THEME 3: ART IN ROME.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE TREATISE ON

VITRUVIUS. MURAL PAINTING, STYLES AND PROCEDURES. THE MOSAIC.

3. INTRODUCTION:

There is no doubt about the Hellenic influence, which is received both from the Etruscans and from the
colonies of Magna Graecia, but Roman art is essentially different from Etruscan or from
Greek, is presided over by the Roman 'practical spirit' which gives it a well-defined appearance.
differentiated, especially in architecture, introducing concrete that will allow them
to make great engineering works.
The fundamental traits that differentiate Roman art from Greek art are: the play of
masses, the systematic use of the arch and the vault, colossal constructions, the portrait and the
historical relief.

[Link].
Roman architecture was characterized by knowing how to bring to its fullness something that was
invented by the Mesopotamians and that they learned about thanks to the Etruscans: the bow and the
vault. They also made abundant use of the dome, and starting from the barrel vault,
they created two other types of vaults: the arched vault and the annular vault.

Roman art was a synthesis between Etruscan and Greek art with incorporations.
own.
From Greece they inherit, in addition to certain typologies such as the temple, the use of
orders (Doronic, Ionic, Corinthian) and incorporate the Tuscan, Roman Ionic, Corinthian
Roman, compound order. The overlapping of orders is characteristic, as in the
Coliseum.
Since the sense of Roman architecture is merely practical, the materials
predominant are well-squared stone blocks, although the most common is the
use of cheap materials, such as brick, masonry, concrete... Many buildings,
depending on their importance, they were covered with marble slabs and decorated in
its interior with mural paintings and mosaics on the floors.
Roman architecture remained more or less stable over time but it
divided into two stages: the republican period between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC and the period
imperial between the 1st century B.C. and the year 476 A.D.

Regarding the type of buildings, they develop a great variety depending on the activity.
that develops in it.
The Roman city: In it there were two main roads: the decumanus road that went from
from east to west and the road of the thistle, from north to south. The crossing of these two great roads was the
city center, called forum which was also the administrative and leisure center.
 The Temple: It is built on a pedestal called podium, it is accessed from the inside by some
stairs to the main facade and, as was the case in the Etruscan temple, it features a pronaos and
a naos. Example Maison Carrée of Nimes.
The circular plan temples are an evolution of the tholoi that originated in Mycenae as the
deVesta in Rome.
The Pantheon of Agrippa in Rome is the culmination of construction, not only of temples,
they are of all the architectural models that Rome produced.

The Basilica: Basilicas are enclosed meeting places, either for business matters or
legal. Rectangular plant divided into three naves supported by columns. The central nave is
finished in an apse covered with a semi-dome.

Buildings for shows:

a) Theaters: Roman theaters take Greek theater as a reference, but establish
differences in relation to him. They were exempt, not attached to any hill as was the case in
Greece had a semicircular seating area that was surrounded on the outside by a wall.
divided into floors where different orders overlapped. E.g. Mérida
b) Amphitheaters: It is a Roman creation. The layout is circular or slightly oval. They were
formed by the cavea and the sand; below this there were passages to store the cages of the
beasts. They were used to attend the fights of gladiators, of beasts, and even naval battles.
the naumachias. They were evacuated through the vomitory system just like in theaters. The
The best known and best preserved amphitheater is the Colosseum of Rome.
c)Circus: The circus was the place where horse races, chariot races, were held,
rice, etc. and derives from the Greek stage. It had an elongated shape and there was a space in the center.
decorated with vegetation, war booties, sculptures, etc., called Spina. For example, Mérida.

Termas: They are public baths, meeting places where it was possible to find the
the following areas: frigidarium, cold water pools, tepidarium with lukewarm water, and caldarium of
hot water. Made of brick and vaulted, they included gyms, libraries, etc.
The Baths of Caracalla stand out.

Commemorative monuments:
Triumphal arches: Their function is to commemorate or honor a character for
some reason of a warlike nature. They are free-standing doors whose door opening is a vault of
cannon, and they are decorated with historical reliefs. There are different types of arches, they could have
one, three or five openings. On these, a beam was placed, on the front part of which it was possible to
to read an inscription related to the character in honor of whom the work was erected. It is possible
that was crowned with a sculpture of the character in question. An example of these is the one of
Tito, of a single opening and that of Constantine of three openings.
b) Commemorative columns: They are enormous in size and are important for the reliefs.
historical figures that decorate them. They serve the same purpose as triumphal arches, glory of the empire.

Engineering works: They carried out public works that demonstrated their sense well.
practical. These types of constructions were made with regular ashlar stones fitted closely together, that is,
without mortar between the pieces.
a) Bridges: The starting construction point is the semicircular arch, which was supported on
thick stone pillars built on robust foundations. E.g. Mérida, Alcantara
b) Aqueducts: They are made up of rows of overlapping arches. The most important ones are the
of Segovia (built in the 2nd century AD), that of Mérida.
c) Highways: The highways allowed connecting very distant points to each other and had structure.
radial. They were built with large stone slabs, slightly curved so that the water
It went to the sides of the road. At certain intervals, the milestones were placed.

The Roman housing:

a) Insulae: They were blocks of residential buildings near the forum inhabited by lower-class people.
used to be for rent.
b) House: They were single-family homes of the affluent social class. On the outside, they were
absolutely closed, which allowed the privacy of private life to be preserved
who lived in them. The atrium was differentiated, with a roof around the compluvium that
He sent the water to the impluvium. Different rooms, one sacred where the representations were.
of the deceased.
c)Villas: Most are richly decorated. They were located in the vicinity of the
city.
d) Tombs: Scarce, as they usually cremated. They are circular in shape with a fortress-like appearance.

3.2. THE SCULPTURE.

The Romans are going to copy many of the Greek sculptures in marble, but they will also
create original sculptures, based on the earlier Etruscan statuary, and
developing the portrait that they will bring to perfection. Their works have a great naturalness,
realism, even highlighting the fashions of the time, the hairstyles. It is exalted to
emperor and highlights the equestrian sculpture, the relief, and the portrait.
The relief reaches great perfection in Rome, both in low and high relief.
The portrait is the most original element of Roman sculpture. It has its origin in the masks.
Etruscan funerary practices and in Greek Hellenism. Reflecting their physical and psychological reality.
The most commonly used materials were bronze and marble, without polychromy, except in the
first moment when the eyes were colored. The first portraits like those of Pompey,
Cicero, Caesar, correspond to the republican period.
In the 2nd century, during the imperial period, portraits tend to idealization above all.
starting with Augustus, who is depicted wearing a toga, as the supreme pontiff, or
represented as consul or soldier, with armor. The arrival of Claudius with the deification of
this emperor is represented in a heroized or divinized way, with the upper part
naked, the laurel crown and some attribute of the gods.
At the end of the empire, portraits tend to become simplified, as shown in the portrait of
Constantine, of great hieraticism, and forebodes the Byzantine portrait.
We will highlight equestrian portraits such as that of Marcus Aurelius, which will be widely imitated during the
Renaissance.

3.3. HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE VITRUVIAN TREATISE.

Talking about the Vitruvian treaty is not an easy task, especially if we accept the thesis that
the enormous difficulties of its translation and interpretation make it a multiple text: it does not
it's about a book, but rather about the many translations that have been made of it. And indeed, although almost with
absolute certainty Vitruvius was not the first to write about architecture, he was the only one
author who did not disappear from medieval libraries where he was immensely copied,
more as an object of philological study than as a theoretical treatise and much less a technical one.
Only by the 15th century did The Ten Books on Architecture start to be a consulted text.
by architects among whom are some of recognized importance such as Brunelleschi,
Sangallo, Peruzzi or Alberti, most of them referring to some manuscript version since the
The first printed edition would not appear until 1486, the work of the philologist Giovanni Sulpicio.

The treatise -dedicated to Emperor Augustus- consists of ten books, each of which is
subdivide into chapters after making an introduction that is dedicated to recreating events
historical events that occurred in Greece and Rome, mixing them with related approaches to
problems of architecture.
The book I deals with the formation of the architect and introduces the reader to some concepts.
fundamentals related to the construction of defensive walls, selection of sites and
distribution of buildings in cities.
In Book II, the topics related to materials are explained.
Books III and IV deal with the construction of temples, and in them, it begins the explanation.
about the theory of orders and proportions; the latter explained based on the
numerical relationships between the parts of the human body.
-Vitruvius goes on to speak about public and private buildings in books V and VI.
-In book VII, there is a sudden change as it deals with plastering, flooring and
paintings.
Book VIII explains the ways to find and conduct water.
-Book IX speaks of the sphere, the planets, and constellations. It dedicates the first chapters
from this book, highlighting the importance of geometry in solving practical problems
related to the construction of stairs and the calculation of areas of flat surfaces.
The tenth and final book explains how to build traction machines (necessary in
the construction of temples and public buildings), devices for extracting water and war artifacts
(catapults and crossbows).
The Ten Books of Architecture bring together in a harmonious and coherent system a series of
laws, references, and principles to which the conscious architect will adapt their own work. A
through his treatise, the Vitruvius we see attempts to reduce the architectural work to a
rational discourse immersed in a complex world of relationships with nature.

The discovery that Vitruvius makes in the Renaissance signified once again the validity of
all of its theoretical postulates. But it also represented the beginning of its distortion: the
orders, so carefully presented in The Ten Books of Architecture related to the body
human and an element or module, quickly became rigid canons capable of
embody all architectural virtues: the orders assumed the value of 'modes' of
conceiving and architectural projecting. durability (firmitas), utility or 'convenience'
(utility), pleasantness (beauty).
This became a model for almost all later research in architecture: the
buildings are mainly investigated as combinations of features, rather than as
holistic entities. These characteristics that make up the architecture have been divided from
of the 20th century in different specialties.
One of Vitruvius' great contributions is the application of proportions to the
architecture, that is to say the relationships of human proportions with architecture. These
proportions are represented by Leonardo Da Vinci in his famous drawing of the Vitruvian man; they
it deals with the study of the proportions of the human body. In these proportions, there is the
golden ratio or divine proportion, for example, the relationship between the height of a human being and the height of
his navel. The relationship between the distance from the shoulder to the fingers and the distance from the elbow to the
fingers.
In art and architecture, the famous ones have also been used with extraordinary results.
harmonious properties of the Golden Ratio. The architect Le Corbusier designed his system
Modulor based on the use of the golden ratio, the painter Mondrian based most of his work on it.
of his works in the Golden Section: Leonardo included it in many of his paintings. The Section
Aurea also appears in some unlikely places: widescreen televisions, the
Postcards, credit cards, and photographs usually fit their proportions.

3.4. THE MURAL PAINTING STYLES AND PROCEDURES. THE MOSAIC.

3.4.1 THE MURAL PAINTING.

The Romans were more likely than the Greeks to decorate their walls with mural paintings, and although
they follow the Greek tradition, showing in their paintings a great color and movement.
The techniques used in this painting must have been encaustic, tempera, and fresco.
Although it is known that the Romans developed panel painting, the pictorial remains
the most important known ones are murals, frescoes protected with a layer of wax that
it brought the colors to life. The landscape, the caricature were cultivated with this decorative mural character,
portrait, the genre paintings, the architectural imitations and the combinations
fantastic natural objects constituting the genre that artists of the
Renaissance called grotesque, found in the ancient Baths of Titus.
In Roman Egypt, an excellent collection of panel portraits was discovered,
to be placed over the mummies. Likewise in Pompeii, and painted in fresco, they
they discovered magnificent portraits like that of the Baker and his wife, or that of a girl,
both in the Naples Museum. in addition to the mosaics discovered in numerous cities
that were Roman. Most of the known wall paintings correspond to houses.
private and public buildings of Pompeii and Herculaneum, two Italian cities that were
fashion and were ravaged by the volcano Vesuvius in the year 79 A.D., although they have also been
found some paintings in Rome and in other places. The Naples Museum, main center
of study for Roman art, it preserves more than a thousand fragments of fresco paintings, ripped off
from the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Among the most famous mural paintings of this art
greco‐ They tell about Romans:
‐ The Wedding of Aldobrandini (Vatican Museum)
‐ The deParis judging the three Goddesses
‐ The deity freedom by Hermes
‐ The deCeres on his throne
 Romanized Greek painting took on a distinctive character as can be seen in the decorations.
murals of Pompeii that constitute the so-called Pompeian style. This is distinguished by the
delicacy, grace and fantasy of the drawing, above all, in stylized vegetables, due to the liveliness of
colorful due to the realism and voluptuousness in the figures and by a certain contrast of colors and
lights such that it brings the style closer to that of the modern impressionist school. All of this, although not
emerges from the decorative genre, reflecting the spirit of a bustling, elegant, frivolous society and
voluptuous.

[Link].Styles.
Several differentiated pictorial styles have been distinguished, and although they follow one another
Chronologically, they can sometimes coexist.

a) First style or inlays: It has a Hellenistic origin and corresponds to the 2nd century BC,
extending until the early 1st century BC. It is notable for its wall decoration.
of marble, where the wall is usually divided into three horizontal bands. The lower one plays
the baseboard paper, the middle zone is further decomposed into various layers of marble, and the
the upper part consists of a continuous frieze, usually white, that completes the representation.
The best examples of this type of painting can be found in the House of the Faun in Pompeii.

b) Second architectural style: It corresponds to the 1st century BC, surviving until the
beginnings of the Empire. It shows a desire to open the walls to a certain idea of the
perspective with the purpose of providing a sense of depth. To achieve this
includes the so-called painted architectures on entablatures, columns, windows
the niches, which lead to an imaginary landscape. The best examples are the house of
Augustus and Livia.

c) Third style or ornamental: It coincides with the first half of the 1st century BC. In this
phase disappears the architectural spatial effects, and the decoration continues to frame
paintings with figures or landscapes, like those of the villa appearing under the Farnesina in Rome.
There is a lesser concern for adding depth to the scenes, increasing by the
on the contrary, decorative elements, as happens for example in the house of
Lucrecia. For not intending to pretend the three-dimensional space, this style has also been
call of the real wall.

d) Fourth style or architectural illusionism: It corresponds to the second half of the century.
In the 1st century B.C., it was a kind of synthesis of previous trends, dominated by a
fantastic scenography where imaginary motifs and perspectives are combined
architectural, within what we could call conceptual baroque, where it is emphasized
the spaces and optical fictions. These paintings are given relief through stucco.
Within this period lies the House of the Vettii, where some features of the world can be appreciated.
Egyptian, in which their paintings stand out for the delicate scenes with figures of cupids.
But without a doubt, the best example can be found in the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries
Pompeii.

e) There are also frescos called by Vitruvius (melographic) I and II representing

life-size characters. We will highlight 'the villa of mysteries'

[Link] Procedures. It is unclear whether Roman wall paintings were entirely

frescos, it seems that they used mixed techniques, such as fresco and encaustic. For painting
They used tempera and encaustic on the table.

-Encaustic painting.
It is a thermofusible pictorial procedure, whose main ingredient is virgin wax.
of beeswax and a variable portion of pure dammar resin, both in a pure state, dissolved with
heat and mixed with pigments and dyes. In addition, they can be melted with others
ingredients using heat during the process and at the end of the work.
The ancient Greeks and Romans heated the surface to be painted and the palette with burners.
charcoal and worked with a two-ended metal spatula or with brushes. Vitruvius
it is written that the work should be covered with a layer of encaustic and polished with linen which gave it shine
and protection.

The fresco.A fresco is a painting made on a surface covered with a thin and
smooth layer of plaster, in which slaked lime is applied and when the last layer is still
wet, it is worked from there its [Link] colors dissolve with pure water. The procedure of
fresco is based on taking advantage of the property that lime has to form, combined with sand and water,
a layer in which colors penetrate the surface, and when dry, they become fixed, turning into
insoluble in water.

The tempera. It is a painting technique that consists of dissolving the pigment in water and tempering it or
thicken it with egg, casein, gum or a glycerin solution.
 The murals of ancient Egypt and Babylon, and those of the Mycenaean period in Greece,
they are probably made with tempera using an egg yolk binder, which in some
in some cases a little vinegar was added.

[Link] Mosaics.
When the Romans were conquering the regions throughout the 2nd century BC.
In Greece and Asia Minor, mosaic work was already common throughout the Greek-speaking world.
The art of mosaic easily passed into the Roman world, thus beginning a genre.
artistic-industrial, of which they made a true specialty. It spread in such a way
It can be said that there was no Roman house or villa that did not have mosaics. The
Roman mosaics are easy for archaeologists to discover and so far their
The number is very high, but they present a great difficulty in preservation. The place
The ideal place seems to be in museums where care, cleanliness, temperature,
humidity, etc., are at your disposal, but the problem lies in the space that
I would need to store them in a worthy manner. The Romans built the
mosaics with small pieces called tesserae, hence they were also referred to as
like opus tessellatum. The tesserae are cubic-shaped pieces made of limestone or
glass or ceramic material, very carefully made and crafted in different sizes. The artist
laid them out on the surface, like a puzzle, distributing color and shape and
aggregating them with a mass of cement. The mosaics were for the Romans a
decorative element for architectural spaces. It became an art so appreciated and
It is spread that in the 3rd century Emperor Diocletian issued a decree in which
It established the price that artists could give to their works, according to the grades of qualification.
previous. When in the year 330 the emperor Constantine relocated the capital of the Empire
Roman from the East to Byzantium, granted many facilities and favored the exodus to the
Greek and Roman masters who made mosaics (called mosaicistsAt the beginning,
when the art of mosaic began to develop in Rome, it was mainly done for
to decorate the ceilings or the walls and rarely the floors because there was a fear that not
provided enough resistance to footsteps. But later, when this art arrived at the
perfection, they discovered that it could be stepped on without risk and the fashion of making began
luxury pavements.

Various techniques: Depending on the size of the tiles, the patterns, and the location of
mosaic destination, the Romans gave a different name to this work: Opus
vermiculatum was of Egyptian origin and was made with very small stones. With them
the artist could draw curves, silhouettes, and all kinds of objects quite easily
that might require more precision. The tiles were placed in a continuous row that
I followed the lines of the contour and the outline (limit of the main internal parts) of
the figures that wanted to be drawn. The name comes from the Latin diminutive vermiculus (of
worm). They called it that because the lines of the drawing resembled the
sinusoidal paths of the worm.

In art and architecture, they have also been used with extraordinary results.
famous harmonious properties of the Golden Ratio. 1 the dimensions of the Royal Chamber
The Great Pyramid is based on the Golden Section; architect Le Corbusier designed his
Modulor system based on the use of the golden ratio, the painter Mondrian
he based most of his works on the Golden Section: Leonardo included it in many of his
paintings and Claude Debussy made use of its properties in music. The Golden Section
it also arises in some unlikely places: widescreen televisions, the
postcards, credit cards, and photographs usually fit their
proportions. And many experiments have been carried out to prove that the
the proportions of the faces of top models are more closely aligned with the Section
Aura that differs from the rest of the population. This supposedly explains why the
we found beautiful.