How Did Art and Arcutecture Impact the Success of the Roman Empire

Roman Art
Compages, Sculpture, Painting of Ancient Rome.
Primary A-Z Index

Alcantara Bridge, Kingdom of spain (104-6 CE)
Roman stone curvation bridge over the
Tagus River.

Trajan'due south Cavalcade (106-113)
Showing pedestal, shaft, capital
and statue of St Peter on top.

Roman Art (c.500 BCE - 500 CE)
Origins, History, Types, Characteristics

Contents

• Introduction
• History of Roman Art
• Origins
• Cultural Inferiority Complex
• Realist Propaganda
• Types of Roman Art
• Architecture
• Famous Roman Buildings
- Circus Maximus - Colosseum - Curvation of Titus - Baths of Trajan - Pantheon
- Baths of Caracalla - Baths of Diocletian - Basilica of Maxentius
• Sculpture: Types and Characteristics
• Historical Reliefs
• Trajan'southward Cavalcade
• Marcus Aurelius' Cavalcade
• Portrait Busts and Statues
• Famous Portraits of Roman Emperors
• Religious and Funerary Sculpture
• Copies of Ancient Greek Sculpture
• Painting
• Panel Paintings
• Triumphal Paintings
• Murals
• Art Styles From the Roman Empire
• Late Roman Art (c.350-500)
• Farther Resources

Note: For later artists and styles inspired past the arts of ancient Rome, see: Classicism in Fine art (800 onwards).

The Severan Tondo: panel painting
of the Imperial Family (c.200 CE)

Marcus Aurelius' Column (193 CE)
Erected in the Piazza Colonna, Rome.
Depicts the "rain miracle of Quadi".
God rescues the Roman Legion from
destruction past barberians past
creating a terrible storm.

Introduction

For several centuries Aboriginal Rome was the most powerful nation on earth, excelling all others at military organisation and warfare, engineering, and compages. Its unique cultural achievements include the invention of the dome and the groin vault, the evolution of physical and a European-wide network of roads and bridges. Despite this, Roman sculptors and painters produced simply a express amount of outstanding original fine art, preferring instead to recycle designs from Greek fine art, which they revered every bit far superior to their ain. Indeed, many types of art practised by the Romans - including, sculpture (bronze and marble statuary, sarcophagi), fine art painting (murals, portraiture, vase-painting), and decorative art (including metalwork, mosaics, jewellery, ivory carving) had already been fully mastered past Ancient Greek artists. Not surprisingly, therefore, while numerous Greek sculptors (like Phidias, Kresilas, Myron, Polykleitos, Callimachus, Skopas, Lysippos, Praxiteles, and Leochares, Phyromachos) and painters (like Apollodorus, Zeuxis of Heraclea, Agatharchos, Parrhasius, Apelles of Kos, Antiphilus, Euphranor of Corinth) were accorded great respect throughout the Hellenistic earth, almost Roman artists were regarded every bit no more than than skilled tradesmen and have remained anonymous.

Of course it is wrong to say that Roman art was devoid of innovation: its urban compages was ground-breaking, as was its landscape painting and portrait busts. Nor is it true that Roman artists produced no neat masterpieces - witness the boggling relief sculpture on monuments like Ara Pacis Augustae and Trajan'due south Column. Merely on the whole, nosotros can say that Roman art was predominantly derivative and, above all, utilitarian. It served a purpose, a higher good: the dissemination of Roman values along with a respect for Roman power. Equally information technology transpired, classical Roman fine art has been immensely influential on many subsequent cultures, through revivalist movements like Neoclassical compages, which take shaped much European and American architecture, as exemplified past the The states Capitol Building The lesser-known Classical Revival in modern art (1900-30) led to a return to figure painting besides as new abstract movements like Cubism.

History of Roman Art

Origins

Although Rome was founded as far back every bit 750 BCE, it led a precarious existence for several centuries. Initially, it was ruled by Etruscan kings who commissioned a diversity of Etruscan art (murals, sculptures and metalwork) for their tombs as well equally their palaces, and to celebrate their armed forces victories. Later the founding of the Roman Republic in 500 BCE, Etruscan influence waned and, from 300 BCE, as the Romans started coming into contact with the flourishing Greek cities of southern Italy and the eastern Mediterranean, they fell under the influence of Greek art - a process known as Hellenization. Soon many Greek works of art were being taken to Rome equally booty, and many Greek artists followed to pursue their careers under Roman patronage.

Yet, the arts were still not a priority for Roman leaders who were more concerned almost survival and military affairs. Information technology wasn't until near 200 BCE after it won the first Punic War against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, that Rome felt secure enough to develop its civilisation. Even then, the absence of an independent cultural tradition of its ain meant that about ancient art of Rome imitated Greek works. Rome was unique amidst the powers of the aboriginal world in developing only a limited artistic linguistic communication of its own.

Cultural Inferiority Complex

Roman architecture and engineering was never less than bold, but its painting and sculpture was based on Greek traditions and also on art forms adult in its vassal states similar Egypt and Ancient Persia. To put it some other way, despite their spectacular military machine triumphs, the Romans had an inferiority complex in the face of Greek artistic achievement. Their ultra-pragmatic response was to recycle Greek sculpture at every opportunity. Greek poses, reworked with Roman apparel and accessories, were pressed into service to reinforce Roman power. Heroic Greek statues were even supplied headless, to enable the buyer to fit his own portrait head.

An example is the equestrian bronze statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (c.175 CE), whose stance is reworked from the Greek statue "Doryphorus" (440 BCE). See: Greek Sculpture Made Simple.

The reason for Rome'south cultural inferiority complex remains unclear. Some Classical scholars have pointed to the businesslike Roman temperament; others, to the overriding Roman demand for territorial security confronting the waves of marauding tribes from eastern and central Europe and the consequent low priority accorded to art and culture. To which we might add that - judging by the narrowness of Celtic art (c.500 BCE - 100 CE) - Roman artists weren't doing too badly. Moreover, we should note that cities in Ancient Rome were less provincial and far more than powerful than Greek city-states, then that its fine art invariably played a more functional role - not least because Roman culture was actually a melange of different beliefs and customs, all of which had to be accomodated. Thus, for instance, art quickly became something of a status symbol: something to enhance the buyer'due south dwelling and social position. And since most Romans recognized the intrinsic value of Greek artistry, buyers wanted Greek-style works.

Realist Propaganda

Like the Romans themselves, early on Roman art (c.510 BCE to 27 BCE) tended to be realistic and direct. Portraits, both 2-dimensional and iii-dimensional, were typically detailed and unidealized, although afterwards during the age of Hellenistic-Roman art (c.27 BCE - 200 CE), the Romans became aware of the propaganda value of busts and bronze, and sought to convey political messages through poses and accessories. The aforementioned PR value was accorded to relief sculpture (meet, for example, the Column of Marcus Aurelius), and to history painting (meet, Triumphal Paintings, below). Thus when commemorating a battle, for example, the artwork used would be executed in a realistic - most "documentary" way. This realistic down-to-earth Roman fashion is in bright contrast to Hellenistic art which illustrated armed forces achievements with mythological imagery. Paradoxically, one reason for the ultimate autumn of Rome was because information technology became too attached to the propagandist value of its art, and squandered huge resources on grandiose building projects purely to print the people. Construction of the Baths of Diocletian (298-306), for instance, monopolised the entire brick industry of Rome, for several years.

Types of Roman Art

Architecture

Rome's greatest contribution to the history of fine art is undoubtedly to exist found in the field of architectural design. Roman architecture during the age of the Republic (knowledge of which derives largely from the 1st-century Roman architect Vitruvius) discovered the circular temple and the curved arch but, after the plough of the Millennium, Roman architects and engineers developed techniques for urban building on a massive scale. The erection of awe-inspiring structures like the Pantheon and the Colosseum, would have been impossible without Rome's development of the curvation and the dome, likewise as its mastery of strong and low-toll materials like concrete and bricks.

For a comparison with building blueprint in Ancient Arab republic of egypt, please see: Egyptian Architecture (c.3000 BCE - 160 CE). In item, please see: Late Egyptian Compages (1069 BCE - 200 CE).

The Romans didn't invent the arch - it was known but not much used in Greek compages - but they were the start to principal the employ of multiple arches, or vaults. From this, they invented the Roman groin vault - ii barrel vaults fix at right-angles - which represented a revolutionary improvement on the old Greek post-and-lintel method, as it enabled architects to support far heavier loads and to span much wider openings. The Romans too made frequent utilize of the semicircular arch, typically without resorting to mortar: relying instead on the precision of their stonework.

Arches and vaults played a critical function in the erection of buildings like the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla, the Basilica of Maxentius and the Colosseum. The curvation was also an essential component in the edifice of bridges, exemplified by the Pont du Gard and the bridge at Merida, and aqueducts, exemplified past the one at Segovia, and also the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus in Rome itself.

A farther architectural evolution was the dome (vaulted ceiling), which fabricated possible the construction and roofing of large open areas inside buildings, similar Hadrian's Pantheon, the Basilica of Constantine, equally well equally numerous other temples and basilicas, since far fewer columns were needed to support the weight of the domed roof. The utilise of domes went mitt in hand with the extensive use of concrete - a combination sometimes referred to as the "Roman Architectural Revolution". But flagship buildings with domes were far from existence the simply architectural masterpieces built by Aboriginal Rome. Simply as important was the five-storey apartment building known as an insula, which accomodated thousands of citizens.

It was during the age of Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE) and Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) that Rome reached the zenith of its architectural celebrity, attained through numerous building programs of monuments, baths, aqueducts, palaces, temples and mausoleums. Many of the buildings from this era and subsequently, served as models for architects of the Italian Renaissance, such equally Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) designer of the iconic dome of the cathedral in Florence, and both Donato Bramante (1444-1514) and Michelangelo (1475-1564), designers of St Peter's Basilica. The fourth dimension of Constantine (306-337 CE) witnessed the last smashing edifice programs in the city of Rome, including the completion of the Baths of Diocletian and the erection of the Basilica of Maxentius and the Arch of Constantine.

Famous Roman Buildings

Circus Maximus (6th century BCE - 4th century CE)

Dating back to Etruscan times, and located in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, this was the main Roman chariot racing venue in Rome, Italy. Measuring roughly 2,000 feet in length (610 metres) and 400 feet in width (120 metres), it was rebuilt in the age of Julius Caesar to seat an estimated 150,000 spectators, and again during the reign of Constantine to seat nigh 250,000. It is now a park.

Colosseum (72-80 CE)

Congenital in the center of Rome by Vespasian to gratify the masses, this elliptical amphitheatre was named after a colossal statue of Nero that stood nearby. Built to seat some 50,000 spectators, its intricate design, along with its model system of tiered seating and spacious passageways, makes it 1 of the greatest works of Roman architecture. The Colosseum was one of the key sights on the Grand Tour of the 18th century.

The Arch of Titus (c.81 CE)

The oldest surviving Roman triumphal arch, information technology was built after the immature Emperor's death to celebrate his suppression of the Jewish uprising in Judea, in 70 CE. Standing on the Via Sacra, south-east of the Roman Forum, the Arch of Titus was the model for Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe in Paris (1806-36).

Baths of Trajan (104-9 CE)

A huge bathing and leisure complex on the south side of the Oppian Colina, designed by Apollodorus of Damascus, it continued to be used up until the early 5th century, or perchance later, until the destruction of the Roman aqueducts compelled its abandonment.

Pantheon (c.125 CE)

Congenital past Marcus Agrippa as a temple defended to the seven gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by Hadrian in 126 CE, the Pantheon is a daring early instance of concrete structure. The interior infinite is based on a perfect sphere, and its coffered ceiling remains the largest non-reinforced concrete dome in the world. In the center of its dome an oculus lets in a beam of light.

Baths of Caracalla (212-16 CE)

Capable of holding upwardly to 16,000 people, the building was roofed by a series of groin vaults and included shops, two gymnasiums (palaestras) and ii public libraries. The baths proper consisted of a primal 185 ten fourscore anxiety cold room (frigidarium) a room of medium temperature (tepidarium) with two pools, and a 115-foot diameter hot room (caldarium), as well equally two palaestras. The unabridged structure was built on a 20-foot high base containing storage areas and furnaces. The baths were supplied with water from the Marcian Aqueduct.

Baths of Diocletian (298-306)

These baths (thermae) were probably the most grandiose of all Rome's public baths. Standing on high ground on the northeast part of the Viminal, the smallest of the Vii hills of Rome, the baths occupied an expanse well in excess of 1 million square feet and was supposedly capable of belongings up to iii,000 people at i fourth dimension. The circuitous used h2o supplied by the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Antoniniana aqueducts.

Basilica of Maxentius (308-12 CE)

The largest building in the Roman Forum, it featured a full complement of arches and barrel vaults and a folded roof. It had a central nave overlooked by three groin vaults suspended 120 anxiety in a higher place the floor on four piers. There was a massive open space in the central nave, merely different other basilicas it didn't need the usual complement of columns to support the ceiling, because the entire building was supported on arches. Moreover, its folded roof reduced the total weight of the structure thus minimizing the horizontal force on the outer arches.

Sculpture: Types and Characteristics

Roman sculpture may be divided into four main categories: historical reliefs; portrait busts and statues, including equestrian statues; funerary reliefs, sarcophagi or tomb sculpture; and copies of ancient Greek works. Like architecture, a good bargain of Roman sculpture was created to serve a purpose: namely, to impress the public - be they Roman citizens or 'barbarians' - and communicate the power and majesty of Rome. In its important works, at to the lowest degree, there was a constant expression of seriousness, with none of the Greek conceptualism or introspection. The mood, pose and facial features of the Roman statue of an Emperor, for case, was typically solemn and unsmiling. As Rome grew more confident from the reign of Augustus (31 BCE - 14 CE), its leaders might appear in more magnanimous poses, only gravitas and an underlying sense of Roman greatness was never far from the surface. Another of import feature of Rome'south plastic fine art was its realism. The highly detailed reliefs on Trajan's Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, for instance, are perfect illustrations of this focus on accurate representation, and take been important sources of information for scholars on many aspects of the Roman Legion, its equipment and battle tactics.

Yet, as we have seen, Roman sculptors borrowed heavily from the sculpture of Ancient Greece, and - aside from the sheer numbers of portrait busts, and the quality of its historical reliefs - Roman sculpture was dominated past Loftier Classical Greek sculpture likewise as by Hellenistic Greek sculpture. What's more, with the expansion of Rome'due south empire and the huge rise in demand for statuary, sculptors churned out endless copies of Greek statues.

For the effect of Roman sculpture on afterward styles of plastic fine art, please see: Neoclassical Sculpture (1750-1850).

Historical Reliefs

Rome didn't invent relief sculpture - Rock Age homo did. Nor was at that place any particular genius in the skill of its carvers and rock masons: both the reliefs of the Parthenon (447-422 BCE) and the frieze of the Pergamon Chantry of Zeus (c.166-154 BCE) outshone annihilation created in Italia. Run across besides: Pergamene School of Hellenistic Sculpture (241-133 BCE). What Rome did was to inject the genre with a new gear up of aesthetics, a new purpose: namely, to brand history. Later on all, if an event or campaign is "carved in stone", it must be true, right? The Greeks adopted the more than "cultured" approach of recording their history more obliquely, using scenes from mythology. The Romans were far more than downward to earth: they sculpted their history equally it happened, warts and all.

Trajan'south Column (106-113 CE)

The greatest relief sculpture of Ancient Rome, Trajan's Cavalcade is a 125-foot Doric-style monument, designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus. It has a spiral frieze that winds 23 times around its shaft, commemorating the Dacian triumphs of Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE). Sculpted in the cool, balanced style of the second century, its limerick and extraordinarily meticulous particular makes information technology one of the finest reliefs in the history of sculpture. A full-size bandage of Trajan'due south Column is on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest.

Marcus Aurelius' Column (c.180-193 CE)

Second but to Trajan's monument, this 100-human foot Doric cavalcade in the Piazza Colonna also features a winding ribbon of marble sculpture carved in depression relief, which illustrates the story of the Emperor's Danubian or Marcomannic wars, waged by him during the catamenia 166-180 CE. It includes the controversial "rain miracle", in which a colossal thunderstorm saves the Roman army from death at the hands of the barbarian Quadi tribes. The sculptural manner of the column differs significantly from that of Trajan's Column, as information technology introduces the more expressive fashion of the 3rd century, seen also in the triumphal curvation of Septimius Severus (199-203 CE) by the pes of the Capitoline Loma. The heads of the Marcus Aurelius figures are larger than normal, to show off their facial expressions. A higher relief is used, permitting greater contrast between calorie-free and shadow. Overall, much more dramatic - a style which clearly reflected the uncertain state of the Roman Empire.

Other famous relief works of stone sculpture carved by Roman artists include: the processional marble frieze on the Ara Pacis Augustae (thirteen-nine BCE) in the Campus Martius, and the architectural relief sculpture on the Arch of Titus (c.85-90 CE) and the Curvation of Constantine (312-15 CE).

Portrait Busts and Statues

These works of marble and (occasionally) bronze sculpture were another important Roman contribution to the fine art of Antiquity. Effigies of Roman leaders had been displayed in public places for centuries, merely with the onset of Empire in the late 1st-century BCE, marble portrait busts and statues of the Emperor - which were copied en masse and sent to all parts of the Roman earth - served an important function in reminding people of Rome's reach. They also served an important unifying forcefulness. Roman administrators had them placed or erected in squares or public buildings throughout the empire, and flush citizens bought them for their reception rooms and gardens to demonstrate loyalty. The traditional caput-and-shoulders bust was probably borrowed from Etruscan art, since Greek busts were usually made without shoulders.

Roman statues and portrait busts are in many of the best fine art museums around the world, notably the Louvre (Paris), the Vatican Museums (Rome), the British Museum (London), the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art (New York) the Getty Museum (Los Angeles).

Famous Portraits of Roman Emperors

Famous busts and statues of Roman leaders include:

- Statue of Augustus (Ruled 27-14 CE) (Livia's Villa, Prima Porta)
- Statue of Tiberius in Old Age (14-37) (Capitoline Museum)
- Bust of Caligula (37-41) (Louvre)
- Statue of Claudius as the God Jupiter (41-54) (Vatican Museum)
- Head of Nero (54-68) (British Museum)
- Bust of Galba (68-69) (Capitoline Museum)
- Statue of Titus (79-81) (Vatican Museum)
- Bust of Trajan (98-117) (British Museum)
- Statuary Statue of Hadrian (117-138) (Israel Museum)
- Statuary Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius (180) (Piazza del Campidoglio)
- Statue of Commodus as Hercules (180-192) (Capitoline Museum)
- Bosom of Gordian Ii (238) (Capitoline Museum)
- Bust of Pupienus (238) (Capitoline Museum)
- Bust of Balbinus (238) (Capitoline Museum)
- Bust of Maxentius (306-312) (Museo Torlonia)
- Colossal Head of Constantine (307-337) (Basilica Nova)

Religious and Funerary Sculpture

Religious art was besides a pop if less unique form of Roman sculpture. An important feature of a Roman temple was the statue of the deity to whom it was dedicated. Such statues were besides erected in public parks and private gardens. Modest devotional statuettes of varying quality were also popular for personal and family shrines. These smaller works, when deputed for the wealthier upper classes, might involve ivory carving and chyselephantine works, woods-etching, and terracotta sculpture, sometimes glazed for colour.

Every bit Rome turned from cremation to burial at the stop of the 1st century CE, rock coffins, known equally sarcophagi, were much in demand: the 3 most common types being Metropolitan Roman (made in Rome), Attic-way (fabricated in Athens) and Asiatic (made in Dokimeion, Phrygia). All were carved and usually decorated with sculpture - in this case reliefs. The most expensive sarcophagi were carved from marble, though other stone was also used, as was woods and even pb. In add-on to a range of different depictions of the deceased - such as Etruscan-style total-length sculptural portraits of the person reclining on a sofa - popular motifs used by sculptors included episodes from Roman (or Greek) mythology, as well as genre and hunting scenes, and garlands of fruit and leaves. Towards the end of the Roman Empire, sarcophagi became an of import medium for Christian-Roman Art (313 onwards).

Copies of Ancient Greek Sculpture

Although the wholesale replication of Greek statues indicated a hesitancy and lack of creativity on the part of Roman artists, the history of art could not exist more grateful to them, for their efforts. Indeed, it is fair to say that one of the greatest contributions of Rome to the history of art, lies in its replication of original Greek statues, 99 percent of which take disappeared. Without Roman copies of the originals, Greek art would never accept received the appreciation it deserves, and Renaissance art (and thus Western Fine art in general) might have taken a very different course.

Painting

The greatest innovation of Roman painters was the development of mural painting, a genre in which the Greeks showed little involvement. Likewise noteworthy was their evolution of a very crude form of linear perspective. In their endeavor to satisfy the huge demand for paintings throughout the empire, from officials, senior army officers, householders and the general public, Roman artists produced panel paintings (in encaustic and tempera), large and small-scale murals (in fresco), and mastered all the painting genres, including their own make of "triumphal" history painting. Almost surviving Roman paintings are from Pompeii and Herculanum, as the erruption of Vesuvius in 79 helped to preserve them. Most of them are decorative murals, featuring seascapes and landscapes, and were painted past skilled 'interior decorators' rather than virtuoso artists - a inkling to the role of art in Roman society.

Panel Paintings

In Rome, as in Greece, the highest form of painting was panel painting. Executed using the encaustic or tempera methods, console paintings were mass-produced in their thousands for display in offices and public buildings throughout the empire. Unfortunately, almost all painted panels accept been lost. The best surviving example from the fine art of Classical Antiquity is probably the "Severan Tondo" (c.200 CE, Antikensammlung Berlin), a portrait of Roman Emperor Septimus Severus with his family, painted in tempera on a circular wood console. The best instance from the Roman Empire is the astonishing series of Fayum Mummy portraits painted in Arab republic of egypt during the period 50 BCE to 250 CE.

Triumphal Paintings

Roman artists were also frequently deputed to produce pictures highlighting military successes - a form known as Triumphal Painting. This type of history painting - usually executed as a mural painting in fresco - would draw the boxing or campaign in meticulous particular, and might incorporate mixed-media adornments and map designs to inform and print the public. Since they were quick to produce, many of these triumphal works would have influenced the limerick of historical reliefs like the Cavalcade of Marcus Aurelius.

Murals

Roman murals - executed either "al fresco" with paint being practical to wet plaster, or "al secco" using paint on dry out walls - are usually classified into four periods, as set out by the High german archaeologist August Mau following his excavations at Pompeii.

• The First Style (c.200-80 BCE)
Likewise known as incrustation or masonry way, it derived from Hellenistic palaces in the Middle East. Useing vivid colours it simulates the appearance of marble.
• The Second Style (c.lxxx BCE - 100 CE)
This aimed to create the illusion of extra space past painting pictures with pregnant depth, such as views overlooking a garden or other mural. In fourth dimension, the fashion developed to cover the entire wall, creating the impression that one was looking out of a room onto a real scene.
• The Third Manner (c.100-200)
This was more than ornamental with less illusion of depth. The wall was divided into precise zones, using pictures of columns or foliage. Scenes painted in the zones were typically either exotic representations of real or imaginery animals, or merely monochromatic linear drawings.
• The Quaternary Style (c.200-400)
This was a mixture of the previous 2 styles. Depth returned to the landscape but information technology was executed more decoratively, with greater utilize of ornamentation. For instance, the creative person might paint several windows which, instead of looking out onto a landscape or cityscape, showed scenes from Greek myths or other fantasy scenes, including nonetheless lifes.

Art Styles From the Roman Empire

The Roman Empire incorporated a host of unlike nationalities, religious groups and associated styles of art. Primary amidst them, in addition to earlier Etruscan art of the Italian mainland, were forms of Celtic culture - namely the Iron Age La Tene style (c.450-50 BCE) - which was accomodated within the Empire in an idiom known equally Roman-Celtic art, and the hieratic manner of Egyptian fine art, which was absorbed into the Hellenistic-Roman idiom.

Late Roman Fine art (c.350-500)

During the Christian epoch, the division of the Roman Empire into a weak Western Roman Empire (based in Ravenna and Rome) and a strong Eastern Roman Empire (based in Constantinople), led to changes in Late Roman art. While wall painting, mosaic fine art, and funerary sculpture thrived, life-size statues and panel painting dwindled. In Constantinople, Roman art absorbed Eastern influences to produce the Byzantine art of the tardily empire, and well before Rome was overrun by Visigoths under Alaric (410) and sacked by Vandals under Gaiseric, Roman artists, master-craftsmen and artisans moved to the Eastern capital to continue their trade. (Run across Christian-Byzantine Fine art.) The Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, for example, one of the most famous examples of Roman dome architecture, provided employment for some 10,000 of these specialists and other workmen. Commissioned past Emperor Justinian (527-565), the Hagia Sophia, together with the shimmering mosaics of Ravenna, represented the final gasp of Roman fine art.

Farther Resources

To notice out more than about painting and sculpture from Classical Artifact, see the following resources:

- Classical Greek Painting (c.480-323 BCE)
- Hellenistic Greek Painting (c.323-27 BCE)
- Early on Classical Greek Sculpture (c.480-450 BCE)
- Belatedly Classical Greek Sculpture (c.400-323 BCE)
- Greek Pottery

• For more than about painting and sculpture in Ancient Rome, see: Homepage.

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