Editing Roman art (section)

==Sculpture==
{{main|Roman sculpture|Roman portraiture}}
[[File:Altar Domitius Ahenobarbus Louvre n3.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.8|Detail from the [[Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus|Ahenobarbus relief]] showing two [[Roman military|Roman soldiers]], c. 122 BC]]
[[File:26 colonna traiana da estt 05.jpg|thumb|Section of [[Trajan's Column]], 113 AD, with scenes from the [[Trajan's Dacian Wars|Dacian Wars]]]]
Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece and that of the neighbouring [[Etruscan art|Etruscans]], themselves greatly influenced by their Greek trading partners. An Etruscan speciality was near life size tomb effigies in [[terracotta]], usually lying on top of a [[sarcophagus]] lid propped up on one elbow in the pose of a diner in that period. As the expanding [[Roman Republic]] began to conquer Greek territory, at first in Southern Italy and then the entire Hellenistic world except for the [[Parthian Empire|Parthian]] far east, official and [[Roman patrician|patrician]] sculpture became largely an extension of the Hellenistic style, from which specifically Roman elements are hard to disentangle, especially as so much Greek sculpture survives only in copies of the Roman period.<ref>Strong, 58–63; Henig, 66-69</ref> By the 2nd century BC, "most of the sculptors working in Rome" were Greek,<ref>Henig, 24</ref> often enslaved in conquests such as that of [[Corinth]] (146 BC), and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded. Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works.<ref>Henig, 66–69; Strong, 36–39, 48; At the trial of [[Verres]], former governor of [[Sicily]], [[Cicero]]'s prosecution details his depredations of art collections at great length.</ref>

A native Italian style can be seen in the tomb monuments of prosperous middle-class Romans, which very often featured portrait busts, and [[Roman portraiture|portraiture]] is arguably the main strength of Roman sculpture. There are no survivals from the tradition of masks of ancestors that were worn in processions at the funerals of the great families and otherwise displayed in the home, but many of the busts that survive must represent ancestral figures, perhaps from the large family tombs like the [[Tomb of the Scipios]] or the later mausolea outside the city. The famous bronze head supposedly of [[Lucius Junius Brutus]] is very variously dated, but taken as a very rare survival of [[Italy|Italic]] style under the Republic, in the preferred medium of bronze.<ref>Henig, 23–24</ref> Similarly stern and forceful heads are seen in the coins of the consuls, and in the Imperial period coins as well as busts sent around the Empire to be placed in the [[basilica]]s of provincial cities were the main visual form of imperial propaganda; even [[Londinium]] had a near-colossal statue of [[Nero]], though far smaller than the 30-metre-high [[Colossus of Nero]] in Rome, now lost.<ref>Henig, 66–71</ref>  The [[Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker]], a successful [[freedman]] (c. 50-20 BC) has a [[frieze]] that is an unusually large example of the "plebeian" style.<ref>Henig, 66; Strong, 125</ref> Imperial portraiture was initially Hellenized and highly idealized, as in the [[Blacas Cameo]] and other portraits of [[Augustus]].
[[File:Luk Konstantyna 6DSCF0032.JPG|thumb|[[Arch of Constantine]], 315: [[Hadrian]] lion-hunting (left) and sacrificing (right), above a section of the Constantinian frieze, showing the contrast of styles.]]

The Romans did not generally attempt to compete with free-standing Greek works of heroic exploits from history or mythology, but from early on produced historical works in [[relief]], culminating in the great [[Roman triumphal column]]s with continuous narrative reliefs winding around them, of which those commemorating [[Trajan's Column|Trajan]] (113 AD) and [[Column of Marcus Aurelius|Marcus Aurelius]] (by 193) survive in Rome, where the [[Ara Pacis]] ("Altar of Peace", 13 BC) represents the official Greco-Roman style at its most classical and refined, and the [[Sperlonga sculptures]] it at its most baroque.  Some late Roman public sculptures developed a massive, simplified style that sometimes anticipates Soviet [[socialist realism]].  Among other major examples are the earlier re-used reliefs on the [[Arch of Constantine]] and the base of the [[Column of Antoninus Pius]] (161),<ref>Henig, 73–82;Strong, 48–52, 80–83, 108–117, 128–132, 141–159, 177–182, 197–211</ref> [[Campana relief]]s were cheaper pottery versions of marble reliefs and the taste for relief was from the imperial period expanded to the sarcophagus.

All forms of luxury small sculpture continued to be patronized, and quality could be extremely high, as in the silver [[Warren Cup]], glass [[Lycurgus Cup]], and large cameos like the [[Gemma Augustea]], [[Gonzaga Cameo]] and the "[[Great Cameo of France]]".<ref>Henig, Chapter 6; Strong, 303–315</ref>  For a much wider section of the population, moulded relief decoration of [[Ancient Roman pottery|pottery vessels]] and small figurines were produced in great quantity and often considerable quality.<ref>Henig, Chapter 8</ref>

After moving through a late 2nd century "baroque" phase,<ref>Strong, 171–176, 211–214</ref> in the 3rd century, Roman art largely abandoned, or simply became unable to produce, sculpture in the classical tradition, a change whose causes remain much discussed. Even the most important imperial monuments now showed stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, in simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace.  The contrast is famously illustrated in the [[Arch of Constantine]] of 315 in Rome, which combines sections in the new style with [[roundel]]s in the earlier full Greco-Roman style taken from elsewhere, and the ''[[Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs|Four Tetrarchs]]'' (c. 305) from the new capital of [[Constantinople]], now in [[Venice]]. [[Ernst Kitzinger]] found in both monuments the same "stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling... The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity&nbsp;– in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition".<ref>Kitzinger, 9 (both quotes), more generally his Ch 1; Strong, 250–257, 264–266, 272–280</ref>

This revolution in style shortly preceded the period in which [[Christianity]] was adopted by the Roman state and the great majority of the people, leading to the end of large religious sculpture, with large statues now only used for emperors, as in the famous fragments of a colossal [[acrolithic]] [[Colossus of Constantine|statue of Constantine]], and the 4th or 5th century [[Colossus of Barletta]].  However rich Christians continued to commission reliefs for sarcophagi, as in the [[Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus]], and very small sculpture, especially in ivory, was continued by Christians, building on the style of the [[consular diptych]].<ref>Strong, 287–291, 305–308, 315–318; Henig, 234–240</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" perrow="4">
File:Museo archeologico di Firenze, coperchio di sepolcro muliebre da Tuscania, terracotta con tracce di policromia III sec. d.c.JPG|[[Etruscan art|Etruscan]] [[sarcophagus]], 3rd century BC
File:Capitoline Brutus Musei Capitolini MC1183 02.jpg|The "[[Capitoline Brutus]]", dated to the 4th to 3rd centuries BC
File:D473-birème romaine-Liv2-ch10.png|A [[Roman navy|Roman naval]] [[bireme]] depicted in a [[relief]] from the Temple of [[Fortuna (mythology)|Fortuna Primigenia]] in [[Praeneste]] ([[Palestrina|Palastrina]]),<ref>D.B. Saddington (2011) [2007]. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=1D612o_X2VYC&q=biremeClasses%3A&pg=PR10 the Evolution of the Roman Imperial Fleets]," in Paul Erdkamp (ed), ''A Companion to the Roman Army'', 201-217. Malden, Oxford, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. {{ISBN|978-1-4051-2153-8}}. Plate 12.2 on p. 204.</ref> which was built c. 120 BC;<ref>Coarelli, Filippo (1987), ''I Santuari del Lazio in età repubblicana''. NIS, Rome, pp 35-84.</ref> exhibited in the Pius-Clementine Museum ([[Museo Pio-Clementino]]) in the [[Vatican Museums]].
File:L'Arringatore.jpg|''[[The Orator]]'', c. 100 BC, an Etrusco-Roman bronze statue depicting Aule Metele (Latin: Aulus Metellus), an Etruscan man wearing a Roman [[toga]] while engaged in [[rhetoric]]; the statue features an inscription in the [[Etruscan alphabet]]
File:-0030 Grabrelief Publius Aiedius Amphio und Frau Aiedia Altes Museum anagoria.JPG|The [[Grave relief of Publius Aiedius and Aiedia]], 30 BC, [[Pergamon Museum]] (Berlin)
Image:Augustus of Prima Porta (inv. 2290).jpg|''[[Augustus of Prima Porta]]'', statue of the emperor [[Augustus]], 1st century AD, [[Vatican Museums]]
File:Tomba dei decii, dalla via ostiense, 98-117 dc..JPG|Tomb relief of the Decii, 98–117 AD
File:Claudius Pio-Clementino Inv243.jpg|Bust of [[Emperor Claudius]], c. 50 AD, (reworked from a bust of emperor [[Caligula]]), [[Vatican Museums]]
File:COMMODE HERCULE.jpg|[[Commodus]] dressed as [[Hercules]], c. 191 AD, in the late imperial "baroque" style; [[Capitoline Museum]], Rome.
File:Venice – The Tetrarchs 03.jpg|''[[Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs|The Four Tetrarchs]]'', c. 305, showing the new anti-classical style, in [[Porphyry (geology)|porphyry]], now [[San Marco, Venice]]
File:Great Cameo of France CdM Paris Bab264 white background.jpg|The [[hardstone carving|cameo gem]] known as the "[[Great Cameo of France]]", c. 23 AD, with an [[allegory]] of [[Augustus]] and his family
File:Pediment of the Roman Curia in Philippi statue of goddess Nike cropped.jpg|Statue of the goddess [[Nike (mythology)|Nike]] from [[Philippi]].
File:Head old Roman Glyptothek Munich 320.jpg|Portrait Bust of a Man, Ancient Rome, 60 BC
File:Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, plaster cast of Roman bronze and marble original, House of Caecilius Iucundus (V-i-26), Pompeii, c. 79 AD, National Archaeological Museum, Naples - Spurlock Museum, UIUC - DSC05672 (cropped).jpg|[[Roman portraiture]] is characterized by its "[[wikt:warts and all|warts and all]]" realism.
File:Old man vatican pushkin01.jpg|Veristic portrait bust of an old man, head covered ''([[capite velato]])'', either a priest or ''[[paterfamilias]]'' (marble, mid-1st century BC)
</gallery>

[[File:Antinous Mandragone profil.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of [[Antinous]], c. 130 AD]]

Traditional Roman sculpture is divided into five categories: portraiture, historical relief, funerary reliefs, sarcophagi, and copies of ancient Greek works.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gazda |first=Elaine K. |year=1995 |title=Roman Sculpture and the Ethos of Emulation: Reconsidering Repetition |journal=Harvard Studies in Classical Philology |volume=97 |issue=Greece in Rome: Influence, Integration, Resistance |pages=121–156 |quote=According to traditional art-historical [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomy]], Roman sculpture is divided into a number of distinct categories--portraiture, historical relief, funerary reliefs, sarcophagi, and copies.|doi=10.2307/311303 |publisher=Department of the Classics, Harvard University |jstor=311303}}</ref> Contrary to the belief of early archaeologists, many of these sculptures were large [[polychrome]] [[terra-cotta]] images, such as the Apollo of Veii (Villa Givlia, Rome), but the painted surface of many of them has worn away with time.

===Narrative reliefs===
While Greek sculptors traditionally illustrated military exploits through the use of mythological allegory, the Romans used a more documentary style. Roman reliefs of battle scenes, like those on the [[Column of Trajan]], were created for the glorification of Roman might, but also provide first-hand representation of military costumes and military equipment. Trajan's column records the various [[Trajan's Dacian Wars|Dacian wars]] conducted by [[Trajan]] in what is modern day [[Romania]]. It is the foremost example of Roman historical relief and one of the great artistic treasures of the ancient world. This unprecedented achievement, over {{convert|650|ft|m}} of spiraling length, presents not just realistically rendered individuals (over 2,500 of them), but landscapes, animals, ships, and other elements in a continuous visual history&nbsp;– in effect an ancient precursor of a documentary movie. It survived destruction when it was adapted as a base for Christian sculpture.<ref name="Piper, p. 256">Piper, p. 256</ref> During the Christian era after 300 AD, the decoration of door panels and sarcophagi continued but full-sized sculpture died out and did not appear to be an important element in early churches.<ref name="Piper, p. 261"/>