Roman Art of the Julio-Claudian Period

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Roman art of the Julio-Claudian period and assess its purposes and diversity. For paintings, much reliance will be placed on those preserved in Pompeii and Herculaneum, since few others have survived. A few works that fall slightly before or after A.D. 14-68, the period of interest, will also be mentioned when they shed significant light on the Julio-Claudian period.

For convenience, discussion of Julio-Claudian art will be divided into three sections, covering sculpture, paintings, and other artforms. The sculpture of this period presents very little that is new or startling, but study of the paintings preserved so completely beneath the ashes of Vesuvius continues to reveal more and more sophistication, more and more parallels with how art has evolved in more recent times.

In dealing with sculpture, it is logical to begin with the obvious: the official imperial statue of Claudius (Figure 1; Plate 276 in de Campos; it is in the Vatican). Whereas the familiar official statue of Augustus (Plate 275 in de Campos) is completely idealized, that of Claudius is not. Augustus had disliked the Greek style of emperor worship--it would have been difficult to reconcile with his stance of being merely the "First Citizen" of the Restored Republic--but as soon as he died, he was posthumously declared to have been a god all along. The cult of the Divine Emperor then became the new official religion, especially under Tiberius. Although

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scene that seems strangely like modern impressionism. A light breeze is playing on the water, making it glitter in the sun; the darker masses of jetties, wharves, buildings, are highlighted with golden glints that gradually fade as aerial perspective increases. Maiuri (123) comments that the handling of light and color is not unlike that of such painters as Giacinto Gigante. Another spectacular example of what would now be called landscape painting appears here as Figure 8 (Plate 297 in Kraus). This is Third-Style decoration in the Cubiculum of the House of the Fruit Orchard in Pompeii. Around an ornamental garden with trellises, vases, and fountains appear the upper branches of the surrounding trees. Another major example of Third-style painting is of the wall shown here in Figure 9 (Kraus Plate 298); it is the north wall of the Tablinum of the house of Marcus Lucretius Fronto. Whereas the Second Style had used perspective to create three-dimensional architectural vistas, the Third Style abandoned spatial illusion until very late in its development. Kraus (209) comments that this wall in Fronto's house typifies the late phase of the Third Style, in which what had been merely miniature-like ornamental motifs began to almost

Category: Arts - R