GREEK

Christian - rejects natural space to convey the supernatural – glittering gold background
Constantine reappropriates the art of the time – his face replaces the trad face of christ

Mausoleum of Constanza – 4th c. build as a mausoleum for constantines daughter.
Mosaics on the ceiling – Christian iconography.

Greek temples
The most characteristic of Greek buildings was the temple. It was originally used as shelter to protect deities, not as shelter to house a congregation.
- Only the priest(ess) allowed to enter the temple.
- At the beginning temples were very simple in form, consisting of the naos, and the pronaos – porch.
- As the Greeks disliked the asymmetry of the front and back of the temple looking different – they added the Epinaos.
- Early temples were constructed out of wood and mud brick mix on stone foundations. Gradually use of local stones, mostly limestone and marble (plentiful) became the preferred material as it was long lasting.
- The Greeks tried to make all four sides look equally impressive by surrounding the temple with a colonnade or peristyle.
- The Greek temples were always part of a sanctuary. The entrance would usually determine the angle from which the temple would first be seen. This angle was usually at a corner of the temple, so that the viewer would see the 3-d volume of the whole temple, rather than the flat façade.
- Greek temples were constructed on a simple post and lintel system. Vertical posts and columns or walls, supported horizontal lintels or ceilings.
- In later stone temples wall blocks were laid in rows dry without brick or mortar. Sometimes the course limestone was coated with plaster, to give the appearance of a smooth surface.
- Marble blocks were finally smoothed and so carefully finished that the joints between blocks were hardly noticeable.
- Columns were erected with wooden pins used to centre one drum upon another. The shaft of the columns was covered with a layer of plaster.
- In the final stages the columns were fluted, vertical channels were carved into the shaft, supporting a horizontal entablature, composed of three parts: an architrave – a series of rectangular blocks placed above the columns, a frieze, and the top component the cornice. Both columns and entablatures were designed so that they belonged to either the Doric or Ionic order.

Greek Orders – with examples
DORIC order:
- Strong solid and simple.
- Columns were sturdy - height of 4 to 6 times their lower diameters, resting directly in the stylobate.
- Above the shaft is the capitol. Composed of the echinus (cushion like swelling) and the abacus (an undecorated square).
- Above capitols is the architrave. Plain and undivided. Above it the frieze – composed of alternating trygliphs and metopes:
- Trygliphs resemble beam-ends. The metopes were rectangles, which could be plain, painted, or sculpted in relief. One trygliphs above each column and one between each pair. So that the measured rhythm of the columns was exactly doubled that the rhythm of the frieze above.

Parthenon
- Largest Doric temple on the Greek mainland.
- The Parthenon, on the acropolis, in the time of Pericles marks the climax of the Doric style. It was dedicated to Athene Parthenos.
- The temple is made of Pentelic marble, except for the foundation, which is made of local limestone.
- It was built over .an earlier temple and some of the unfinished drums of this earlier building maybe seen built in the fortification wall on the north side of the acropolis.
- According to the building inscription work on the Parthenon was begun in c.446 BC. And finished in 438. Except for the sculpture, which took another six years to complete.
- The temple is peripteral octastyle in plan. The 17 columns on the flans and stands on a crepidoma of three steps. These steps were too steep to ascend with comfort. Therefore intermediate steps were provided at the centre of the east and west ends.
- In addition to the naos and the two porches there was a back chamber, which was entered from the epinaos and was perhaps used as a treasury. The naos had Doric colonnaded on three sides, forming an ambulatory. The columns were in two tiers separated by an architrave and gave support to the roof timbers.
- Near the west end stood the famous statue of Athene Parthenos. One of the most marvelled works of Pheidias, representing Athena fully armed with spear, helmet and shield and supporting a winged victory naos was of her right hand this was a gold and ivory statue about 42’ high incl. the peristyle.
- The gold plates, which for the drapery, armour and accessories over the wizened core were detachable so that they could be removed in case of danger. The face, hands and feet were made of ivory and the eyes of precious stones. The ceiling of the naos was of wood decoratively painted and ornamented with coffers.
- To the west of the naos, was the Parthenon (from which the temple took its name, this was entered from the epinaos from a large door way corresponding to the eastern one. And its roof was supported by four ionic columns.
- As the chamber was shallow and high a double tier of Doric columns would have appeared exceptionally clumsy, while a single range would have encumbered the floor space unduly so ionic columns were used instead and both orders are founding the one building – a practice increasingly prevalent from this time onwards.
- The joints of the marble roof-slabs: above the cornice were masked by carved antefixae, which formed an ornamental cresting along the sides of the building.
- The peristyle ceiling was enriched with coffers and marble beams.
- The eastern pediment represented the birth of Anthena and that of the west, the contest of Athena and Poseidon for the sil of Attica.
- The use of sculptured friezes, both inside and outside the temple, is another evidence of ionic influence.
- The Panathenaic frieze was carved along the top of the naos wall just below the peristyle ceiling and was taken across the east and west ends above the 6 columns of the pronaos and epinaos. It was 1 metre high, in very low relief of about 11/2 ‘’, and the sculpture is treated in such a way as to be seen effectively by the light reflected up from the white marble pavement below, the shadow being thrown upward.
- The frieze represents the Panathenaic procession, which went every fourth year to the Acropolis to present the ‘peplos’ to the goddess Athena, and it portrays the preparation of Athenian knights, and the great procession of cavalry, chariots

IONIC order:
- more delicate and ornate. Column shafts were slender, ranging in height from 8 to 10 times their lower diameters.
- The column shafts rested on elaborate bases consisting of at least 2 convex and one concave parts.
- The ionic capitols are also composed of an abacus and an echinus, this tapers out into 2 volutes.
- It has an ‘egg and dart’ decoration.
- The abacus is dark and slimmer. It is slightly curved and angled. The architrave is divided into 3 horizontal bands, perhaps reflecting the 3 steps in which the columns used to stand – the crepidoma.
- The frieze is left undivided, but could be left plain or decorated with relief carvings. The ionic cornice is richer than the Doric and could carry several bands of pattern., cut and relief. Often the plain frieze was surmounted with a row of dentils.

- The ionic style may have been invented c.550 BC in two, now destroyed, buildings, which were the first Greek temples on large scale, at Samos and Pehsus, in Asia minor, little else is known about the early Greek temples in Ionia.
- The best examples of the use of the ionic order are the Erechtheun and the exquisite little temple of Athena Nike, both on the Acropolis hill.
- The Temple of Athena Nike. This small marble temple was built by Callicrates in c. 427 BC. It measures 18’ by 27’ over the stylobate.
- It has a portico back and front. Is dedicated to wingless victory. Stands picturesquely on the Southwestern spur of the Acropolis.
- The temple was surrounded on three sides by a marble balustrade. Enriched with very fine sculpture. The columns stand on a crepidoma of 3 steps and are unusually short in proportion (less than 8 diameters)
- The architrave has fascia bands and the entablature bore beautiful relief sculpture.

- Each order had its own special character – Doric often considered a masculine order – strong and heavy. And the ionic the feminine as it is more graceful and delicate, Usually one order was used in a temple. It was ionic or Doric. AT the end of the fifth c. BC the Corinthian capitol was invented, introducing a third order the Corinthian order and decoration.

CORINTHIAN order
- Quite similar to the Ionic order. The main difference being in the columns. The capitol consists of a double row of Acanthus leaves. Which create a bell shape form – upturned and at the top corners they have a volute, which appear to support the carved abacus.
- The shaft of the column is at least 10 times its lower diameter in height. The base is very similar to the ionic base the entablature is similar to the ionic one. The Corinthian column because very popular in the late Hellenistic period – and especially in the Roman period.

- The Corinthian order made its first appearance in Greek architecture in 5BC, as a decorative variant of the ionic.
- The difference being almost completely in the column capital. Its popularity increased greatly in the Hellenistic period, though it was the Romans who brought it to full maturity in the last 1BC.
- The temple of Zeus Olympius, Athens, 174BC – 132AD. This temple stands on the site of an earlier Doric temple.
- It demonstrates the growing fondness for the Corinthian order in the Hellenistic period.
- It may be the earliest Corinthian temple on a grand scale.
- However, it was only finally completed in 132AD. It was dipteral octastyle, measured 145’ by 326’. The 15 columns remaining of the 104 columns bare witness to its pristine grandeur. The columns have a proportion of 1 to 9. There were originally 2 rows of 20 columns along the sides of the temple. A triple row along the front and rear.
- Orthodox in arrangement (naos, epinaos, pronaos, peristyle).
- Grand in dimensions (c.90’ by 204’ over the stylobate)
- Mad of coarse limestone, faced with marble stucco.
- Sculpture and pediments, metopes and roof tiles are all made from Parian marble.
- This temple, dedicate to the father of Gods, Zeus, at the sacred Pan-Hellenic centre of Olympia was embellished to the point of completeness with the cannon of the Doric style. By sculpture which achieved a serenity and composure of supreme monumental quality.
- The splendid architectural effect was heightened by picking out the mouldings a ornaments in blue, red and gold. While the nmaasin surfaces were left white. The acroteria was made of bronze.
- At around 448bc the temple received the colossal gold and ivory statue, 40’ high above its base, made by Pheidias, the famous sculptor who at that time was also working on the colossal statue of Athena fir the Parthenon in Athens.
- Inside the naos were superimposed colonnades.
- Fragments of marble tiles, with holes cut into them, through which light was admitted to the roof space, were found on the sight.
- During the 5th c. ad, building was wrecked by an earthquake but the vast platform surrounded by overturned columns and pieces of entablature demonstrates even in total ruin the essential monumentality of the achievement.

Pediments:

- The temples were usually dedicated to one god or goddess. All temples were usually covered by a pitched roof.
- THE triangle of the roof was called a pediment. You wouldonly fiun decoration of the pediment on the metopes of the Doric and the frienze of the ionic. The angles of the pediment were decorated with acroteria to soften the line.
Temple of Artemis:
- An early pediment would be the west pediment of the temple of Artemis on the island of Corfu, c.500BC (beginning of the archaic period) at the highest centre of the triangle, there is a huge gorgon in this case, Medusa. Her purpose is to ward of evil spirits from the temple. She was decapitated by Perseus and at the moment of her death she gave birth to two children from her neck.
- One is called Pegasus the . In winged horse, and the other is the man Chryseor, she is in an active pose, she appears to be running away from Perseus.
- Her two children are standing either side of her. She is flagged on either side by crouching panthers. The protect the temple and are also there to create symmetry
- In the corners are tiny pictures re-enacting the fall of Troy Pryam is seated on the left, about to be killed by a Greek who is attacking him.
- Behind him is a dead Troy. Behind them is the story of the battle between the Gods and the giants.
- Zeus wielding a thunderbolt. The giant kneeling. The other giant is lying dead in the corner mirroring the other side of the pediment.
- Excellent composition, from the point of the narrative, 3 stories are being told.
- However, it is also quite confusing, as it is difficult to focus on one story.

3 statues of the archaic period:

During the Archaic period, 600 – 480 BC the Greeks were developing techniques and ideas, inspired by their contacts with Egypt and the near East.
The kouros from Sunium (600BC) is an early example of Archaic Greek sculpture. Unlike later examples the figure is not fluid it is static and does not express movement. This is seen in the sturdy ankles and the arms – where the hands are attached to the sides. This was also due to the fact that sculpting techniques were not advanced and the sculptor would have been concerned that parts of the statue might break off. The use of marble does, however, have advantages over bronze, in that it creates a tangible effect of skin. The sculptor appears to rely on the stone also to give a sense of stability – the figure maintains the heaviness and weightiness of the stone.
Stylization was very important in this period, this kouros is more geometrical than a human being – symmetry can be seen very clearly through the ribs and the pelvis and the emphasized knee-caps, and the eyes and eyebrows. Stylization is visible in the ears which are represented through volutes similar to those used in architecture – architecture and sculpture were very close in their aims and ideals. Both sought symmetry and geometric perfection – construction feature out of geometric forms such as triangles and cylinders.
A slightly later example is the Kouros of Anavysos which has a much more human figure: it is 6ft 4.5 inches (almost human size) in comparison to the Kouros From Sunium, which is 10ft – more God like proportions. Naturalism is also achieved by modifying the proportions of the figure and giving a more rounded treatment to lines that had simply scratched onto the surface before. The hair looks stiff and helmet like – it clashes with the natural swelling forms of the body. The body has a tactile quality, it is virile, athletic and youthful. The figure seems to have progressed from earlier work in that it has been freed from the stone – the arms are not clamped to its sides. There is greater definition in its ankles. A slight ‘archaic smile’ bring the face to life although it is rigid and not very realistic. NB// THE GAZE, POSITION OF HEAD, WAIST NARROW, SHOULDERS BROADER (GEOMETRIC) COMPARED WITH KRITIOS.
The Kritios Boy was made in 480BC at the end of the Archaic and the beginning of the Classical Period. The Kritios Boy shows very clear progression towards Naturism. Where as the earlier Kouroi had a problem with stiff and unnatural poses with weight placed equally on both feet, the Kritios Boy seems almost to come to life. This is because of the new contraposto pose the sculptor has achieved. ‘Contraposto’ stands for counter-poise and suggests asymmetry. This asymmetry carries on into the position of the head which is tilted naturalistically to the left side. The expression is also much more natural than the earlier ‘archaic smile’. The Kritios Boy gazes casually into the middle-distance. It is likely that the Kritios boy was originally made in bronze as an asymmetrical pose would have been very different in marble, as one would have needed different drawings on all four sides of the original marble block to work from. Bronze casting is an additive process and allows for more complicated poses where the limbs were extended slightly.
FLESH – MORE LIFELIKE
- TORSO & MUSCLES…
+ eg. of female.

Archaic women
- typically wear loose garments with lots of folds.
Berlin Kore with pomegranate (570BC):
- Stood over a tomb.
- Was originally painted.
- Wears a long garment with vertical groves, like a column, and a shawl over it.
- Left hand placed in chest – traditional gesture.
- Large, bulging eyes, archaic smile.
- Elaborate hair style.
- Wears two bracelets and platform sandals – adds weight to the bottom.
- Weight is distributed onto two legs – cylindrical, rectangular lump.
Peplos Kore, 580 BC
- She wears a peplos (simple woollen garments made from a single piece of cloth – girdled at the waist and folded over on the chest).
- The statue looks quite stony.
- Breasts stand out roundly.
- Slender and graceful.
- Left arm would have been extended, holding out some fruit.
- Archaic smile and animated eyes.
La Delicata, 520 BC, 1m, marble
- Climax of Archaic style
- Much of original colour is preserved.
- Would have held an offering in her outstretched arm – now missing. Left arm would have held a gathering of garment – this show off the different handling of the weights/ textures/ patterns of materials.
- Three ringlets on each side of her face. Smaller eyes, softer archaic smile.
- Curve of form visible under material.

Hellenistic sculpture

More intimate, atmospheric and expressive than classical. Baroque – complicated and dramatic.
No longer a distinction between ordinary people and idealized deities. ‘No longer a single ideal of god-like perfection.
Realism emerges – figures more human.
HERMES WITH YOUNG DIONISUS 330BC
- By Praxiteles, carved from Parian marble, 7’ 11’’ tall
- Hermes relaxes against a tree trunk (used to support the heavy figure).
- Would probably have held a bunch of grapes out to tease the child Dionysus wine god).
- The anatomy is more detailed and elaborate here than in earlier Greek sculpture.
- The planes of flesh are slightly joined so that the transitions are difficult to perceive. This gives the flesh a sensuous quality; we can almost sense the skin breathing.
- The curls of the hair are suggested rather than given a hard outline and look more humanly.
- Praxiteles was the first artist to fully exploit the crystalline quality of marble, which gives the appearance of translucence.
- TO achieve to full effect he softened all the edges, the eyelids and edges of the lips are slightly blurred and soft shadows are cast over the body as light is reflected from within the crystalline structure of the marble.
- Hermes body is also elongated – there is rhythm in the curve and counter curve of his stance and outstretched arm. The contraposto stance is exaggerated.
- He wears a dreamy smile.

NIKE OF SAMOTHRACE 200BC
- Example of Hellenistic Baroque style.
- Goddess is in the act of alighting on the prow if a ship, her drapery streaming in the wind as the ship rushes through the waves, great wings beating to steady herself.
- Equal tension in both legs, the feet are planted firmly on the ground. The figure is standing on a tall pedestal, which represents (in marble) the prow of a ship.
- The right arm was raised, waving a victory’s triumphal sash, and the head was turned to the left. The sea winds whip the drapery into masses producing a rich variation of light and shade.
- There is a coplex relationship between the mass and weight of the body and the space around it. This is exaggerated by the figures stance. Although her feet have touched the ground her body seems to be still moving, almost quivering. The forms of the body are emphasized through the material

LAOKOON AND HIS SONS
- Most famous work of the Hellenistic tradition.
- Laokoon was a Trojan piest, who tried to warn the Trojans not to bring the fateful Trojan horse into their city. However, before he could convince them, ttwo large serpents sent by the Gods who were hostile towards the Trojans rose from the sea and strangled Laokoon and his sons. While they were sacrificing at the alter.
- The moment of maximal violence has been bhosen to sum up the story. As Laokoon falls back in the alter one of the snakes curls around his elder sono to bite him on the hip.
- The other serpant enmeshes the legs of all three figures and seems to have squeezed the life out of the younger son (to the left).
- As laokoon struggles to get free, he lets out a cry of pain. His contorted face and massive wreath of hair expresses a mixture of conflitvting emotions – fear, courage, agony and desperation.

THE SEATED BOXER

- social realism.
- Old man who has survived a competitive and brutal sport.
- it is a frank picture, unidealized: nose is broken cheeks and forehead scarred, teeth are broken and he has swollen cauliflower ears, which seem to be bleeding.
- Elicits sympathy.

Roman architecture

Discuss Roman structures and innovations:

Vaults
- The Romans had a taste for the massive and the durable. The materials in which they built were stone, coloured marbles, bricks (baked and unbaked) – the baked bricks were cut into triangles, for wall facings and rectangles for arches and mass concrete with the added advantage of pozzolana cement. One of the best and strongest cements in the world.
- The basis of Roman architecture was the arch, they built arches of stone, brick and concrete – in the case of concrete in addition to the temporary timber centring, the reverse mould of the arch itself, had to be made also in timber called shuttering. Into this shuttering the concrete could be poured, and the shuttering and centring was removed once the concrete had set. The first and greatest advantage of an atuated over a trabeated style is much greater floor areas can be left free from supporting columns and walls.
- A series of arches built side be side over the space below will form a roof, and this roof will be a tunnel form or a vault, then if one builds a circular space and then a number of arches over it, going in all directions and al meeting in the centre, one has built a dome. The only draw back is that an arch or vault or dome must have it soutwards thrust composed by some counter force such as another arch where there is a series of arches as in an arcade, or my some solid mass such as a very think wall or buttress.
- The CROSS VAULT concentrated all the weight and thrust of the vault at the four points where the lines of intersection reach the top of the walls or columns. The cross vault made it possible in theory to abolish the wall altogether, except for large masses of masonry or buttresses at the four corners of the vault.
- The cross vault enabled clerestory windows to be inserted high up beneath the arches of the vaults.
- Several bays, each vaulted and each opening out into the next bay can be placed by side to form a vaulted hall.
- It is this system that was the basis of both planning and construction in the great halls of the thermae and in the basilicas.
- The one limitation which Roman architects imposed was the shape or form of the arch – only semi circular arches were used and the bays were therefore square.

The introduction of CONCRETE along with the use of the ARCH allowed the Romans to build vaults of a magnitude never equalled until the introduction of steel for buildings in the 19c. It was this capacity to span over enormous spaces that the character of Roman architecture largely depended. Concrete vaults had an advantage over stone, in that they could be accommodated to complicated plan forms without involving difficult and laborious stone cutting. The vaults were supported in a temporary wooden framework until the concrete had set.

The three types of vault used in Roman buildings were
1) the semi-circular barrel or tunnel vault
2) the cross vault formed by an intersection of two barrel vaults of equal span.
3) Hemispherical domes or cupolas used over circular structures.

Bridges

Aquaducts

Triumphal arches

Relief sculpture

3 Roman Civic buildings:

The thermae of Caracalla
- Accommodation for 1,600 bathers
- Thermae stood on a platform 20’ high, measuring over 1/5 of a mile each way; underneath were the vaulted store chambers, corridors, furnaces and hot air ducts for heating the buildings.
- A colonnade on the entrance side screened two stories, forming shops on the ground level and baths in the platform level. The main entrance is led to a park like enclosure laid out for wrestling and games around, which were grouped halls for dramatic presentations and lectures.
- There were only four doorways on the NE side as it was exposed to cold winds, the large columned openings were a feature to the SW side.
- The great central hall around which the subsidiary halls were grouped was roofed with an immense semicircular intersecting vault of concrete, divided into three compartments.
- The vault was held up by 8 massive piers of masonry, fronted with granite columns. This great hall was lighted by clear-story windows.
- The caldarium had a dome, similar to that of the pantheon. The frigidarium was probably open to the sky.
- In the interior pavements were formed of bright-coloured mosaics in geometrical patterns or with figure of athletes. The lower part of the concrete walls was sheathed with many coloured marbles and the upper parts were painted and modelled stucco.
- The great vaults were also richly decorated with coffering, modelled or painted stucco, or coloured glass mosaic.
- The exterior of these great thermae appear to have been treated very plainly in stucco.

The coliseum
- 80 external arcaded openings on each storey.
- Floor of the arena is an oval, surouded by a wall 15’ high. Behind the wasll was the podium, with the Imperial throne and seats for special guests. Behind the podium rose the auditorium seats for some 50,000 spectators.
- The auditorium was divided into 4 main divisions: the two lower tiers seated those of equestrian rank and Roman citizens, above which was the third teir intended for lower classes and women.
- Around the edge of the arena are 32 cells where the animals were kept. By a complex system of ropes and cages, the animals could be released almost simultaneously into the arena. A huge canvas awning protected the spectators from the sun.
- In the construction of the Coliseum: LAVA was used for solid foundations, TUFA – a soft volcanic rock which hardens with exporure to air and BRICK for the surrounding walls and PUMICE STONE used for the vaults, to reduce their weight. TRAVERTINE blocks (light coloured local limestone), set without mortar and held together by metal clamps were used for the façade, while marble was employed for the columns seats and ornaments.
- Special architectural features:
1) PIERS (a mass of masonry) – from which an arch springs in an arcade of bridge, which support the three tiers or arcades.
2) Decorative use of the CLASSICAL ORDERS of architecture, superimposed onto the façade. The Doric order is on the ground level, the ionic on the next level and the Corinthian on top.
3) CONCRETE – employed not only in the corridors of cells of the chamber, but also in the many vaults which formed the foundations of each of the four tiers of seats, rowed on above an other in a great eclipse, to the crowning colonnade.

Greek architecture had been simple in appearance and self-evident in design, Roman architecture on the other hand became complex in appearance and hidden in design, for not only were columns placed in front of piers, but there were columns placed above columns, entablatures above entablatures and arches above arches.

The basilica of Constantine
- Begun by Maxentius and completed by Constantine, was one of the finest of Roman Basilicas.
- Rectangular building ending in two apses on its long sides.
- It did not have the usual flat roof – but a vaulted roof, the weight of which was carried by huge concrete piers, besides which the columns were little more than decorative attachment.
- The vaulting of the three surrounding arches bear witness to the immensity of the Roman innovations based on concrete.
- The divisions between the nave and two aisles consisted of only four huge piers. Immediately in front of the piers, stood Corinthian columns of 47’ high, made of creamy red-veined marble.
- A semicircular apse at one side contained an enormous stature of the Emperor Constantine.
- Outside the vaults were covered in tiles of gilded bronze. Inside the brick walls and massive concrete vaults were once elaborately decorated with coloured marbles, painted plaster and mosaics.

Religious – pantheon, maison carre

Roman sculpture

Imperial – Augustus of Prima Porta…
Ordinary men and women
Verism
Format of portrait

Roman wall painting
Style 1, 2, 3, 4…

- A painted room in a large country house know as the Villa of the Mysteries, just outside Pompeii, is altogether exceptional.
- There has been much discussion about its authorship, and also whether it was copied from an earlier prototype.
- Although the composition is so carefully adapted to the size and shape of the room that it might seen to have been determined by it., individual figures are in poses that occur in Hellenistic sculpture.
- One wall of the room is given up to immortals with Ariadne reclining in the lap of Dionysus, symbol of the eternal bliss of the initiate who espoused the God.
- There is nothing orgiastic about this painting, none of the delirious intoxicated frenzy of the devotees of Dionysus as depicted on Greek vases. Both mortals and immortals look distinctly cool and collected – apart from one apparently terrorized figure, though even she maintains her statuesque deportment.
- They are represented a little less than life-size; standing on a simulated stage or platform which runs round the room so that they seem to move in a shallow extension of the real space, giving the impression almost of a tableau vivant.
- The figures look across the real space of the room, with some rather complicated and sophisticated results, as when the flagellator raises her whip to strike the woman kneeling on the adjoining wall.
- If the ritual scene in the Villa of the Mysteries is a unique survivor, the illusionism of the architectural framework in which it is set is characteristic of painting in Italy of this period. Ambitious – spatial and not flat – decorative schemes appeared early in the first century BC, visually enlarging the space of rooms with columns, entablatures and other architectural elements.
- Later a further step was taken by visually opening the wall, sometimes completely, sometimes with make-believe windows, to disclose vistas of colonnades stretching into the far distance.
- In the first century AD recession was indicated by a perspective system apparently devised for theatrical scenery, probably in the Hellenistic East, though it may have had Italian origins as well, with orthogonal or lines of perspective projection slanting towards a central axis.
- One room in the house of evidently prosperous merchants combines all four illusionistic systems or styles – a dado of simulated panels of rare marbles; pictures hung on or set in the wall and surrounded by frames which seem to project forwards; windows opening on to views of airy structures; and, above, statues placed on top of the wall, beyond which fanciful buildings may be glimpsed in space.
- Sometimes the “pictures” were of fruit, dead fish and game and glass vessels half full of water (the earliest know still lifes), themselves exercises in eye-deceiving illusionism or trompe l’oeil, creating a complex and sophisticated play with levels of reality – illusionistic paintings of trompe l’oil pictures set in walls which were given the appearance of having relief decorations and also openings on to the world beyond.
- Mythological scenes such as those in the House of the Vettii may however had for those who commissioned them greater significance than meets the eye.
- The Roman house was a shrine and place of sacrifice as well as a human habitation.
- Its’ main living rooms were under the protection of different deities, who might be represented on the walls: Bacchus in the Triclinium, Venus in the cubiculum. Paintings might also indicate cultural and social status: Greek subject-matter for educated upper-class taste, decorative profusion and opulence for the newly rich – an appearance of wealth, sometimes a doubly deceptive one.
- The eight scenes from the odyssey – their artist created evocative atmospheric effects of cool Mediterranean water and warm still air with the headlands of a bay shimmering in a slight haze.
- Distance is suggested and the forms of boats and rocks only vaguely defined, but the painting opens the wall surface on to the crystalline dream-world of poetry.