Roman Art
Roman art grows out of Etruscan art, and at first it is a lot like Etruscan art. Because of this, it has a close relationship to Greek art as well. Roman art as a type of its own really gets going around 500 BC with the beginning of the Roman Republic. Roman people were particularly interested in portraiture: in making statues that really looked like one particular person, especially a famous person. Greek people were more interested in ideals: what is the most beautiful man? what is the most athletic man? But the Romans were more interested in reality.
A lot of people living in Rome seem to have believed, also, that having a good image of somebody's face was important to keeping their ghost happy after they died so they wouldn't haunt you. So throughout the time of the Roman Republic and all the way through the Roman Empire we see a lot of portraits.
Ara Pacis
About 200 BC, the Romans began conquering Greece, and this changed their art styles a lot. As the Roman soldiers marched through Greece, they saw a lot of Greek art in the temples, and in the cemeteries, and in public squares and people's houses. The Romans thought of the Greeks as being cooler than they were, so whatever the Greeks were doing in art, the Romans wanted some. They brought home a lot of the Greek art they saw (either by buying it or by stealing it, or maybe sometimes the Greeks gave it to them for presents), and they also brought back Greek sculptors (often as slaves) to make more art for them in Rome. Augustus' Ara Pacis, for example (the Altar of Peace), shows a lot of influence from Greek art in the fancy swirls on the front, in the frieze which is so much like the Parthenon frieze, and in the meanders underneath the frieze.
The art of the first and second centuries AD pretty much continued the traditions of portraiture and Greek imitations. Roman artists added more use of art as propaganda to show what the emperors wanted people to know or to think. Some examples of this are the Arch of Titus and Trajan's Column.
Trajan's column was built just after 100 AD to remind people in Rome about the Roman emperor Trajan's victories in a war in Dacia (DAY-see-ah) (modern Rumania). It stands in Trajan's Forum in Rome, just below Trajan's Markets, and near the old Roman Forum.
All around the column, there are pictures of the Roman soldiers fighting the war. In this picture you can see Roman soldiers crossing the Danube (DAN-youb) river in boats with oars.
trajans column
The message of the column was that the Romans were civilized and good fighters, organized and skilled (and that Trajan was a great general), while the Dacians were shaggy, messy, and confused.
There was also a lot of wall painting to decorate the walls of houses during this time. The wall painting of the first century AD is sometimes divided into four different styles, mainly because of the many different styles of wall painting that were found at Pompeii. In the first style, the fresco painting on the walls of houses is meant to look like marble panels (but it's a lot cheaper than marble panels!).
In the Second Style, the artists begin to add little things to the imitation marble panels in their paintings. This one has a garland. Other paintings have fruit, or flowers, or birds perched here and there.
Third Style Roman wall painting takes this idea further by adding whole scenes to the walls. Here in this painting from the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii you can see full-size people talking to each other and sitting on chairs, as if there were another room there instead of a wall.
Of course there are also local variations all over the Roman Empire. An empire which covered most of Europe and all around the Mediterranean could hardly have only one art style all over it. The Gauls continued their art styles from before the Romans came, and found ways to mix their old art styles with new Roman ideas. So did the Britons, and the Spanish, and the Carthaginians, and the Phoenicians, and so forth.
A lot of people living in Rome seem to have believed, also, that having a good image of somebody's face was important to keeping their ghost happy after they died so they wouldn't haunt you. So throughout the time of the Roman Republic and all the way through the Roman Empire we see a lot of portraits.
Ara Pacis
About 200 BC, the Romans began conquering Greece, and this changed their art styles a lot. As the Roman soldiers marched through Greece, they saw a lot of Greek art in the temples, and in the cemeteries, and in public squares and people's houses. The Romans thought of the Greeks as being cooler than they were, so whatever the Greeks were doing in art, the Romans wanted some. They brought home a lot of the Greek art they saw (either by buying it or by stealing it, or maybe sometimes the Greeks gave it to them for presents), and they also brought back Greek sculptors (often as slaves) to make more art for them in Rome. Augustus' Ara Pacis, for example (the Altar of Peace), shows a lot of influence from Greek art in the fancy swirls on the front, in the frieze which is so much like the Parthenon frieze, and in the meanders underneath the frieze.
The art of the first and second centuries AD pretty much continued the traditions of portraiture and Greek imitations. Roman artists added more use of art as propaganda to show what the emperors wanted people to know or to think. Some examples of this are the Arch of Titus and Trajan's Column.
Trajan's column was built just after 100 AD to remind people in Rome about the Roman emperor Trajan's victories in a war in Dacia (DAY-see-ah) (modern Rumania). It stands in Trajan's Forum in Rome, just below Trajan's Markets, and near the old Roman Forum.
All around the column, there are pictures of the Roman soldiers fighting the war. In this picture you can see Roman soldiers crossing the Danube (DAN-youb) river in boats with oars.
trajans column
The message of the column was that the Romans were civilized and good fighters, organized and skilled (and that Trajan was a great general), while the Dacians were shaggy, messy, and confused.
There was also a lot of wall painting to decorate the walls of houses during this time. The wall painting of the first century AD is sometimes divided into four different styles, mainly because of the many different styles of wall painting that were found at Pompeii. In the first style, the fresco painting on the walls of houses is meant to look like marble panels (but it's a lot cheaper than marble panels!).
In the Second Style, the artists begin to add little things to the imitation marble panels in their paintings. This one has a garland. Other paintings have fruit, or flowers, or birds perched here and there.
Third Style Roman wall painting takes this idea further by adding whole scenes to the walls. Here in this painting from the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii you can see full-size people talking to each other and sitting on chairs, as if there were another room there instead of a wall.
Of course there are also local variations all over the Roman Empire. An empire which covered most of Europe and all around the Mediterranean could hardly have only one art style all over it. The Gauls continued their art styles from before the Romans came, and found ways to mix their old art styles with new Roman ideas. So did the Britons, and the Spanish, and the Carthaginians, and the Phoenicians, and so forth.