Ancient Grecian and Roman Sculpture - AP Art History

Most Roman sculpture, and art of all kinds, was heavily based on Greek examples, and oftentimes it can be hard to distinguish between a Roman original and a Roman copy of a Greek sculpture. However, one major distinguishing feature of Roman sculpture is in its portraiture. Roman portraits depicted their subjects in a "warts and all" manner that showed every imperfection, as it was seen to exhibit worldliness and wisdom.

A register divides the picture plane horizontally, often providing the ground line for figural decoration if it is present. Registers are used especially in relief sculpture to provide spatial order within the composition. A frame would refer to the elements that actually surround and close off the picture plane.

If you compare ancient Roman and ancient Greek sculpture and architecture, you will be able to observe that there are an overwhelming amount of similarities. Some scholars have even accused the ancient Romans of being narrow-minded and limited in imagination, due to their reliance on copying ancient Greek art. In fact, many exact copies of ancient Greek sculptures were crafted by the ancient Romans.

"Togatus" is the general term for a statue of a male Roman wearing a toga. A "paludamentum" is a general's cloak sometimes worn by subjects in Roman sculptures. "Kouros" refers to a type of male sculpture produced in the Greek Archaic period. "Equestrian" statues depict their subjects mounted on a horse.

Nearly every—if not every—ancient Roman temple housed at least one statue of a deity. Although Roman temples often had many similar characteristics, the divine statues were the most important attribute, as they were to be worshiped and revered. Divine statues were followed closely in importance only by the ancient Roman altar.

Roman sculptures were mainly realistic and individualistic during the Republican Time period. During this period, the Romans overthrew the previous Roman kingdom. The focus on individuals represented the changing focus away from the idea of a royal kingdom towards the focus of the real individuals in the kingdom fighting for freedom. The fantasy world of the royals was quickly replaced by a very real Republic filled with individuals concerned about their rights. Their art at the time reflected these feelings.

Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. The whole village was lost. Many years later, the town was discovered preserved under the ash. This allowed archaeologists the chance to study what life was like in ancient Roman times and give insight to historians on art practices of the Romans.

The breastplate on the Augustus of Prima Porta is a classic Roman cuirass, a specific type of highly decorated armor worn by generals. Augustus’ cuirass depicts a wide range of his military accomplishments, showing his strength as a commander and leader of troops. This more orderly and earthly element is intentionally placed with more divine attributes, such as the sculpture portraying Augustus barefoot.

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This sculpture is called Peplos Kore, and has been dated back to 530 BCE, during the Archaic period of Ancient Greek sculpture. The sculpture showcases one of the archetypal figures of Archaic sculpture: the standing draped woman. The subject also showcases what is known as the "Archaic smile," a bland, smiling facial expression born by nearly all Archaic Greek sculptures after 575 BCE.

The work shown here is a sarcophagus, an earthenware box built to contain human remains. The Sarcophagus of the Spouses was an Etruscan funerary monument, built to depict the married couple whose cremated remains were forever placed together in the work of art. The Etruscan sculptural tradition was highly influential on Roman sculpture, particularly portraits to honor the deceased.

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The Dying Gaul is a statue from the third century BCE and is among the most famous pieces of Roman artwork. The statue is remarkable for its tension and lines in the prone figure, who is slouching into repose from his wounds. Additionally, the face conveys an astonishing amount of pathos and misery, while also showing a perfect form in the figure's body.

The Dying Gaul is a statue most likely originally cast around 200 BCE by a Greek king to commemorate his victory over the Galatians, a Celtic tribe living in modern day Turkey. The sculpture is remarkable for showing the bravery and humanity of the subject, who is marked as Galatian thanks to his haircut and necklace. The Dying Gaul that has survived is a Roman copy of the Greek original that is currently held in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

"Encaustic" painting uses hot wax and pigment. It was commonly used for both panel paintings and painting stone sculpture.

Black-figure vases such as this one by Exekias depicting Ajax and Achilles playing dice are emblematic of Athenian ceramic production during the Greek Archaic period (c. 600–480 BCE).

Image: Ajax and Achilles Playing a Game, by Exekias (potter and painter), c. 540-530 BCE. Black-figure painting on a ceramic amphora.

Exekias \[Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)\], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Etruscan sculpture The Sarcophagus of the Spouses presents a married couple, lounging in an embrace at a dinner or a party. As this is a funerary monument, this pose is supposed to represent the lasting image of the couple, which indicates that this couple and Etruscan society in general greatly valued genuine affection between married couples. This kind of pose stands in stark contrast to Greek and Roman sculpture which often presented subjects in stern poses and also tended to separate men and women.

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Greek sculpture evolved as the people did, going from a stylized figure with Eastern tendencies and aesthetic qualities to a more natural, highly realistic sculpted figure. Though answers three of the answers have vocabulary related to the Greek aesthetic, they represent a de-evolution of Greek figure studies. The correct answer choice is the only one whose chronology is correct. This question tests a student's ability to recognize large patterns within aesthetic traditions while associating important words with the culture: contrapossto, anthropomorphized, and stylized are all features of Greek sculpture a student needs to recognize. The trick in this question is for the student to frame this vocabulary, and the movements they represent, within the histories they are a part of in a chronologically accurate way.

Concern with the way the figure moves is the best answer. Greek sculptures evolved to look like a living, breathing figure. The contrapossto style, while looking more natural, also makes the figure appear to be in motion, or capable of movement. By focusing on how the figure moves, artists more accurately depicted how it is. The emphasis is on external function, not internal, evolving to focus on not only how the figure moves through space, but also through time, as late Greek statues focused on the process of aging. Either way, an increasing realism across the chronology of Greek sculpture directly correlates to a heightened concern with movement.

The key feature of ancient Greek sculpture was the monumental size of most of their pieces, as well as the dramatic depiction of heroes and gods. The statues therefore needed to be made of an extremely sturdy and dependable material. Marble proved the most durable and popular material among ancient Greek sculptors not just for the mentioned reasons, but because of its abundance in Greek lands.

Ancient Greek and Roman statues and architecture were, in their original form, painted in vivid polychrome colors. These bright colors, which decorated every aspect of 3D art in antiquity, largely faded by the time of a renewal in interest in classical art, during the eighteenth century. As such, many enlightenment-era figures wished to preserve the "pristine," but inauthentic, look of unpainted marble.