Lecture 20: Sculpture and Painting in the Later Roman Republic
A. Roman Portrait Sculpture
1. Lucius Iunius Brutus- first consul of Rome 509 B.C. condemns own sons to death
a. Date difficult to determine- 3rd to 1st century B.C.
b. Influence of Greek portraiture- the advance towards realism
c. One of the great heroes of the Republic- ousts Etruscans from Rome
2. The Arringatore (The Haranguer)- The Orator of Florence
a. Middle first century B.C. Etrusco-Roman bronze
b. Calceus
c. Toga Exigua
3. Verism- ultra-realistic Roman late Republican portraiture
a. First century B.C.- the Age of Individualism and Nabobs
b. The Gens puts up statues of the ancestors and claim descent from Gods
c. Physical likeness of living to ancestors important
d. Imagines- the dead thought symbolically present
e. Lararium- cult of the Lares
f. Death Masks- rigor mortis
B. Wall Painting Styles of the 2nd and 1st Centuries B.C.
1. The Ancient Greek Tradition of Painting
a. Thermon, Aetolia, Greece- Temple of Apollo - painted metopes 640 B.C.
b. Greek Painted Pottery-
1. Athens- Black-Figured Pottery-7th-6th centuries B.C.
2. Athens- Red-Figured Pottery- 5th-4th centuries B.C.
c. South Italian Greek Painting- Paestum, Tomb of the Diver ca. 480 B.C.
2. Etruscan Tradition of Tomb Painting
C. Roman Wall Painting
1. The First Style- Incrustation Style 200-80 B.C.
a. Three horizontal divisions of the wall- socle, frieze, upper masonry course
b. Imitation of drafted masonry
c. Polychromy
d. Cornices
e. Flat walls
f. Samnite House in Herculaneum
2. The Second Style= Illusionistic Style 80 B.C.-15 B.C.
a. Illusionism- expands the room visually
b. Push-pull walls and columns painted on
c. House of the Griffins in Rome
3. The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii
a. ca. 40 B.C.- Bride of Dionysus, Dionysiac mysteries
b. Narrative
c. Satyr
d. Pan and Panisca
e. Lekantomanteia
f. Domina
g. Ritual flagellation