Roman Art

 

I know what you're thinking, just what was the quality of imperial Roman art, the aesthetic sign of that civilization's soul or ethos. Good question and worth asking, not least because it's interesting in itself, and because history rhymes, we can draw lessons from it. 

That said, we don't have much pictorial art to work with, it's mostly gone because of its perishable medium, wood, parchment/vellum and other materials. Still, we have wall art, mostly from the cities entombed by Vesuvius and a few examples elsewhere, like Nero's Domus Aurea, his Golden House. What do we see?

Several dimensions of artistry, from trompe l'oeil architectural painting, to landscapes, depiction of mythic themes, portraiture, military Triumphs and more. Although Pliny decries the descent of art from realism to a kind of impressionist decadence, we're nonetheless left with the impression that Roman artists were concerned with painting things and people as they were, albeit to effect.

And what an effect it was! Heroic, mythic and classical, yes, but also garish to our eyes. They would think us bleak and starved of visual uplift, a drab, monochrome society. We would think them, I think, in bad taste. Too much bourgeois ebullience?

But here's the rub, the Romans, for all Pliny's criticism, produced art to please the eye and uplift the mind. We don't. Our art destroys the eye and depresses the soul. It's filth. So who's the decadent in this equation?

Your call, but don't say Rome.

SPQR,

LSP