Chpt 12

1. Artistic Flair

2. Focus
This presentation will teach you about Roman Art.
Roman art can really be divided into 3 categories:
 Sculpture: portraits (busts) and historical (on buildings)
 Paintings: murals (fresco/tempura) and portraits (mostly as
murals)
 Mosaics: on floors (geometric patterns and optical illusions)
Roman art was heavily influenced by the Greeks.
The Greeks taught the Romans enough for them
flourish as artists. While each category has a
foundation in Greek admiration, eventually they,
like most everything else, became distinctly
Roman.

3. Sculpture
Roman sculpture was formed in
marble, bronze and stone.
Generally the subjects were
portrayed in a realistic fashion,
Roman busts, head and
shoulders, were realistic carvings
of people and perhaps grew out
of the imagines each family kept.
The imagines were the ancestral
masks housed in the lararium and
brought out for funeral
processions.
whether it was a
portrait or a
historical event.

4. Sculpture
On public buildings and triumphal arches the goal
was to depict the rich history of Rome. On the
arches especially, the victorious general would
want all to know what a great victory he had
won for Rome and how he accomplished it.
Thus, the sculpture might appear crowded and
action driven.

5. Painting
s
illusions of gardens as seen among 3D columns
or through 3D windows.
The vast majority of Roman
paintings were murals. The
Romans liked bright colors and
their subjects ranged from
deities and temples to detailed
landscapes and country scenes
to everyday life. They even

6. Paintings
The most popular style of painting was fresco (below
sides), meaning it was painted when the wall
plaster was still wet. This style of painting help
to preserve the rich color of the paint. Other
murals were painted when the plaster was dry
or in tempura. Portraits were also painted
either as murals, maybe in a room dedicated to
ancestors, or much more rarely on wooden
panels (below middle).

7. Mosaics
Mosaics were generally a way of
decorating the floors of a building but
are also found on walls and ceilings.
The mosaic could be a simple geometric
pattern set in black and white or an
optical illusion or as detailed and
elaborate as a painting. Sometimes the
mosaic was specific to the room. For
instance food in the dinning room or a
dog in the entrance way.

8. Mosaics Tesserae, tiny cubes, are the
building blocks of mosaics
and could be made of stone,
tile, marble, pottery or glass.
The tesserae would be set in
wet cement and then finished
with cement on top to fill in
the spaced left between them.
Also a mosaic artist might
draw the pattern on the floor
first or build the mosaic in a
wood frame and bring it to the
site.

9. Assignment
You get to make your very on Roman
Mosaic! There are several options
for completing this project. You can
complete it online OR by
downloading either the more
traditional square template or the
triangular template. Be sure to read
the document for all the details and
options!

10. Assignment
You get to make your very on Roman
Mosaic! There are several options
for completing this project. You can
complete it online OR by
downloading either the more
traditional square template or the
triangular template. Be sure to read
the document for all the details and
options!