Download Chapter 12 Artistic Flair

Artistic Flair
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.
Sculpture
Roman sculpture was formed in
marble, bronze and stone.
Generally the subjects were
portrayed in a realistic fashion,
whether it was a
portrait or a
historical event.
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.
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.
Paintings
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
illusions of gardens as seen among 3D columns
or through 3D windows.
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).
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.
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.
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!