“ This tendency may be seen at work in all branches of sculpture. The sarcophagi of the Antonine and later periods, with their crowded compositions and deep shadows, have the same pictorial effect; and in pure ornament the vivid illusionism of Flavian art disappears, and, though plant-forms are lavishly used—from the time of Trajan onwards we note a growing distaste for pure outlines, which are hidden beneath all-pervading acanthus foliage—the interest of the sculptor comes to lie more and more in intricacy of pattern, produced by the complementary effect of lights and shadows. ”

“ Strzygowski holds that even in the imperial period, Rome was receptive rather than creative; that what is termed “Roman imperial art” is in reality the latest phase of Hellenistic art, whose chief centres are to be sought in Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt; and that this late Hellenistic art was itself gradually transformed by the invading spirit of the East into that Byzantine art which is half Greek and half Oriental, but wholly un-Roman. ”

“ The realism of the Roman is shown in the minute rendering of details, which makes the reliefs a priceless source of information as to military antiquities. Historical art achieved no less a triumph in the great frieze from Trajan’s Forum (Plate II. fig. 16) , and in the panels of the arch at Benevento. Imposing as these works are, they suffer from the defects incidental to an art which endeavours to express too much. Overcharged with detail, and packed with meanings which reveal themselves only to patient study, they lack the spacious and reposeful character of Greek art ”

“ We note a certain interest in the great figures of literature and philosophy. A subject of which two somewhat different versions have been preserved, commonly known as “The Academy of Plato,” shows us a group of Greek philosophers engaged in discussion. In provincial pavements it is not uncommon to find portraits of poets or philosophers used to fill ornamental schemes of decoration, as in the famous mosaic at Trier signed by Monnus. And it is possible to trace the growth of interest in Roman literature at the expense of that of Greece. ”

“ Architecture, regarded as a fine art, had been brought by the Greeks to the highest perfection of which it was capable under the limitations which they imposed upon themselves. The Greek temple appeals to the aesthetic sense by the simplicity and harmony of its proportions as well as by the rational correspondence between function and decoration in its several members. On these lines there was no room for progress. It is true that the Etruscans modified the type of the Greek temple and profoundly influenced Roman construction in this respect. ”

“ We note the endeavour of the Roman sculptor to express more than his medium will allow, and his inadequate grasp of the laws of proportion and perspective. Discarding the classical standard and its conventions, the artist disposes his figures like a child's toys, and, when confronted with the problem of the background, waves it aside and reduces the indication of the place of action to a few projecting ledges on which his puppets are supported. The reliefs of the Column of Marcus Aurelius suffer by comparison with those of Trajan's Column. ”

“ But we are in a difficult position when we try to estimate the artistic value of the masterpieces of ancient painting, since time has destroyed the originals, and it is but rarely that we can even recover the outlines of a famous composition from decorative reproductions. For the history of Greek painting we have in Pliny's Natural History a fairly full literary record; but this fails us when we come to Roman times, nor do original works, worthy to be ranked with the monuments of Roman historical sculpture, supply the want. ”

“ The realism native to Italy remained alive in spite of the conventions imposed upon it; the human interest asserted itself against the decorative. The Christian art of the West, therefore, is the true heir of the Roman, and, through the Roman, of the classical tradition. The mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore, already referred to, show how strongly this tradition was at work in the 1st century of the Christian Empire; and monuments of the 5th century A.D., such as the consular diptychs of ivory and the carved doors of S. Sabina at Rome, tell the same tale. ”

“ To the little we know of purely Roman painting something is added by that which we learn from the remains of the sister art of mosaic, which, being less easily destroyed, have survived in large numbers to the present day. It has been estimated by Gauckler that considerably more than 2000 mosaics with figure-subjects have been discovered; and the number is steadily increasing. For the origin of the art reference may be made to the article Mosaic, where the reader will also find an explanation of the essential differences of principle between the arts of painting and mosaic. ”

“ The germs of artistic endowment which existed in the Roman character were not developed until her political institutions were matured and her supremacy in the Mediterranean established. Up to that time such works of art as were produced in, or imported into, Rome were without exception Greek or Etruscan. Both in Etruria and in Latium Greek artists were commissioned to decorate the temples in which wood and terra-cotta took the place of the marble which Greece alone could afford to use. ”

“ Beginning from 212 B.C., when Marcellus despoiled Syracuse of its principal statues, every victorious general adorned his triumph with masterpieces of Greek art, whether of sculpture or of painting, and, when Philhellenism became the ruling fashion at Rome, wealthy connoisseurs formed private collections drawn from the Greek provinces—Greek craftsmen, moreover, were employed in the decoration of the palaces of the Roman nobles and capitalists, which scarcely differed from those of the great Hellenistic cities. ”

“ Of the purely industrial arts it is unnecessary to speak at length. The finds made in Gaul, Germany and Britain have enabled archaeologists to trace their history—particularly that of pottery—in some detail; but the chief importance of these discoveries lies in the fact that they prove the gradual diffusion of artistic talent throughout the provinces. ”

“ The classical standard set by the Greek genius had ceased to govern art, although the fund of types which Hellenism had created still furnished subjects to the artist, or was made the vehicle by which the new ideas derived from Christianity were expressed. The Roman spirit was still strong enough to maintain that interest in the human form and the representation of dramatic events which was lacking in the Oriental ”

“ In the art, as in the literature of the Augustan age, classicism was the dominant note, and the naturalism so congenial to the Italian temperament was repressed, though never extinguished. The result of this was that under the Julio-Claudian dynasty academic tradition filled the place of inspiration, and Roman art failed to discover its vocation. A change came under the Flavian emperors. ”

“ Painting in Italy was throughout its early history dependent on Greek models, and reflected the phases through which the art passed in Greece. Thus the frescoes which adorn the walls of Etruscan chamber-tombs show an unmistakable analogy with Attic vase-paintings. The neutral background, the use of conventional flesh-tones, and the predominant interest shown by the artists in line as opposed to colour, clearly point to the source of their inspiration ”

“ In architecture, too, Roman builders learnt much from their Etruscan neighbours, from whom they borrowed the characteristic form of their temples, and perhaps also the prominent use of the arch and vault. But the stream of Etruscan influence was met by a counter-current from the south, where the Greek colonies in Campania provided a natural channel by which Hellenic ideas reached the Latin race; and Roman architects soon abandoned the purely Etruscan type of temple for one which closely followed western Greek models. ”

“ The reason is that pure darkness is set off against the high lights, and the whole surface being thus broken up, there remains no impression of depth.
Under Septimius Severus and his successors, Roman, art drifts steadily in its new direction. The reliefs of his arch at the entrance to the Forum represent the emperor's campaigns in the East in a compromise between bird's-eye perspective and the “continuous” style which cannot be called successful ”

“ We pass from this isolated example of early Roman painting to the decorative frescoes of Rome, Herculaneum and Pompeii, which introduce us to the new world conquered by Hellenistic artists. The scheme of colour is no longer conventional, but natural flesh-tints and local colour are employed; the “artist understands,” as Wickhoff puts it, how to “concentrate the picture in space” instead of isolating the figures on a neutral background ”

“ Effective as are the pavements constructed with tesserae of marble or coloured stone, they must have been eclipsed by the brilliant hues of the wall-mosaics. We can form but little idea of these from the decoration of fountains at Pompeii and elsewhere, and must depend chiefly on the compositions which adorn the walls and apses of early Christian basilicas. An attempt has, indeed, been made to prove that one of these—the church of S. Maria Maggiore—is nothing else than a private basilica once belonging to a Roman palace, and that its mosaics date from the period of Septimius Severus ”

“ Even after the middle of the century, when the Empire was for a time dismembered, portrait-sculpture put forth fresh evidences of life and vigour. Gallienus, who was himself a dilettante and doubtless largely endowed with personal vanity, seems to have called into being a naturalistic school of sculptors, who harked back to the models of the later Antonine period, so that it is not always easy to distinguish the busts of his time from those of a much earlier date. The Louvre bust of the emperor (Plate I. fig. 8) will serve as a type of these works. ”

“ In the second quarter of the 3rd century A.D., when the Empire was torn by internal strife, threatened in its very existence by the inroads of barbarism, and hastening towards economic ruin, art could no longer flourish, and monuments of sculpture become scarce, if we except portraits and sarcophagi. ”

“ The mosaic shown in fig. 31 is notable for the simplicity of its composition; and it may be laid down as a general rule that the later workers in this field preferred such subjects, consisting of few figures on a neutral background, which lend themselves to broad treatment, and are best suited to the genius of mosaic. The finer pavements discovered in the villas of the landed proprietors of the African provinces, Gaul, and even Britain, are distinguished by the excellent taste with which ornament and subject are adapted to the space at the disposal of the artist. ”

“ Richter and Taylor's publication of some of the unrestored portions, which unfortunately form but a small fraction of the whole, serve to show that the musivarii had an accurate conception of the true function of mosaic destined to be seen at a distance. Their effects are produced by a bold use of simple means; a few large cubes of irregular shape serve to give just the broad impression of a human face or figure which suits the monumental surroundings and subdued light. Very remarkable is the success with which the atmospheric backgrounds are treated. ”

“ The aim of the sculptor is to obtain an ornamental effect by the violent contrast of light and dark—an adaptation for the purposes of plastic art of the chiaroscuro which more properly belongs to painting. ”

“ Wickhoff claims the “continuous” style in which the artist recounts the Dacian campaigns of Trajan as a creation of the Roman genius. We shall see that the term is not altogether a happy one; but there is good reason (as will be shown below) for the belief that the designer of the column, however profoundly influenced in his selection of motives and in his composition of individual scenes by Greek tradition, nevertheless worked out his main principles for himself. ”

“ We have confined ourselves in the above section to tracing the course of development in what we may call official Roman sculpture, represented in the main, as is natural, by the monuments of the capital. The products of local schools cannot here be treated in detail. The difficult problems which they raise are best illustrated by the case of “Trajan's trophy” at Adam-Klissi in the Dobruja. ”

“ Still the reliefs show that the designers of the time were making vigorous efforts to think for themselves, and for this reason possess a higher value than the more conventional panels now distributed between the attic of the Arch of Constantine and the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which seem to have decorated a triumphal arch set up in or after A.D. 176. [17] The portraiture of the time also shows the invasion of new principles. Even before the reign of Marcus we find a tendency to emphasize the contrast between hair and flesh, the face often showing signs of high polish. ”

“ The conclusion to be drawn is that the Roman mosaic-workers of the early Empire owed much to Alexandrian models. Their finer works, however, were restricted in size, and formed small pictures isolated in geometrical pavements. Such mosaic-pictures were called emblemata, and were often transported from the great centres of production to distant provinces, where pavements were prepared for their reception. ”