Roman Wall Paintings

An exploration of the four styles

Claudia MarchesiPhD CandidateUniversity of CanberraApril 2014

Villa dei misteri

• August Mau

Geschichte der decorativen Wandmalerei in Pompeji. Reimer, Berlin 1882

Based on houses in Pompeii

Problems:

implies that innovation stopped in 79AD

not discrete periods

buon fresco

Before pompeii

Before pompeii

• Most surviving early wall painting is from tombs, such as the Macedonian tombs at Lefkadia

• More recent finds of domestic wall painting at Delos and Akrotiri

• Best known examples in Italy are from Etruscan tombs and the Tomb of the Diver at Paestum (Magna Graecia, c. 470 BC)

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Tomb of the Diver, Paestum

Above: painted sarcophagus lidBelow: wall decoration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Domus_romana_Vector002.svg

The Samnite House

Herculaneum

First style

also called incrustation

• from 200 BC to 60 BC

• Architectural zones:• Plinth

Socle [Dado]

Orthostats

Isodomic courses

Stringcourse

Cornice

• The idea of faux-finishes is something that has persisted.

• House of the Griffins, Palatine, Rome

Second style

• Fresco wall painting in a cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, ca. 40–30 B.C.; Late Republican 

Second Style cont’d

• Fresco wall painting in a cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, ca.

40–30 B.C.; Late Republican 

Villa of Livia at Prima Porta

Summary

• Second Style, Architectural, dates from about 60 BC to 20 BC and serves to open up the claustrophobic spaces of Roman houses.

• A distinctly realistic feel, using perspective.

• Illusions of windows and covered walkways looking onto imaginary scenes framed by columns.

• Objects of daily life depicted realistically, with items on shelves and tables appearing to project out of the wall.

Third style

ornate

• Illusion is rejected in favor of ornamentation.

• Largely monochromatic walls were often painted with a few pieces of architecture

• As time progressed, the style of wall paintings became even less architecturally realistic and more of a mixture of styles.

Villa of Poppaea, Torre Annunziata / Oplontis

Villa of Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase, the Black Room

Fourth style

Intricate

• The fourth style, Intricate, dates from around 20 AD to 79 AD. This style incorporates all the elements of the earlier styles.

• Fragments of architecture in illogical space

• Unlike the clarity of the third style ‘galleries’, fourth style rooms appear chaotic and filled to excess. They don’t resemble any believable space, but instead consist of a variety of architectural elements arranged in an unrealistic manner with unrealistic perspective, set against a flat background, interspersed with panel pictures.

From Nero’s Domus Aurea

bibliography

• Diana Kleiner Lectures on Roman Architecture

http://oyc.yale.edu/history-art/hsar-252/lecture-6

http://oyc.yale.edu/history-art/hsar-252/lecture-7

• Maurice Owen (2010) The False - Door : dissolution and becoming in Roman wall-painting, http://creadm.solent.ac.uk/custom/rwpainting/cover/contentspage.html

• Nina Miller http://honorsaharchive.blogspot.com.au/2005/09/four-styles-of-roman-wall-paintings.html

• http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/painted-garden-villa-of-livia.html

• John R. Clarke (1991) The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 BC–AD 250: Ritual Space and Decoration