Download Marble Bust of Hadrian AD 117-138 - Light

Marble Bust of Hadrian AD 117-138
Hair has ‘crown like’
appearance
Fine detail in the hair
Roman nose
Strong gaze
Looking above the observer
Thick strong neck
Straight mouthed
Shown unclothed to
suggest god-like attributes
Marble bust exhibited in the British Museum.
Classic Head and shoulders Roman Portrait bust.
Such busts were produced in large quantities to distribute across the empire.
The overall impression given by the bust is one of power, particularly when it is placed on a pedestal
so that the head is higher than the viewers.
The Museums description states “Statues often showed the emperor as a general or a priest. This
bust shows Hadrian naked. This nakedness, originally a Greek style, showed that the emperor was
heroic and almost god-like.
BEARD & HENDERSON (2001)1 state “It was an emphatically Roman, rather than Greek, drive to
surround available living space with armies of abbreviated figures of prestige – heads or busts; and
to leave the western world with a collective acceptance of the convention of representing persons
from the neck up.”
1
Beard, M. and Henderson, J. (2001) Classical Art: From Greece to Rome. Oxford, Oxford University Press