Roman art was mostly about war and portrature was essential to ancient Rome so many
ancient Roman art pieces depict the a warrior with weapons and big muscles. While
the Greeks wore sashes like ponchos, the Romans wore togas, long heavy cloaks that
you were tied around.

The Etruscans settled in the trunk of Italy (tuscanny) in the 8th-5th century B.C.
They postdated the Villanovans. They sailed around the meddeterranean and were a
pretty advanced race. In 509 B.C. Lucius Brutus wiped out all the Etruscan kings
and started a republic but their art remains. One most stunning piece is this chariot.
It was used in the times of Roman gladiators in arenas where horses pulled chariots
with warriors.



In 1902, it was unearthed by a farmer near Monteleone di Spoleto. It depicts Achilles
receiving his armor. In between him and his mother (I believe) is the Gorgan or Medusa.
HereÕs a little better view.



Below is another depiction of Achilles from the back of an Etruscan mirror. This time
he is fighting with Memmnon and Eos retrieving the body of MemmnonÕs son Memmun form
the battlefield.


The terracotta antefixes (roof tiles) below are Etruscan from the 4th century B.C. On
temple roofs, maenad antefixes (center) often alternated with satyr (left) antefixes.
The maenad wears large grape earrings, which were very popular in the 5th and 4th
centuries B.C.



In addition to carving Bassel and Stantite which were common stones, some artists
used (the more rare) Porphyry which had a beautiful purple tone. It was highly
regarded as a royal stone because purple was regal and imperial. It is found only
in the eastern deserts of Egypt so it was very expensive to extract and import.



The Roman Imperial piece above (from the second century A.D.) is one half of a pair
that supported a massive oblong water basin, probably used for Roman imperial baths.
It is the most sumptuous ancient porphyry carving in American collection.
The most profound (in my opinion) impact of Roman art was the development of the
linear perspective. Linear perspective means recreating in art what the eye sees.
Take the following wall paintings for example. These wall paintings celebrate a
dynastic marriage.



This woman is playing a kithara, a large stringed instrument. She is an important
person of the court because she wears a diadem (jeweled crown) and sits on a throne.

The wedding couple is shown here, the ruler in conventional heroic nudity while
the bride is pensive, as brides in ancient art often were.

This woman is an oracle who is probably predicting the birth of a ruler. The image
of a nude man wearing a white band that served as a crown for Hellenistic rulers
appears in the reflection in her shield.

The development of linear perspective was the crown of classicism and birthed all
the concepts like vanishing points etc. that weÕve come to associate with realistic art.
The linear perspective would be shattered by Picasso.