Series on Roman art

[Musivarius]

A new 3 part series on Roman art starts tonight on BBC4. Looks like it will be worth a look as it is specifically on Roman art as it developed away from just copying the Greeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00wpvpn

[daconey]

I was trying to watch that online but, not being in the UK I can't seem to do it. A shame b/c I still believe the brits do history shows/docs better than the rest of the world!

[Musivarius]

Great first episode and promises to get even better. Good to hear a different viewpoint.

There was a stop motion sequence of a modern day sculpture carving a bust of Cicero and they filmed the whole process of bronze casting (I have to admit here that I always thought the 'lost wax method' was called that because everyone had forgotten how to do it :oops: )

I was a little disappointed that the artist they filmed mixing up the egg tempura paints then used them to paint on a modern canvas. I would have though they would of found someone to demonstrate fresco work.

[Kegluneq]

Great first episode and promises to get even better. Good to hear a different viewpoint.

There was a stop motion sequence of a modern day sculpture carving a bust of Cicero and they filmed the whole process of bronze casting (I have to admit here that I always thought the 'lost wax method' was called that because everyone had forgotten how to do it :oops: )

Agreed, just caught this last night and thought it was fantastic. The Veristic portraits of the late Republic are an amazing social record, and as he rightly argued, just being realistic doesn't mean they don't carry a great amount of symbolic significance. The only thing I wished he went into was the origins of veristic portraiture as funerary masks (cast from the faces of the dead - hence the sunken expressions on some busts). Possibly also the potential for exaggeration of worn expressions to emphasise suitably Roman personality traits... I hope he returns to potraiture in the imperial episodes, as I think my favourite veristic busts are of Vespasian and Caracalla.

The stop motion sequences were excellent and an extremely helpful guide for the artistically illiterate like myself. Seeing the bust of Cicero emerge from the marble was an amazing sight and emphasised the talent of the sculptor then and now.

I was a little disappointed that the artist they filmed mixing up the egg tempura paints then used them to paint on a modern canvas. I would have though they would of found someone to demonstrate fresco work.

I guess the show had timing/budget restraints, fresco painting would require a spare wall, and it's not something in much demand today. The process has been shown before (such as on C4's execrable Rome Wasn't Built In A Day) and is a well known aspect of Roman art. I think it was valid to emphasise that Roman painting wasn't just walls though, and that Romans had portable art in frames is often forgotten. It was fascinating for me to see the natural paints used in an original context however.

Speaking of paints, I noticed they didn't show any of the repainted Roman statues, which tend to be as subtle and ethereal as an oil spill. I don't know how much of that was to do with creative disagreement, or skirting over an issue that modern audiences (who rarely encounter 'stage makeup') simply wouldn't understand isn't meant to be scrutinised up close but recognised from a distance.

[Robert Vermaat]

The stop motion sequences were excellent and an extremely helpful guide for the artistically illiterate like myself. Seeing the bust of Cicero emerge from the marble was an amazing sight and emphasised the talent of the sculptor then and now.

Agreed!

they filmed the whole process of bronze casting

Loved that - did you see the face of the artist when it was revealed? The presentator managed to upset him by by discussing it first, and only later saying that he liked the end result! :lol:

I was wondering about that beautiful mosaic from Pompeii, the one featuring Alexander, wasn't that a Roman copy from a Greek original (either a painting by Aristides, or of a lost late 4th century BC fresco by the painter Philoxenos of Eretria)? The show made this to be an example of innovative Roman art, but if it's a copy, where's the innovation? there were more points where I thought that the makers blew a trumpet for Roman art that was too loud, as earlier Greek or Etruscan influences were ignored.

[Kegluneq]

Loved that - did you see the face of the artist when it was revealed? The presentator managed to upset him by by discussing it first, and only later saying that he liked the end result! :lol:

To be fair, it was pretty creepy! Bronze busts are inherently more disconcerting than marble, I think for the reasons given in the show. Marble just looks more alive.

Lost wax casting was another process I hadn't really understood beforehand - I'm not entirely sure I do now, but it was a good addition to the discussion nonetheless.

I was wondering about that beautiful mosaic from Pompeii, the one featuring Alexander, wasn't that a Roman copy from a Greek original (either a painting by Aristides, or of a lost late 4th century BC fresco by the painter Philoxenos of Eretria)? The show made this to be an example of innovative Roman art, but if it's a copy, where's the innovation? there were more points where I thought that the makers blew a trumpet for Roman art that was too loud, as earlier Greek or Etruscan influences were ignored.

I imagine the 'innovation' there was in the complex use of millions of tesserae to create the image? That would be a slightly boring technical rather than artistic innovation though. We don't know how faithful a copy it was (afaik) so it's also possible that the Roman(or Greek slave) mosaicist introduced some contemporary detail of his own invention to suit the client's tastes.

I don't think the argument was put forward that Roman art wasn't derivative - they didn't invent any of the techniques they used, and even Veristic art is attributed to eastern or Egyptian origins - but rather that they used them to tell different kinds of stories to their predecessors.

[rononmaximus]

I was trying to watch that online but, not being in the UK I can't seem to do it. A shame b/c I still believe the brits do history shows/docs better than the rest of the world!

At least one of the parts is around youtube

[Musivarius]

The Alexander mosaic is generally considered to be a copy of a Greek painting. If you look just below the falling horse (the one with the rider being speared)you will see a hoof on it's own. Some have it that this was a mistake made by the mosaicist in copying the painting.
The use of 1mm tesserae was known as Hellenistic style, 'a painting in stone' so, if the mosaicists were Roman they were copying a Greek style as well a Greek piece of work.

[Vindex]

I've just caught up with episode one of this and it was a fabulous programme. Fascinating and a great blend of real and reconstructed pieces and methods.