γ. A phase of revival of classic Greek forms under Hadrian (117–138 A.D.)
We may designate these phases of development as the Romano-Greek period.
c. The third period under the military despotism of the prætorian guards, during which Rome ceased to be the centre of universal dominion, and each province began to feel its own vitality, lasted from Septimus Severus (193–211 A.D.) to Constantine the Great. Art lost every basis—degenerated into luxurious pomp, and became heavier with each new product, and more fantastic in incredible details and impossible executions. We may best designate this as the Romano-eclectic period.
A. After the destruction of Korinthum, Rome abounded in Greek immigrants, and in Greek marble and bronze statues, friezes, pillars, and various movable works of art. The spoils of Greek temples and houses were set up in Roman houses built of bricks and mortar. The contrast between the unartistic architecture of the Romans, and the master-pieces of Greek art, was so striking, that they were forced to endeavour to improve their architecture, and art became to a certain degree fashionable. The wealthier classes began to study it theoretically, and to affect an immense amount of patronizing enthusiasm, without any deeper understanding of the laws of taste and beauty, but with a determination to outdo all other nations in the profession of works of art. Such sentiments often engender a brisk trade, but they fail to promote real art, or to benefit genuine artists. The walls of the houses of this period were generally white, with red painted ornamentations. Red is the favourite colour with children, savages, and butchers in mind. This led to the making of red bricks, which were mixed with others of different colours, and thus originated polylithic wall-decoration. The spaces between the red bricks were filled in with a black composition in imitation of different textile patterns, and this mode of decoration was called Niello. By degrees, bricks and cement were superseded by marble, and the houses became so rich, that a Puritan party of Roman ἰδιώταις {idiôtais} formed itself, and thundered against corruption and enervation, luxury and degradation. The power of this party was so great that Cicero, fearing lest these stern and dull Roman worthies should think him acquainted with the principles of artistic refinement, declared his utter ignorance of art, and expressed his high contempt for all such futile ‘allotria.’
The art of ornamentation became more and more universal. The fora and atria were overcrowded with bronze and marble statues and groups. These efforts, however, were not genuine; they did not grow out of the artistic wants and love of the people—the whole movement was strange to their minds—and was altogether a heterogeneous element grafted on their natures by the force of circumstances. They succeeded by degrees in ornamenting grandly, but there was always something in contradiction to, or in conflict with, really good taste. They used patterns meant for floors on their walls, and wall patterns on their ceilings, and that which would have fitted a ceiling, they laid on their floors; creating by this means a sad confusion. Asia always excelling in bright colours, and in a secret talent for matching them correctly, excited the admiration of the Romans, and they began to paint their walls. They often cut out the decorated parts of a pillaged Greek temple, and fixed these pieces at random in their houses, caring very little whether there was a congruity between these and their own wall-decoration or not. We have, during this period, an attempt at ‘scenography.’ The walls were painted over with architectural views, representing colonnades, interiors, landscapes, and later, Greek mythological and even historical scenes. In these, Perseus and Andromeda, or Medea meditating the murder of her children, or Herkules destroying the serpent, or some other sensational deed, formed the cherished subjects. Under the influence of the Greeks of Alexandria, another custom became prevalent. The walls were more and more panelled, and the panels filled with works of art.
This ‘mania,’ or fashion, became so universal with the Romans that they could find no more works of classic art, and had to engage living artists to reproduce antique cornices, metopes, colonnades, capitals, shields, helmets, tripods, sphinxes, and griffins; but even these artists were so overwhelmed with commissions, that it was impossible for them to satisfy the feverish demand. To produce works of art more quickly, they began to paint the panels, and the Roman empire became a complete manufactory of wall-decorations. Light colonnades of slender reeds, baldachins with pointed arches and fantastic monsters, filled the walls, and sometimes mere combinations of colours were used in a conventional style. Art again sank into mere trade. The panels and walls were not decorated with the works of the good old Greek masters, but with mere imitations. Mannerism supplanted style, and arabesques, flourishes, insignificant chequered patterns, or geometrical puzzles, took the place of historical paintings—poor wall-decorations in a theatrical style, without any attempt at higher art.
The use of marble as a means of decoration was not always customary with the Romans, and was introduced by L. Crassus, the censor, who had his house decorated with six small columns of marble from Hymettus, and was very much blamed for this extravagance. M. Scaurus, the ædile, who built the famous wooden theatre, decorated with 360 pillars of marble, glass, and bronze, and about 3,000 statues and images, had the atrium and peristyle of his private house richly adorned with exquisite columns. Manurra, prefect of the armourers, under Julius Cæsar in Gaul, is set down as the first who had his walls decorated with marble incrustations; whilst M. Catulus could boast of the first marble flooring, and of thresholds in Numidian marble. Of temples, one of the first constructed of marble blocks in a purer Greek style was that of Jupiter Tonans. The temple of Fortuna Virilis which rose on a lofty substructure on the banks of the Tiber, was in the Ionic style. The Vesta temple at Tivoli, enthroned on a steep and rocky height above the foaming waters of the Anio, was a circular building in the Korinthian style.
Theatres, public halls, baths, and Fora were found necessary, either to distract the public mind from political matters, or to gain the suffrages of the fickle mob, eager for amusement and excitement. The first theatre in stone was erected by Pompey. Julius Cæsar surpassed all his predecessors and rivals in magnificence. He began the theatre of Marcellus, which was completed by Augustus, and so enlarged and beautified the Circus Maximus that it could accommodate 150,000 spectators; he built the beautiful Basilica Julia, a public law-court for the Centumviri or Judges to sit in, and hear causes, and for the counsellors to receive their clients, and had a new Forum constructed, and adorned it with a temple dedicated to Venus Genetrix. The Roman Forum (in imitation of the Greek Agora) was a building about three times as long as broad. The interior was surrounded by arched porticos, and flanked by the most stately edifices, such as theatres, basilicæ, and temples.
These Fora were devoted to special purposes, as Fora civilia or Fora venalia, and were used for public meetings, or as market-places. Cæsar tried to become a Roman Perikles, but was distanced in this by the Emperor Augustus. Up to the establishment of Cæsarism, Rome had been literally a city of ‘bricks;’ now it became a ‘city of marble.’ Temples were profusely built and rebuilt. The Cæsarian theocracy required these abodes of splendour and self-glorification. One of the most imposing specimens of this Græco-Roman architecture was the Pantheon, built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus. Originally it was to have been an entrance-hall to splendid Thermæ, but on its completion it was turned into a temple, and dedicated to the avenging Jupiter. It was a circular building 132 feet in diameter, and 132 feet high, and triumphantly proclaimed Rome’s wealth and might. It contained a statue of Minerva by Pheidias, and a Venus, who it is said had in her ear the half of the pearl left by Cleopatra. The pearl was valued at 125,000l. That a Greek marble statue should have been ornamented with part of the ear-ring of an Egyptian princess, is highly characteristic of Roman taste in matters of art. One of the most splendid remains in the style of good Greek Korinthian ornamentation is the temple of Augustus at Pola in Istria. Triumphal gates, these Roman specialities, were at this period simple in design, and perfect in execution. Of the Mausoleum of Augustus nothing is left but the substructure, 220 feet in diameter, now used as a circus for equestrian performances. ‘Sic transit gloria mundi,’ if based on mere ostentation and vain pride.
During this period Nikopolis was planned and built; the Temple of Solomon was adorned with colonnades in the Greek Korinthian style, and at Nîmes (Nemausus) we possess the most complete remains of a prostylos pseudipteros temple of Roman architecture, with the purest Korinthian columns. Under Tiberius the camp of the prætorians was turned into a marble palace. Under Claudius harbours and moles were enlarged, built, and decorated. Nero burned Rome, to reconstruct it with greater pomp. The architects Celerus and Severus had to build the golden houses, of which the porticos were miles long. The dining-rooms surpassed in splendour anything dreamt of in Indian poetry. In the decoration of this palace, or rather cluster of palaces, we trace the greatest mistake an artist can be guilty of. The error is of Asiatic origin. It may be designated as a conscious ‘lying’ in the constructive elements. They tried to hide the costly material under a cheap disguise; a tendency as bad and objectionable, as a ‘lying’ in cheap substances to represent costly materials. The Romans used tortoise-shell as veneer for their furniture, and painted it to make it appear like wood; we, on the other hand, use wood, and paint it over to make it appear ‘giallo antico,’ (yellow marble), or any other costly stone. Ornamentation began to lose all symmetry and proportion. Confusion and profusion ruled supreme. The walls of the rooms looked like exhibitions of oriental carpets, tapestry, and jewelry. Art retrograded to the over-painted, over-decorated, over-ornamented shrouds, in which the mummies of old were buried. For a time art was carried with Asiatic splendour to a grave of tasteless pomposity.