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 style in which the artist recounts the Dacian campaigns of Trajan as a creation of the Roman genius. We shall see that the term is not altogether a happy one; but there is good reason (as will be shown below) for the belief that the designer of the column, however profoundly influenced in his selection of motives and in his composition of individual scenes by Greek tradition, nevertheless worked out his main principles for himself. The realism of the Roman is shown in the minute rendering of details, which makes the reliefs a priceless source of information as to military antiquities. Historical art achieved no less a triumph in the great frieze from Trajan’s Forum (Plate II. fig. 16), and in the panels of the arch at Benevento. Imposing as these works are, they suffer from the defects incidental to an art which endeavours to express too much. Overcharged with detail, and packed with meanings which reveal themselves only to patient study, they lack the spacious and reposeful character of Greek art; while, if we regard only their decorative function, we must admit that the excess of ornamental surface mars the effect of the buildings which they adorn. Along the path thus marked out, Roman art continued to progress; it is true that under the influence of Hadrian there was a brief renaissance of classicism which gave birth to the idealized type of Antinous, and to certain eclectic works which belong to Greek rather than to Roman art; but the historical reliefs which survive from the Antonine period, and more especially the sarcophagi, which reproduce scenes of Greek mythology with a close adherence to the letter but a fresh artistic spirit, show that the new leaven was at work. The main fact underlying the changes of the time was the loss of the true principles of plastic art, which even in Hellenistic times had become obscured by the introduction of pictorial methods into relief-sculpture. Colour, rather than form, now took the highest place in the gamut of artistic values. Painting, indeed, so far as our scanty knowledge goes, was not practised with conspicuous success; but the art of mosaic was carried to an extraordinary degree of technical perfection; and in strictly plastic art the choice of material was often determined by qualities of colour and transparency. For example, porphyry, basalt and alabaster of various hues were used by the sculptor in preference to white marble; and new conventions, such as the plastic rendering of the iris and pupil of the eye, were dictated by the ever-growing need for contrasts of light and shadow. This great revolution in taste has been traced, and doubtless with justice, to the permeation of the Graeco-Roman world of the 2nd century by oriental ideas. The East has always preferred colour to form, and richness of ornament to significance of subject; and in art, as in religion, the West was now content to borrow. Roman official art, however, continued to produce the historical monuments which the achievements of the time demanded; but the principles of figure-composition were less fully grasped. The reliefs of the Aurelian Column form a less intelligible series than those of the Column of Trajan; and the panels of the Arch of Septimius Severus, with their bird's-eye perspective, have not inaptly been compared to Flemish tapestries. The extravagance and pomp of the dynasty founded by Septimius Severus filled Rome with such works as the art of the time could produce; and the busts of Caracalla show that in portraiture Roman craftsmen retained their cunning. Even during the anarchy which followed masterpieces such as the portrait of Philip the Arabian were produced; and during the reign of Gallienus ( 253–268), which saw the dismemberment of the Empire, there was a noteworthy outburst of artistic activity, whose products are seen in the naturalistic portraits of the emperor and the court. But by the close of the 3rd century a further transformation had taken place, which coincided with the political revolution by which the absolute monarchy of Diocletian succeeded to the principate of Augustus. The portraits of Constantine and his house can no longer be termed naturalistic; they are

monumental, both in scale and in conception, and, above all, their rigid “frontality” carries us back at a bound to the primitive art of the East. The classical standard set by the Greek genius had ceased to govern art, although the fund of types which Hellenism had created still furnished subjects to the artist, or was made the vehicle by which the new ideas derived from Christianity were expressed. The Roman spirit was still strong enough to maintain that interest in the human form and the representation of dramatic events which was lacking in the Oriental; but in the monuments of the Constantinian period, such as the narrow friezes of the Arch of Constantine, we can see nothing but the work of artists who had lost touch with true plastic principles, in spite of the ingenious arguments adduced by Riegl. If we are to seek for signs of progress, it must be rather in the domain of architecture, which had never ceased to make advances in dealing with the spatial and constructive problems presented by the great building works of the Empire; it was now called upon to face a fresh task in providing Christians with a lit place for public worship. In the solution of this problem the architects of the 4th century showed a wonderful fertility of resource; but to describe their achievements would be to pass the confines of Roman art in the proper sense of the word.

(3) Individual Arts. (a) Architecture.—This branch of the subject may be studied in the article, and illustrations will be found in other articles (as a fine art, had been brought by the Greeks to the highest perfection of which it was capable under the limitations which they imposed upon themselves. The Greek temple appeals to the aesthetic sense by the simplicity and harmony of its proportions as well as by the rational correspondence between function and decoration in its several members. On these lines there was no room for progress. It is true that the Etruscans modified the type of the Greek temple and profoundly influenced Roman construction in this respect. The Etruscan temple was not approached on all sides by a low flight of steps, but raised on a high platform (podium) with a staircase in the front; it was broad in proportion to its depth, indeed, in many cases, square; and the temple itself (cella) was faced by a deep portico, which often occupied half the platform. Moreover, as the use of marble for building was unknown in early Italy, wood was employed in construction and terra-cotta in decoration, and this change of material led to a wider spacing of the columns than was possible in Greece. But these alterations in the system of proportions were disadvantageous to aesthetic effect; and the Romans—though they soon ceased (under the influence of the western Greeks) to build temples of purely “Tuscan” type—preserved certain of their features, such as the high platform and deep portico (see, fig. 26). Nor can we regard as felicitous the design of certain Roman temples, such as that of Concord overlooking the Forum, and the supposed temple of Augustus (see ), which have a broad front (approached in the temple of Concord by a central portico) and narrow sides. The great temples of the Empire were (in general) inspired by Greek models, and need not therefore concern us; but we may notice Hadrian’s peculiar design for the double temple of Venus and Rome, with twin cellae placed back to back. To the orders (see ) of Greek architecture the Etruscans added the “Tuscan,” a simplified Doric, of which an early example has been found at Pompeii, enclosed within the wall of the Casa del Fauno. This column, which can scarcely be later than the 6th century, has a smooth shaft with pronounced entasis, a heavy capital with a scotia between abacus and echinus, and a plain circular base. To the Romans we owe the “Composite” order, so called because it contains features distinctive of the Corinthian and Ionic orders (see, fig. 14). It is really a variety of the Corinthian, with Ionic volutes inserted in the capital; the earliest known example of its use is seen in the Arch of Titus. The Romans, moreover, made frequent use of the figured capital, which, as
 * ; &c.). Architecture, regarded