Allegorical scene from the Augustan Ara Pacis, 13 BCE, a highpoint of the state Greco-Roman style
The study of Roman sculpture is complicated by its relation to Greek sculpture. Many examples of even the most famous Greek sculptures, such as the Apollo Belvedere and Barberini Faun, are known only from Roman Imperial or Hellenistic "copies". At one time, this imitation was taken by art historians as indicating a narrowness of the Roman artistic imagination, but, in the late 20th century, Roman art began to be reevaluated on its own terms: some impressions of the nature of Greek sculpture may in fact be based on Roman artistry.
The Grave relief of Publius Aiedius and Aiedia, 30 BC, Pergamon Museum (Berlin), with a more realist "Italian" style
The strengths of Roman sculpture are in portraiture, where they were less concerned with the ideal than the Greeks or Ancient Egyptians, and produced very characterful works, and in narrative relief scenes. Examples of Roman sculpture are abundantly preserved, in total contrast to Roman painting, which was very widely practiced but has almost all been lost. Latin and some Greek authors, particularly Pliny the Elder in Book 34 of his Natural History, describe statues, and a few of these descriptions match extant works. While a great deal of Roman sculpture, especially in stone, survives more or less intact, it is often damaged or fragmentary; life-size bronze statues are much more rare as most have been recycled for their metal.[1]
Most statues were actually far more lifelike and often brightly colored when originally created; the raw stone surfaces found today is due to the pigment being lost over the centuries.[2]
^Hennig, 94–95
^"True Colors | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine".
The study of Romansculpture is complicated by its relation to Greek sculpture. Many examples of even the most famous Greek sculptures, such as the Apollo...
sculpture (usually with a lower case "c") refers generally to sculpture from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as well as the Hellenized and Romanized...
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented...
Roman art The art of Ancient Rome, and the territories of its Republic and later Empire, includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury...
by the large Roman consumer market. As a consequence, Hellenistic sculpture became a central influence in the entire history of sculpture in Ancient Rome...
portraits of individuals are almost entirely sculptures, covering a period of almost five centuries. Roman portraiture is characterised by unusual realism...
Hellenistic and later Romansculpture, rather than that of the more "Classical" periods as they are seen today. Baroque sculpture followed Renaissance...
throughout the centuries, including several of the most well-known Romansculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The...
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coins or new sculptures in the late empire. Indeed, that of Marcus Aurelius is one of only two surviving bronze statues of a pre-Christian Roman emperor;...
began in Archaic and Classical Greece and continued in Hellenistic and Romansculpture. The existence or place of the convention is the subject of scholarly...
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Roman depictions of her death in visual arts are rare, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern works are numerous. Ancient Greco-Romansculptures such...
works by the early 5th century; many pieces of sculpture known only in marble copies made for the Roman market were originally made in bronze. Smaller...
collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Romansculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions...
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enchanted ones") is a group of Romansculptures from a portico dating to the second century AD that once adorned the Roman Forum of Thessalonica in Northern...
the Emperor to associate and refer to himself as the Roman Hercules. At the base of the sculpture, carved into the globe are the zodiacal signs of Taurus...
The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs is a porphyry sculpture group of four Roman emperors dating from around 300 AD. The sculptural group has been fixed...
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