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The Roman Times
st
All the News Romans Need to Know
1 Century B.C
Rome
Architecture and Art of the Romans
By John Lius
We Romans are passionate about art and architecture. We love art. Most of our
sculptures are to imitate the Greek style of art. We are great builders. Sculptures that
we make have to meet our religions requirements. We derived high stone podium to
build the Etruscan Temple. Our statues were stressed to look real. The goal we had for
our statues was to make it look as much as possible like the model it will represent.
Roman families wanted statues to look like their dead ancestors to honor them and
their death. When this request was made the Roman artists would try to capture and
make every wrinkle or flaw in their face. They would use bright colors when they
would do this.
We would make scenes from daily life, buildings, gods, scenes from myths. The
concrete that we use to make the sculpture has pasty, hydrated lime, volcanic ash from
the town of Pozzuoli in Italy, and big rocks are also used. The chemistry of our concrete
is special because of the pozzolan ash from the volcano. Small buildings were made out
of plaster, lime, rocks, and water. We would mix our materials in a mortar box with just
a little water and we would use our hands to mix it all together.
We copied the Greek building style which was called basilica where the columns
would be inside and not outside. We built the coliseum with no roof. The coliseum was
our most famous structure. To lift our big and heavy building materials we would use
wooden cranes which were powered by slaves running on giant tread wheels. Our
Roman emperors like their buildings to be big because they wanted to impress other
Romans and visitors to show that they have wealth and power.
Famous Discus Thrower copied by the Romans
Sources: Larousse encyclopedia of prehistoric and ancient art