But when Augustus decided to build a new Rome of marble, founding or restoring his eighty temples, with arches and theatres innumerable all over the Empire, there must have been a great influx of artists from Greece and Asia Minor. Now begins an art to which we may fairly apply the term Græco-Roman in the sense that it was the work of Greek artists under oriental influences supplying Roman demands. The new demands entailed still further artistic developments; some of them, but not all, to be regarded by those who view the history of art as a whole, as improvements. One main effect of Roman conditions was that art largely ceased its service of religion and became devoted to secular purposes. Thus the limitations of the best Greek art, self-imposed as they were, now broke down. The effect is seen especially in portraiture, where the Romans had a tradition of realism resulting from the use of the death-mask in making wax images of the illustrious deceased. Hence in the decoration of the great Altar of Peace at Rome, the Greek artists, who would naturally have produced a frieze of gods or idealised worshippers, were asked for portraits of the men of the day. I think it is clear that enormous skill was devoted to the likenesses of men and very little care to the gods. The composition of the whole was of little account. A little later the demand for historical reliefs on arches and columns was met by the development of quite new features in the art of sculpture, namely, those spatial or tridimensional effects of perspective which are so remarkable on the Trajan column.[52] This art seems to have begun in Alexandrian times but Rome may claim the credit for its development. It was necessary, if sculpture was to do that for
“Clytie”
which it was surely never intended—to tell a story. The Parthenon frieze was religious ornament, the Trajan column is secular history. When the Romans required ornament they were content with decoration merely and the artists complied with the wonderful skill which they had probably learnt in Asia. Never have there been such exquisite natural designs in wreaths and festoons of flowers and fruit as in the sculpture of the Augustan age.[53] It is the same with the art of the goldsmith, as we see in the wonderful discoveries of silver made at Hildesheim and Bosco Reale[54] or in the great imperial cameos wrought in sardonyx.[55] There was money and skill in plenty. But what was lacking was a spirit to animate it.
If we could be sure of our ground in setting down realism as the Roman contribution to the history of Art, it would be a great achievement for Rome. Realism is undoubtedly a fine thing though idealism is a finer. Unfortunately it seems that Hellenic art in the eastern centres was developing realism, or at least illusionism, for itself on its own soil. On the whole, in the controversy between the archæologists, Strzygowski, who claims the East as the inspiring force in Roman days, seems to have the best of it. The coins of Asia Minor present realistic portraiture quite distinct from that which was native on Roman soil. Thus the exquisite festoons of flowers, fruit, and birds, all botanically and anatomically correct to the last feather or stamen, are probably the product of Greece and the East. But we may well believe that the nature of the Roman patron’s demands assisted this movement. The Roman, if we may judge by Pliny the Roman art-critic, was just the man to insist that an apple should not resemble a pear or to count the petals of a poppy. This sort of criticism affords excellent discipline for the artist. The statues of the period, such as the Venus Genetrix by Arcesilaus in the Louvre[56] and the Orestes and Electra group by Stephanus at Naples, are not very interesting works. They are plainly late-born issues of Greek sculpture, though in the latter there is an attempt at expression which seems to be derived from the influence of portraiture. The “Electra,” for example, has the same look in her eyes, a frowning look as of one standing in strong sunlight, that we see in the portrait of Agrippa. Portraiture had taught the sculptor of this day new secrets about the setting of the human eye. They had learnt the effect produced by deepening the hollow under the brow and by making the direction of the glance diverge from that of the head and body. But much of this was a legacy from Scopas. In little things like the hang of Electra’s robe there is visible degeneration. Here, as in the Tellus Group, the contour of the bosom is made to support the falling drapery, an unnatural and very unpleasing effect.
The architecture of the period is distinguished by similar characteristics. It is distinctly Græco-Roman with much of the subtle harmony of fine Greek work lost. The temples are, on the whole, the least interesting part of the work, for they are pale copies of Greek architecture not always very artistically adapted. A good many of the ruined monuments of Rome to which the pious traveller now directs his footsteps date from the Augustan period. Many of the temples of the Republic were now rebuilt on the old plan with more sumptuous materials, as, for example, the round shrine of Mater Matuta,[57] commonly called the Temple of Hercules. Technical innovations include the debasement of the Doric column by omitting those subtle flutings which gave it all the grace whereby its strength was saved from clumsiness, and by erecting it upon a pedestal. But the Romans preferred the more exuberant Corinthian order with its florid capital of acanthus foliage, a type which the Greeks had used very sparingly and seldom externally. Again, the Romans had discovered improved methods of construction which enabled them to use a wider span in roofing, but they made no artistic advantage out of this fact. On the contrary, by dispensing with the peristyle or surrounding colonnade they rendered the exterior of their temples much less interesting.
| FIG. 1. THEEMPEROR CARACALLA | FIG 2. THE EMPEROR COMMODUS |
| Plate LXVIII. | |