ROME 



Augustus was not slow to turn this 

 to account. It is, of course, difficult 

 to say how far the works which may 

 be assigned to his reign were the 

 product of Roman craftsmen ; but 

 at least we may see a truly Roman 

 spirit in the close association of 

 art with history. The statue of 

 Augustus himself from Prima Porta, 

 with its allegorical decoration and 

 accessories, is the first, but also the 

 finest, o/ the series of imperial 

 statues. 



In addition to sculpture, other 

 arts, such as those of the gem- 

 engraver and the silver chaser, were 

 made to serve the ends of the 

 dynasty. The Grand Camee of 

 the Bibliotheque Nationale repre- 

 sents Tiberius and Livia, above 

 whom the deified Augustus hovers ; 

 the silver cups from the villa 

 of Bosco Reale, near Pompeii, 

 now in the Rothschild collection, 

 bear reliefs which celebrate the 

 triumphs of Augustus and his suc- 

 cessor. But the most perfect ex- 

 pression of Roman-Imperial art 

 is found in the historical monu- 

 ments decorated with reliefs, which 

 begin with the Ara Pacis Au- 

 gustae, executed between 13 and 

 9 B.C., to celebrate Augustus's 

 pacification of the West, several 

 slabs of which have been pre- 

 served. 



Pompeian Art 



The triumphal arch and the 

 trophy, especially the former, gave 

 free scope to this form of national 

 art. At the same time, we can form 

 some conception of the art which 

 ministered to private luxury from 

 the series of decorative wall-paint- 

 ings from Rome and Pompeii, in 

 which two parallel tendencies, one 

 towards the creation of an illusory 

 outlook on to an external land- 

 scape, and the other towards the 

 representation of the masterpieces 

 of easel-painting, exert a mutual 

 influence. A good example is the 

 wall of the dining-room in the 

 house of Livia on the Palatine. 

 Impressionist landscape is a com- 

 mon form of decoration, and 

 stucco is used with remarkable 

 skill for like purposes. The combi- 

 nation of both as the scanty sur- 

 viving fragments, compared with 

 certain tomb-decorations, prove 

 achieved its culminating triumph 

 in the decorations of the Golden 

 House of Nero. 



The comparative lack of public 

 monuments belonging to the Julio- 

 Claudian period is compensated for 

 by their abundance in that which 

 follows. Under the Flavian em- 

 perors Roman sculpture reached 

 its zenith ; the reliefs of the arch 

 of Titus solve the problem of 

 giving the atmosphere, which 

 painting supplies by more direct 



6687 



means, to compositions which re- 

 tain full plastic effect. The best 

 portraits of this period are master- 

 pieces of art, giving the essential 

 and significant traits of the subject 

 without meticulous detail. 



In the reign of Trajan the tech- 

 nical perfection of execution rapidly 

 declined, but historical art entered 

 on a new phase with the spiral 

 reliefs of the column set up in 

 the Basilica Ulpia, which tell 

 the story of the emperor's Dacian 

 wars, in what has been termed the 

 " continuous style," usually un- 

 folding its successive scenes as on 

 a scroll, but sometimes summing up 

 the narrative in a broad panorama. 

 We begin in this period to see the 

 tendency to overcrowding, and the 

 objection to vacant intervals which 

 leaves no space unadorned. The 

 triumphal arch of Trajan, at Ben- 

 eventum, the reliefs of which 

 are full of historical significance, 

 and almost fulfil the function of an 

 Imperial programme, is thus over- 

 charged with ornament. Roman 

 sculptors, again, excelled in the 

 execution of barbarian types, 

 statues of captives playing a large 

 part in the decoration of triumph- 

 al monuments ; and in the reign of 

 Hadrian, whose Greek tastes led 

 to a revival of classicism, person- 

 ified provinces were added. The 

 portraits of the Emperor's deified 

 favourite Antinous furnish the best 

 illustration of the tendencies of 

 the time. 



Declension of Standards 



Throughout the succeeding 

 period we can trace a gradual de- 

 clension from the classical Hellenic 

 standard, and the invasion of new 

 artistic principles, which arethought 

 by many critics to be derived from 

 the East. Sculpture endeavours by 

 an increased use of chiaroscuro to 

 obtain some of the effects of paint- 

 ing, but fails to convey the impres- 

 sion of movement in a free atmo- 

 sphere, and has to be content with 

 that of an intricate pattern of 

 lights and shadows. Various ex- 

 periments are made, such as the 

 detachment of puppet-like figures 

 from the background in a relief 

 from the base of the Antonine 

 column ; and the sense of propor- 

 tion and perspective is lost in the 

 bird's-eye reliefs from the Arch 

 of Septimius Severus. The sarco- 

 phagi of the wealthy, which repre- 

 sent to us the private art of this 

 time, show the same tendencies in 

 their crowded compositions. Por- 

 trait sculpture, however, remains at 

 a high level, especially in the amaz- 

 ingly frank characterisation of the 

 busts of Caracalla. In the decora- 

 tion 'of private houses mosaic 

 Slaved an important part, and 

 ere, too, artistic tradition was 



ROME 



well maintained, and taste in decor- 

 ation declined but slowly. 



The 3rd century A.D. was a time 

 of strife and decay, and art is 

 mainly represented by a series of 

 imperial portraits, many of which 

 are still of remarkable excellence. 

 That of Philip the Arabian, rough 

 as the artistic methods are, is a 

 marvellous character study, and 

 there was even a revival of art 

 in the troubled times of Gallienus, 

 as that emperor's busts prove. 



Economic exhaustion hastened 

 the decay of art, and when order 

 was re-established by Diocletian 

 and Constantine, the impulse given 

 by Hellenism was practically ex- 

 hausted, and, with the triumph of 

 Orientalism, sculpture virtually 

 ceases to be the embodiment of 

 life, and becomes purely monu- 

 mental, though in its best ex- 

 amples such as the colossal por- 

 trait of Constantine undeniably 

 grandiose. Symmetry and fron- 

 tality, the marks of primitive art, 

 characterise the reliefs of this time, 

 e.g. on the arch of Constantine, 

 and in fact we are in the presence 

 of the death of an old and the 

 birth of a new i.e. Christian 

 art, which works up what remains 

 of the historical and monumental 

 genius, informing Roman imperial 

 art in the service of the conquering 

 religion. 



Besides the art whose story we 

 read in the imperial monuments, 

 the handicrafts flourished under the 

 early empire. Gem-cutters and die- 

 sinkers excelled in their several 

 spheres, and the imperial com 

 portraits and medallions embody 

 much first-class workmanship. The 

 provinces, too, had their schools, 

 in which pottery, brasswork, and 

 sculpture, often valuable for its 

 realism, set up centres of artistic 

 tradition. The tombstones and 

 other monuments of Roman officers 

 or rich provincials furnish the best 

 examples of this. Even in Britain, 

 sculpture was a living art, as is 

 witnessed by the Gorgon, which 

 decorated the pediment of a 

 temple at Bath. 



Bibliography. Roman Art, F. 

 Wickhoff, trans. E. Strong, 1900; 

 Roman Sculpture, E. Strong, 1907; 

 The Art of the Romans, H. B. 

 Walters, 1911. 



Rome. City of Georgia, U.S.A., 

 the co. seat of Floyd co. It is situ- 

 ated at the confluence of the Oos- 

 tanaula and Etowah rivers, 71 m. 

 N.W. of Atalanta, and is served by 

 the Southern and other rlys. 

 The buildings include the city hall. 

 Peaches and other fruit, grain, and 

 cotton are important products of 

 the locality. Tanning, iron-found- 

 ing, and the manufacture of ma- 

 chinery, cotton, hosiery, furniture, 



