection of columns by arches, in the place of lintels, was first introduced. Such archivolts are first known by examples built during the reign of Diocletian, as at Spalatro (_Fig._ 293); but they soon came into general usage, their practical advantages outweighing the want of aesthetic fitness inherent in such curved entablatures. It was from these private basilicas that the first Christian churches were architecturally developed. The believers had a.s.sembled, during the imperial ages, in the houses of wealthy converts; and as these halls of justice had been used for religious services during times of persecution, it is not strange that, after the recognition of Christianity by the Roman government, their arrangement and even their name should have been retained.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 294.--Fragment of the Cista Praenestina.]

In Roman architecture were found great intelligence in the solution of the constructive problems involved in the enclosing of large s.p.a.ces, great independence in the development of technical perfection, and a masterly conformity to the purpose of the structure; but Roman sculpture, although of very extended application, had less independence and significance. The Romans, originally too practical to provide a place for the beautiful beside the useful, first gave decided admission to this art when the political growth of the world's metropolis had reached the acme of its power; and even then they transferred the question of sculpture to foreign artists in their employ. In the earlier republican period, their practice of this art was scarcely worthy of mention; in the time of the kings, or, at least, until the year 170 of the city, sculpture seems not to have existed in Rome, or only to have been employed in the ornamentation of utensils like the Cista Praenestina (_Fig._ 294) with Phnician-Etruscan anthemions and figures of animals riveted on. If these may be considered rather as a direct importation from Etruria and the neighboring Grecian and Phoenician colonies than as their own work, it may be said that the Romans of this period had no images of the G.o.ds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 295.--Ja.n.u.s Bifrons upon an Ancient Roman Coin.]

The first work of statuary which appears to have been exhibited in Rome was by an Etruscan, Volcanius, or Volca, from Veii. This was the colossal Jupiter sitting upon a throne, ordered by Tarquinius Priscus for the Capitoline Temple. Formed of terra-cotta, the face colored red, and wearing upon the head a chaplet of oak-leaves--originally, perhaps, of bronze, but afterwards of gold--it appears, with the exception of the head, to have been but slightly modelled, as it was covered with an embroidered garment. A Hercules within, and the quadriga upon the gable of the same temple, both also of terra-cotta, are ascribed to this artist. The chariot was, in 296 B.C., replaced by a bronze, which ninety years later was gilded.

Even from the beginning the tone of Roman sculpture was affected by Grecian as well as by Etruscan influences. The image in the Temple of Diana built by Servius Tullius upon the Aventine was a xoanon--a rude puppet of wood imitated from the Artemis of Ma.s.salia (Ma.r.s.eilles)--a work after the manner of the Ephesian Artemis, and consequently still undeveloped, and, at the best, Daidalian. Two generations later a more advanced h.e.l.lenic style obtained, when, in 493 B.C., two Greeks of Lower Italy, Gorgasos and Damophilos, decorated the Temple of Ceres with paintings and figures of terra-cotta. Eight years later, these were followed by the three divinities of the temple--Ceres, Liber, and Libera--which were the first bronze statues in Rome. But, at the same time with the work of the Grecian artists, and as if to prevent a decided h.e.l.lenic preponderance, the wooden image of Juno Regina was brought from Veii to Rome; and this cannot have been without effect upon the figures of Fortuna Muliebris, consecrated four or five years later, in 487 or 486 B.C. In the epoch next following, rife with civil wars and misfortunes of every kind, the pursuit of art seems to have languished, and its necessities to have been met chiefly by booty from the conquered cities of Etruria, though many of the subjects were Roman, like the Ja.n.u.s Geminus, copies of which have been preserved upon coins. (_Fig._ 295.) Of this period are the Vertumnus and the Lavinian Penates, and especially the first portrait statues of heroes like those of the Ephesian Hermodorus, the interpreter among the lawgivers of the Decemvirate, in 450 B.C.; of Ahala and L. Minucius, as protectors from usurpation, in 439 B.C.; and of the four amba.s.sadors murdered by the Fidenates, in 438 B.C.

Art first became more active when, at the close of the Samnite war, in 288 B.C., the Roman authority began to make itself felt in the Grecian towns of Lower Italy. Then originated the rich sculptured ornaments of the Forum--the statues in honor of Maenius, Camillus, Tremulus, and Duilius, and also of the Greeks Pythagoras and Alkibiades, commanded by the oracle; further, as shown by Detlefsen to be probable, portraits of the Sibyls, and of Attus Navius, Horatius Cocles, M. Scaevola, and Porsena, falsely attributed to earlier times. The Capitol was decorated by statues of the seven kings, and of Tatius and Brutus; and the Via Sacra, besides those of Romulus and Tatius, with an equestrian statue of Cllia. Nothing remains of these works, which were almost exclusively of bronze, and only one sacred figure gives any ill.u.s.tration of their technicalities and style--the Wolf--now preserved in the Capitol.

Although the two sucking children are lost, it is probably the one consecrated by Ogulnius under the Ruminal fig-tree, in 295 B.C. (_Fig._ 260.) Without doubt, the characteristics of this period were more Italian, or, according to the usual term, Etruscan, than Greek; and, in considering the sculptures generally, the predominant influence in the portrait-statues may be ascribed to the Etruscans, and, in those of a devotional character, to the Greeks, since it was from the Greeks that the Romans chiefly borrowed this type.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 296.--Statue of Isis. (Museum of Naples.)]

Two other works preserved from the third century B.C., and designated in the inscription as by Roman artists, show plainly the conflict of the two tendencies. The first of these is the celebrated Cista of Ficoroni, made in Rome, with the inscription of Novius Plautius engraved in the ancient character, found near Palestrina (the ancient Praeneste), and now in the Kircherian Museum in Rome. Its chief feature, an episode from the legend of the Argonauts, represented in _sgraffito_ upon the vessel, is so purely Greek that it might be regarded as imported ware were it not for the accessories--the bulla, bracelet, and shoes--which point to Italy, perhaps to Lower Italy. According to Mommsen, Plautius was from Campania. The handle and feet, on the contrary, are entirely Etruscan, and exhibit quite a different tendency. Though the name of the artist and the dedicatory inscription are placed upon the handle, they cannot relate to these castings, which are of quite ordinary manufacture, but rather to the engraving, Plautius having obtained the vessel ready-made in Rome, where he worked. The second of these works, nearly contemporary with the other, is a small head of Medusa, in high-relief, with the artist's name upon it, C. Ovius, from the Tribus Aufentina. In this the two factors, Grecian and ancient Italian, which formerly stood side by side, appear to blend, and thus to perfect what must be designated as the specifically Roman style.

But at the close of the second Punic war, about 200 B.C., began the extensive importation of statues, first from the Grecian cities of Italy, afterwards from Greece proper. It has been related how Rome, in 150 B.C., became the central point of Grecian activity in art, and the seat of that renaissance which followed the past stages of h.e.l.lenic artistic development in reversed succession. As the Roman deities had become throughout almost identical with those of the Greeks, and as the statuary that ornamented the squares, streets, gardens, baths, fountains, houses, and villas were either Grecian spoil or copied from celebrated h.e.l.lenic originals, there remained for the peculiarly Roman art, as it had arisen from the combination of Etruscan and h.e.l.lenic elements, only a comparatively small field.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 297.--Relief of Mithras. (In the Louvre.)]

The Grecian stamp was given, so far as might be, even to those deities, such as Juno Lanuvina, who, on account of their decided individuality, could not be exchanged with those of the Greeks, nor with the G.o.ds borrowed from the Oriental mythology. This did not, indeed, flourish in the West until the late times of h.e.l.lenism, two centuries B.C., and appeared, for the most part, still later in Rome, as shown by the worship of Isis, and the frequent statues of that G.o.ddess (_Fig._ 296) and of Harpocrates, and by the Persian homage to Mithras, with its sacrifice of bulls. (_Fig._ 297.) It was the same with the uncommonly numerous Roman personifications and allegories, the individual type of which was, as a rule, quite commonplace and without expression, the intention of the artist being recognizable only by attributes. A draped female figure, such as the Flora or Pudicitia, might be a Concordia, Constantia, or Fides; a Pax, Libertas, or Securitas; a Virtus, Just.i.tia, or aequitas; a Salus, Pietas, or Annona--according to what was placed in the hand, upon the head, or at the feet; the age, garments, or position being rarely taken into consideration. With the male representations the difference in regard to nudity and manner of clothing (_Figs._ 298 and 299) was greater, and the interchange of related deities facilitated, as in the use of Hermes for Bonus Eventus. In personifications the character, garments, and attributes were doubtless more marked. To the most celebrated works of this kind belong the figures of the fourteen nations conquered by Pompey in the Porticus ad Nationes. These were executed by Coponius, the only distinguished sculptor certainly known with a Roman name. We may, perhaps, consider these as a.n.a.logous to the Germania Devicta (Thusnelda) in Florence, but probably, after the manner of representations of Asiatic cities upon the base of Puteolani, they were more varied and less cold than the mere allegories of abstract ideas. Generally, in carrying out these conceptions, individuality of characterization in the figure or the action was not attempted, a certain common correctness, grace, and superficial beauty being held to suffice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 298.--Vertumnus (Silva.n.u.s). (In Berlin.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 299.--Relief of Bonus Eventus. (British Museum.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 300.--Statue of Augustus. (In the Vatican.)]

In portraiture, the Roman sculpture developed far more speciality and meaning. The early tendency of ancient Italian art towards the individual has already been described, and it may easily be understood that, in the line of portraiture, this had an important influence, even after h.e.l.lenic art had completely established itself upon the Tiber. In this province it best served its purpose. Still, it is evident that the vacant, external individualization peculiar to the primitive works of Etruria and Rome, such as the wax masks of their ancestors, required improvement by greater expression of life and character, for which Lysippos, in portrait-sculpture, had so decidedly opened the way. By the combination of these two elements, the portraits became the most successful works of Roman sculpture. The h.e.l.lenic tendency to idealize prevailed in those statues which presented the person heroically--as Achilles, for instance--or were rendered divine by attributes of Zeus, or Apollo, Juno, Ceres, Venus, and others. The figure was then usually nude, and was only so far imitated from life as to give to the head the true features, with a certain transfiguration. This treatment, exemplified in many of the statues of Antinous, had prevailed in h.e.l.lenic art since the time of Lysippos, the great master of portrait-sculpture. The native Italian tendency, on the contrary, had sway in the so-called "iconic" statues; in those, namely, in which the personal and human character was carried out. In these the clothing was given with more detail and significance; as, for example, in the figures of the emperors wearing the toga (_statuae togatae_), or the presidents of the senate. Others are represented as high-priests, with the drapery drawn over the back of the head; others (_statuae thoracatae_) as field-officers, in coats of mail, as, among many examples, in the celebrated Augustus of the Vatican, found, in 1863, before the Porta del Popolo. (_Fig._ 300.) In these the action generally chosen seems to have been that of address to the senate or to the army. Equestrian statues belonged chiefly to the _thoracatae_, though they appear also in conception like Achilles, nude, or clothed only with the himation. As they were all of bronze, few remain; so that the Marcus Aurelius upon the Capitoline, notwithstanding its hardness and other faults, is the most celebrated, and has become the standard for countless modern statues. The figures upon chariots, on the contrary, and especially those which ornamented the triumphal arches, were, for the most part, _togatae_. The mention of triumphal groups with six pairs of horses, or of elephants, shows to what extreme of tastelessness Roman art had become debased in the time of the emperors. The better works of this cla.s.s are most suitably represented by the four bronze horses, falsely ascribed to Lysippos, which were brought by the Venetians from Constantinople in 1204, and which have been placed over the portal of St. Mark's Church in Venice. Iconic female statues are distinguished by careful imitation of garments falling in rich folds, and, even in the early times, by exaggerated head-dresses, which gave them the appearance of fashion-plates. n.o.ble ladies, sitting comfortably, and with dignity, in arm-chairs, are among the most successful of Roman works. Yet there is in all these portrait-statues, especially in the usual oratorical gestures, a typical character as little to be mistaken as is the softening influence of h.e.l.lenic idealism in most of the heads. Without injuring the individuality, it increases the beauty and heroic elevation of the entire figure. Not unfrequently, however, instead of inner significance, we find merely richness of drapery and detailed accessories, particularly in reliefs upon coats of mail, etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 301.--Equestrian Statue of Nonius Balbus, Jun.

(Sculptor unknown.)]

The same combination of native Italian tendency with h.e.l.lenic enlightenment, found in portrait-sculpture, is shown in the reliefs which thereby became specifically Roman. These appear to have been very numerous, as it pleased this people to leave few vacant surfaces upon their monuments, which were not only ornamented, but literally covered with reliefs and inscriptions. Thus sculpture became as much a written chronicle as a decoration. In limited s.p.a.ces, such as pedestals and capitals, and the key-stones of arches, it became merely ornamental; the subjects of the ornamentation, in keeping with the style, being chiefly allegorical, such as Victories bearing trophies, the Seasons, etc. Upon large surfaces sculpture completely took the nature of chronicles and inscriptions, and thus were developed the truly Roman historical reliefs in connection with inscriptions.

These, in accordance with the Italian view of art in general, rested almost entirely upon a realistic foundation. Mythology disappeared, and allegory alone still exercised a small influence; as, for example, the Genius of Immortality bearing upward a deified emperor, Roma with the triumphal quadriga, Victory upon a shield perpetuating the memory of conquest; while personifications of cities or rivers, and even of swamps, indicated the locality of the action, or Jupiter Pluvius signified the coming of the saving rain. After the Antonines, the events are related with simple truth to nature, as a mere chronicle, without any idealization at all. The subjects of Roman reliefs are distinguished from the Grecian only by the Greeks having subst.i.tuted, whenever possible, mythological for human or common events; and there was no less difference in the artistic treatment. The Greek never lost sight of that conventional law in sculptural reliefs by which the figures are conceived in a situation to give the most pleasing outline. The whole procession of persons, one behind the other, excluding all effect of foreshortening and perspective, was displayed upon a surface, and developed, so far as the figure would permit, in harmonious unity, and, whether represented sitting on horseback, or on foot, occupying the same s.p.a.ce in regard to height and in regard to the depth of relief. It resulted that the design was arranged in reference to two planes only--the original surface of the stone, which disappeared with the work (except in the highest points), and the common background. Roman sculpture, on the other hand, freed itself from all such laws of style.

The profile position no longer predominated, and the figures in the mutilated remnants, where the details are lost, appear like formless ma.s.ses, which, in the h.e.l.lenic system, would have been impossible. The outline loses its significance, and the figures are arranged with such disregard of the surface upon which they are placed that they rather resemble portions of statues. The projection from the background also varies, many parts, particularly the head and arms, standing entirely disengaged. In the arrangement of several figures, one behind another, against a landscape or architectural background, an attempt was made to distinguish the forms in front from those behind by higher or lower relief, with something of the effect of perspective. (_Fig._ 302.) From this ensued a confusion of lines and a want of clearness, atmospheric effect not a.s.sisting in sculpture, as in painting, to separate the farther object from the nearer, and thus to define the distance. This crowding was still more objectionable when, besides being grouped one behind another, the figures were placed one over another, representing the scene as if from a bird's-eye view.

It thus happened that Roman sculpture in relief was characterized rather by a realistic and picturesque tendency than by well-conventionalized composition. But the forms remained h.e.l.lenic, at least so far as the circ.u.mstances represented in Grecian examples would permit. When, however, a river was to be represented, for which the Greeks always placed a local deity as symbol, or when the besieging of towns, castles, or bridges was given, the Romans approached more nearly to the conception of Oriental nations. As the subject was of more importance than the composition, the deed than the artistic ill.u.s.tration, a certain common and formal correctness sufficed--an artistic handwriting, so to speak, which might be easily read. Their work might be termed an unconscious translation from the a.s.syrian or Egyptian into the Roman language.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 302.--Relief from the Arch of t.i.tus in Rome.]

It does not appear that the sculpture of historical reliefs was developed much before the time of the Empire; at least, not more of these remain than of the Roman portrait-statues that can be imputed to a more remote period. Historic sculpture was best exhibited in triumphal monuments. To this cla.s.s belong the two world-renowned columns of Trajan and of Marcus Aurelius. With more than five thousand figures and over two hundred scenes, they are among the most magnificent sculptural representations of all times. Upon these ascending spiral reliefs are unrolled the chronicles of the Dacian and Marcomannic wars. The main events are recognizable throughout, and the barbaric tribes may be distinguished by their costumes, arms, and physiognomy; so that if written history were wanting, the reliefs upon Trajan's Column would be an important source of information in regard to the biography of this emperor and Roman imperial history. Vigorous in treatment and skilful in drawing as it must be admitted that they are, still their artistic value, from want of style in composition, is very small.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 303.--Relief of Trajan, from the Arch of Constantine in Rome.]

The oblong tablets of relief upon the triumphal arches occupy a somewhat more favorable position, because the frame led to a more formal, and the duplication to a more harmonious, composition. The reliefs upon the Arch of t.i.tus, particularly those on the sides of the two large pa.s.sages, notwithstanding the ignorance which they betray, are of far higher importance in art; and the same may be said of the reliefs upon the monuments of Hadrian and Trajan. (_Fig._ 303.) How far the graces of form and order, inherited from the Greeks and hitherto prevalent, had disappeared even in the time of the Antonines, and given place to a formal and vacant hardness, is shown by the relief upon the pedestal of the lost statue of Antoninus Pius. (_Fig._ 304.) This represents the apotheosis of Antoninus and Faustina, who appear seated upon the back of a stiff, floating Genius of Immortality, in the weakest of compositions, while cold and all-controlling Allegory places by the side of Roma a personification of the Campus Martius, recognizable by the attribute of the obelisk which was erected there by Augustus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 304.--Relief upon the Pedestal of the Column of Antoninus Pius.]

Roman sculpture reached its highest point under Hadrian. This emperor filled all s.p.a.ces with sculpture, as Trajan covered them with inscriptions commemorating his restorations, acquiring thus, in later times, the nickname of the "Lichen." Even the golden house of Nero was, in this respect, surpa.s.sed by the Villa of Hadrian at Tibur, where it pleased him to reproduce all the wonderful works of architecture and of sculpture which he had noticed in his extended travels through the Roman world. After the death of Hadrian, however, who, as an enthusiastic admirer of Greek art, naturally directed the artistic industry of his time to the best possible reproductions of the highest products of h.e.l.lenic art, the Romans began to follow the works of the later ages.

The lower they placed their aim, and the farther they were removed from the original source of inspiration the more rapid was their decline.

Ideal art degenerated into increasing formalism, carelessness, weakness of sentiment, and shallowness, though still retaining much that was good, because the originals, though copied and recopied, still dated back to the best periods. Portraiture naturally retained more independence; but this also would have been stifled by the enormous requirements, even if the declining art had possessed fresh vigor. To understand this excessive demand, it is only necessary to bear in mind the rapid succession of emperors after Antoninus, with the consequent changing of imperial statues in all the cities of the Roman empire. With the Antonines expired the ideal element in sculptural portraits; and prosaic realism, as it had existed in ancient Italian art, obtained exclusive mastery. Anxious struggles after external likeness in small and inartistic details, like wrinkles, and abnormities such as the curly and frizzled hair of the Antonines, and of L. Verus, with locks like porous pumice-stone, took the place of the lost ideal--remarkable examples, which failed to preserve the lifelike expression. Within a century art had altogether lost the capacity for characterization, even in portraiture; and the numerous busts of the later empire can hardly be distinguished one from another. They are mostly portraits of emperors, empresses, and princes, whose heads are stiffened and hardened into a common type. Previously, with a change of the sovereign, they had altered the heads of the Achilleic and iconic imperial statues; but it now sufficed merely to vary the inscription, and, at most, the accessories. But it was not difficult to change the face also, since it pleased them, in making busts, to combine marbles of different hues, so as to realize the local colors. Thus the mask was of simple white, the hair of dark marble, the garments of red, green, and gray marble or granite, and even the band for the forehead and the clasp for the toga were of a suitable hue. In the heads of ladies this disagreeable polychromy had the advantage that, upon the portrait of the same sovereign, not only the mask, but the wig, could be altered, which, according to the fashion of the day, might be blond, red, or dark, with any desired mode of dressing the hair.

Carving in relief, after the Antonines, suffered a similar decline. The sculptures upon the Column of Marcus Aurelius, in comparison with those of Trajan's Column, notwithstanding their unmistakable dependence upon the older example, show the want of energy, of appreciation of form, of variety, and of technical ability which characterizes the loss of creative power, and the mere reproduction of models. The reliefs of the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, once upon the Corso at Rome, now in the palace of the Capitol, betray the same vacuity of expression and hardness of form, in comparison with the ill.u.s.trations from the life of Trajan upon the Arch of Constantine; even when compared with the sculptures upon the pedestal of the Column of Antoninus Pius, a decline is visible from the time of the older to the younger Antoninus. But even these are superior to the reliefs upon the Arch of Septimius Severus, erected in 201 B.C., which, in the main parts, have a fourfold division, in order to gain s.p.a.ce for the utmost possible number of representations. From the nature of the design, the spiral reliefs upon the columns of Trajan and of Marcus Aurelius exhibited such parallel rows, one above another; but here the same method is employed upon a plane surface, although it crowds the subject to such an extent that the figures become insignificant and, at a little distance, indistinct. In these four lines are given scenes of war, not, apparently, so much to celebrate combat and victory in general as to register especial facts, battles fought with various weapons, sieges, capitulations, and the transport of booty.

Though many of the details were vigorous, the forms in general tolerably correct, and the technical ability considerable, yet the composition appears barbaric, the grouping awkward, and the filling of the given s.p.a.ce, the composition, and the artistic construction altogether unfortunate.

After Septimius Severus, statuesque art degenerated into mere stone-cutting; the portraits are unrecognizable, the reliefs without expression or effect, except, as in Egyptian art, from the number of figures and accessories. In religious sculptures, finally reduced to bungling artisan work, the last spark of h.e.l.lenic tradition died out in continued weak copies. In historical reliefs the impulse to create perished with the artistic ability. When large monumental constructions were required, the material was frequently drawn from the works of former emperors; and even in triumphal memorials, like the Arch of Constantine, there was no hesitation in inserting reliefs unmistakably celebrating the deeds of Trajan, or installing statues connected with his conquests upon the Danube, the builders contenting themselves with filling out what was lacking, as in the case of the Victories upon the pedestals of the columns (_Fig._ 305), and the narrow frieze of reliefs over the side pa.s.sages. The figures err greatly in proportions: dumpy, formless, and awkward, appearing incapable of motion, they already exemplify that perfect rigidity which, in the following centuries, was to hold sculpture in bondage. Even where the nature of the representations permitted the influence of the old models, the decline of technical ability is striking, as may be seen by comparing these figures with the Victories upon the pedestals of the Arch of Septimius Severus, which, though superficial, are not without a certain style. The folds, for example, look like the holes and lines of the wood-worm; they are simple stripes cut into the garment, without movement or purpose, hard, rough, and hasty, as is the entire treatment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 305.--Victory, from the Arch of Constantine.]

If in Roman art the province of architecture is the most important, and that of sculpture the most richly represented, that of painting is the most charming. In this, as in sculpture, the decorative character predominated. Traces of that monumental art which creates for itself, and for its own sake, are found only in works of the earlier time, and even then in few and isolated instances. Even more than sculpture, painting appears dependent and imitative, vacillating in the first five centuries between the influence of ancient Italy and of Greece; later, in close subjection to the latter, as developed in the h.e.l.lenistic period after Alexander.

The earliest notice of monumental painting in Rome relates to the decoration of the temples of Ceres, Liber, and Libera by the Greek artists of Lower Italy, Gorgasos and Damophilos, in 493 B.C., of which mention has already been made. Although they made use of four colors, their method was that of the time before Polygnotos, and their work was little distinguished from the older painting upon vases, such as those of Ergotimos and c.l.i.tias in Florence, the surfaces within the outlines being treated in color, without gradation of light or shade. It may therefore be concluded that, in the two chief temples of the last period of the kings, colored ornament, whether upon the plaster itself, or upon a revetment of terra-cotta slabs, as in the tomb at Caere (_Fig._ 262), was as little wanting as in the temples and tombs of Etruria. It may be judged that in Rome this was specifically Etruscan, since Pliny refers to the ornamentation of the Temple of Ceres only because in this Grecian artists first appear to have taken part, while before "everything in the Roman temple had been Etruscan." Much as we may be inclined to regard the primitive art of Etruria as dependent upon that of Greece, the difference must have been considerable; and the Grecian wall-paintings in the Temple of Ceres must have been held in great estimation, since, according to Pliny, they were protected when the temple was restored, being removed from the walls with great care, framed upon tablets, and replaced.

It can scarcely be doubted that these wall-paintings opened the way to h.e.l.lenic influence, although a guild of Etruscan artists for a long time worked by the side of the Greeks in Rome, for purposes of ordinary decoration. If, according to Pliny, "art came early to be honored in Rome," and even patricians did not hesitate to devote themselves to it, it would seem that this must have been brought about through Grecian methods. Fabius Pictor, whose wall-paintings, according to Dionysios of Halicarna.s.sos, were carefully drawn, of a fresh, agreeable color, and composed in a grand historical style, acquired his sobriquet and his great fame by his paintings in the Temple of Salus, executed in the year 304 B.C. His rank in regard to drawing may be exemplified by the wonderful _sgraffiti_ of the Cista of Novius Plautius in Rome, although the latter, having flourished half a century later, may take a somewhat higher rank. The paintings of the tragic poet Pacuvius, from 220 to 130 B.C., were still more advanced. Among these a picture, probably upon a panel, in the Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium, was very celebrated; and it may be a.s.sumed that, in order to obtain renown, the artist adopted with success the technical refinements of the period of the Diadochi. The aged artist, before his death, must have witnessed the extensive robberies which brought to the metropolis, besides the sculptural works, the most distinguished pictures of Greece, it having happened in his prime that the Athenian painter and philosopher Metrodoros was called to Rome by aemilius Paulus--as a philosopher to educate his children, and as an artist to ill.u.s.trate his triumphs.

Metrodoros, who, in his artistic and scholarly versatility, had written a book upon architecture, gave a.s.sistance even in the construction of triumphal arches. Still, aemilius Paulus may well have wished to glorify his deeds by historical paintings, as had been customary with the conquerors for a century. In 293 B.C., M. Valerius Maximus Messala had placed a battle-scene in the Curia Hostilia, ill.u.s.trating his victory over the Carthaginians and Hiero of Syracuse--an example which was followed by L. Scipio, in 190 B.C., with a representation of his success at Magnesia over Antiochus of Syria. These, however, must be regarded less as works of art than as realistic delineations of the events, a.n.a.logous to the Roman historical reliefs in the time of the Empire; at least, great importance was given to details in the picture representing the Conquest of Carthage which L. Hostilius Mancinus, in 146 B.C., exhibited upon the Forum and explained to the people, and which especially showed the Roman preparations for a siege. Such works, the background of which was probably treated more or less as a landscape, like the topographical representations of earlier antiquity, must have been similar in conception and composition to the a.s.syrian reliefs that represent battles and sieges, and to the pictures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the Christian era.

In the notices of these panel-paintings there are no names of artists to a.s.sist in their cla.s.sification; but it may be concluded that Metrodoros was encouraged in this work, and Serapion, in 100 B.C., really distinguished himself in such historical scenes. The artists of importance in the last century of the republic, like Sopolis, Dionysios, and their pupil Antiochus Gabinius, found themselves forced into portraiture; the specialty of Iaia, or Laia, of Kyzicos was the painting of women upon ivory, and Arellius portrayed his mistresses as G.o.ddesses.

But in the beginning of the empire, tablet-painting seems to have been entirely abandoned, being supplanted by a new decorative tendency which again, in quite an unmonumental manner, led back to mural painting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 306.--Wall-painting, from the Aurea Domus of Nero.]

It is clear from the term "Pinacotheca," applied to certain halls in the city palaces, that the eagerness for collecting among the Roman emperors and n.o.bles extended as well to the paintings of Greece as to the statues. In sculpture copies were subst.i.tuted when originals were wanting, but this seems to have been rarely the case with panel-paintings. As the statues were employed for decoration, originality in these was not so important; but with paintings preserved in cabinets, genuineness was more imperative. Painting upon panels, however, became less frequent when pictures came to be imitated upon the wall itself and brought into harmony with the remainder of the mural ornamentation, as, according to Helbig, was customary, particularly in Alexandria, even in the time of the Diadochi. This is shown, not only by the new discoveries among the buildings of Tiberius upon the Palatine, but also in the frescos of those subterranean baths of t.i.tus which may be regarded as part of the ruins of the Golden House of Nero. (_Fig._ 306.) Ornaments, garlands, and architectural designs divide the walls into many s.p.a.ces, within which groups or single figures (_Fig._ 307), often dancing or floating, are placed directly against a ground of intense color, sometimes black--the paintings of Campania showing unsurpa.s.sed lightness and charm in the lines. (_Fig._ 308.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 307.--Ceres. Pompeian Wall-painting.]

Sometimes they are ornamented with imitations of framed panel-pictures, mostly containing mythological groups, and scenes in small genre. To these was generally given a background of landscape, so that the figures represented were little more than picturesque accessories; and this custom seems to have led, perhaps even in the h.e.l.lenistic period, to true landscape-painting. (_Fig._ 309.) According to Pliny, Ludius, or Studius, introduced this style in the time of Augustus, of which, besides those of Campania, the frieze decorations of the newly discovered house of Tiberius upon the Palatine give the best representations, and form an ill.u.s.trated commentary upon the descriptions of the works of Ludius. These are characterized as showing "villas and halls, artificial gardens, hedges, woods, hills, water-basins, tombs, rivers, sh.o.r.es, in as great a variety as could be desired;" besides "figures sitting at ease, mariners, and those who, riding upon donkeys or in wagons, look after their farms; fishermen, snarers of birds, hunters, and vine-dressers; also swampy pa.s.sages before beautiful villas, and women borne by men who stagger under the burden, and other witty things of this nature; finally, views of seaports, everything charming and suitable;" that is to say, of a certain facility and shallowness. The aim was to give an open and cheerful effect, and this could be attained without correct and naturalistic method or unity of idea; on the contrary a fantastic unreality, and even impossibility, was its chief charm, like the painting upon j.a.panese lacquered wares.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 308.--Wall-painting from Herculaneum.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 309.--Landscape-painting from Pompeii.]

The case was similar with architectural ornamentation, another branch of Roman decorative painting, generally known under the name of the Pompeian style. (_Fig._ 310.) Even in the time of Augustus, Vitruvius complains of a blind seeking after scenic effect, which, in disdain of all constructive laws, and in a manner quite impossible, piled heavy gables and upper stories upon reed-like columns of no supporting power.

His blame, however, seems unjustifiable. That architectural painting which aims at illusion should be condemned as worthless; but this is not the case with that which, after the a.n.a.logy of conventional landscape-painting, renounces all semblance of reality and a.s.siduously avoids all illusion. s.p.a.ces may be apparently extended by an architectural painting which, not deceptively, but poetically, opens the narrow walls of small rooms, and carries the eye dreamily through a wide perspective. Hence the fresh and by no means realistic colors, which, tapestry-like, are not intended to deceive, but to ornament and please.

They bear witness to the deep feeling for polychromy, inherited from h.e.l.lenic, or at least h.e.l.lenistic, predecessors, which was characteristic of the Romans even after their decline. What delight must there have been in a work so extended, and yet free from all slavish copying! Not only Amulius, who, by compulsion, painted the Golden House of Nero, and was celebrated by Pliny for his valuable and finely colored pictures, but countless other artists were everywhere busily employed in covering the walls with paintings and ornaments--a work now intrusted to common decorators. In the time of Nero the activity in ornamental painting, judged by the discoveries among the ruined cities of Campania, must have been greater than has ever been known at any other period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 310.--Wall-painting of Decorative Architecture, Pompeii.]