Alberti shared Brunelleschi’s reverence for Roman architecture and was inspired by the example of Vitruvius, the only Roman architectural theorist whose writings are extant. Alberti aspired to re-create the glory of ancient times through architecture. His facades of the Tempio Malatestiano (Rimini, ) and the Church of Santa Maria Novella May 31, · The similarities and differences of Greek art and Roman art can be looked up in three major areas: sculpture, painting and architecture. Similarities between Greek and Roman Art. Greek and Roman arts share a lot of similarities to the point that it is hard to separate the two forms of art A more modern basilica modelled on Roman architecture is Saint Peter's Basilica (c)in Rome. The Pantheon. The greatest surviving circular temple of classical antiquity, and arguably the most important example of ancient art produced in Rome, is the Pantheon. Today it has lost its interior embellishments, though it is the best
Roman domestic architecture (insula) (article) | Khan Academy
Classical Architecture Series Roman Architecture Characteristics, Influences, Building Techniques, Legacy. Colosseum, Rome CE. Alcantara Bridge, Spain CE. HISTORY For the chronology and key dates of architectural developments, around the world, see: History of Roman architecture essay Timeline.
ROMAN EMPERORS Leaders of Ancient Rome most associated with architecture as a form of political and urban art, include: Augustus 27 BCE CE Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Vespasian Titus Domitian Trajan Hadrian Antoninus Pius Marcus Aurelius Caracalla Diocletian Maxentius Constantine I Architecture of Ancient Rome.
Roman architecture, even more than the rest of Roman artreflected the practical character, restless energy and organizational mindset of its roman architecture essay. As the Roman Empire expanded to engulf not only the Mediterranean region but also large areas of Western Europe, Roman architects struggled to achieve two overriding aims: to demonstrate the grandeur and power of Rome, while also improving the life of their fellow citizens.
To this end, roman architecture essay, they mastered a number of important architectural techniques, including the arch, the dome and the vault, as well as the use of concrete. Using these methods, Roman engineers designed and built some of the greatest public buildings in the history of architectureincluding temples, roman architecture essay, basilicas, amphitheatres, triumphal arches, monuments, and public baths. In addition, to further reinforce the ideals of the Pax Romana and, above all, maintain efficiency and order, Roman architects designed numerous aqueducts, drainage systems, and bridges, as well as a vast network of roads, while planners developed a series of urban blueprints, based roman architecture essay army camps, to help create roman architecture essay towns from scratch.
Roman architects absorbed a great deal from Etruscan art and design, and roman architecture essay huge respect for both Greek architecture and Greek sculpture. They also learned from Egyptian roman architecture essay architecture and stonework. Architecture is Ancient Rome's unique contribution to the history of art and to the culture of Europe. It is far more influential than the various forms of Roman sculpturemost of which were derived from the Greeks.
Among the greatest buildings erected by the Romans, were: Maison CarreeNimes, France 19 BCE ; Pont Du Gard Aqueduct, Nimes, France 19 BCE ; The Colosseum, Rome CE ; Arch of Titus, Rome 81 CE roman architecture essay Aqueduct, Segovia, Spain CE ; the Baths of Trajan ; Trajan's Bridge, roman architecture essay, Alcantara, Spain CE ; Library of Celsus, Ephesus, Turkey CE ; Hadrian's Wall, Northern England CE ; The Pantheon, Rome CE ; Palace of Diocletian, Split CE ; Baths of Diocletian CE ; Arch of Constantine, Rome CE ; and the Cloaca Maxima BCEone of the world's earliest sewage systems, constructed in Ancient Rome in order to drain local marshes and transport the city's waste to the River Tiber.
Many aspects of Roman building design were examined by the architect Marcus Vitruvius roman architecture essay, late 1st century BCE in his architectural treatise De architectura c. Roman Characteristics. Mighty Rome! Conqueror of Gaul and Carthage, of Greece and Egypt, mistress of the Western world through six centuries, roman architecture essay, capital of the mighty Caesars, unchallenged home of grandeur, spectacle, and magnificence, splendid with the art plundered from a hundred enslaved peoples, giver of laws roman architecture essay morals and military science to all the West.
And yet this "Eternal City" was artistically inconsequential. Except in one direction, that of monumental architecture and structural engineering, Rome produced very little distinctive creative art. The Romans cut off rather than absorbed the one significant development on Italian soil, the Etruscan, and turned to import decadent Greek sculptors, decorators, and painters to give a Hellenistic surfacing to their culture.
In the aesthetic scales the contribution of mighty Rome weighs more lightly than that of tiny states such as Sumeria and Siena. Grandeur was Rome's goal, grandeur her one achievement, and perhaps also the secret of the shallowness of her art. The desire to impress by bigness led to magnificent works of engineering and building. But the desire to impress by profusion and boastful display led, more often than not, roman architecture essay, to the decoration of those same works with misused scraps and veneers of Greek architecture and weak imitations of Greek ornamental sculpture.
Hellenic moderation and reasonableness became Roman practicality and Roman swagger. A glance around the main forum in Rome 1st century BCE - 3rd Century CE would have given any observer a birds-eye view of the city's architecture: old temples, increasingly complex and graceful and adorned, but with something of Greek simplicity and harmony persisting, roman architecture essay among palaces, basilicas, memorial columns, and arcades; on every side magnificent arched construction, grand vistas, and banks of columns crowned by rich Corinthian capitals; on every side a profusion of vulgarized Greek ornament, interspersed with new panels of Roman relief sculpture : in all, a wonderful display of grandeur and exhibitionism.
As soon as Rome takes on importance politically and culturally - that is, as soon as adjoining Etruria has been subjugated and Carthage successfully challenged - the spirit that dominates the arts is that of the conqueror and the celebrator. Architecture, for instance, becomes dominated not by temples, but by the Roman architecture essay or trading place, the basilica or public meeting-hall, the baths, the sports arenas, the theatres and circuses, many of which are constructed in colossal size, and lavishly ornamented.
Later there are the palaces, triumphal arches, and ceremonial gateways. It seems incredible that Etruscan capabilities in architecture and other arts - so advanced at the time of the rise of Rome - should have disappeared so quickly following the Roman takeover of Italy. But the Greek influence, coming from Greek colonial cities in the south of the country, and from the Greek world of the eastern Mediterranean, rapidly became dominant.
See also: Egyptian Architecture 3, BCE - CE. Please see especially, Middle Kingdom Egyptian Architecture and New Kingdom Egyptian Architecture. Building Techniques: Arch, Vault, roman architecture essay, Dome.
In architecture, however, the Romans absorbed some important techniques from the Etruscans before Greek influence was decisively felt. This included the arch and the vaultwhich were destined to carry Roman engineering into a development directly away from that of ancient Greece, who preferred "post-and-lintel" building methods to arches and domes.
Thus was laid the foundation of the art in which the Italic peoples were to surpass the Hellenes: structural engineering.
The vaulting techniques used by the Romans were the simple geometric forms: the semicircular barrel vaultthe groin vaultand the segmental vault. The vault surfaces were typically covered with stucco or tiles. An excellent example of Roman vaulting is the Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius in Rome. A natural development of the vault was the domewhich enabled the construction of vaulted ceilings and the roofing of large public spaces such as the public baths and basilicas.
The Romans relied heavily on the dome for much of their architecture, such as Hadrian's Pantheon, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla. Characteristic of Roman architectural design was the construction of complex forms of domes to suit multilobed ground plans. The mastery by Roman architects and engineers of the arch, vault and dome - further enhanced by their development of concrete - helped them to solve the first problem of monumental architecture, which roman architecture essay to bridge space.
Roofing a great area means carrying heavy materials across spaces impossible to span with the Greeks' simple post-and-lintel system. In the arch, and the vault that grew out of it, the Romans had a means of thrusting the massive Colosseum walls story above story, roman architecture essay, of covering a luxurious bathing hall that could accommodate three thousand persons, and of creating the majestic form of the Pantheon.
Influence of Ancient Greece. Roman architecture essay limited by their persistent use of post-and-lintel building methods, Greek influence over Roman architecture was dominant in almost all matters of architectural style and 3-D decorative art. Roman architecture essay most obvious Hellenistic gift was the series of Greek Orders of architecture - DoricIonic and Corinthian - from which the Romans developed two more: Tuscan and Composite variants of the Greek Doric and Corinthian styles, respectively.
In general, Roman Doric, Ionic and Corinthian Orders were slenderer and more ornamented. Columns tended to be left unfluted, but the fascia of the entablature, left plain by Greek architects, was heavily decorated.
Given their tendency to show off, Roman architects had the least interest in Greek Doric and, when they did use it, they invariably added a decorative molding to the base. Examples of the Roman Doric style can be seen in the Tabularium and the Colosseum in Rome, and in the Temple of Hercules at Cori.
The Ionic order was used by the Romans in some temples and public buildings, as well as private homes. Exemplars include: the Temple of Fortuna Virilis and Trajan's Forum in Rome. By far the most popular idiom, however, was the Corinthian order. Based initially on the style of columns taken from the Greek Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, the order became progressively more decorative and elaborate.
Good examples can be seen at the temples of Mars Ultor in Rome, and the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. In view of all this, roman architecture essay, it is hardly surprising that whereas the names of architects are mostly Roman or Etruscan, the names of sculptors and painters are Greek.
Whats more, it seems that the architects did all the important engineering and construction work, and then handed the building over to imported artists to do the superficial decorative work. Thus, when the hand of time stripped the ornamental casing from the Caracalla Baths or the theatre at Orange, the walls and arches stood out with a mighty lift and a compelling grandeur. And a "plain" engineering work like roman architecture essay Pont du Gard stirs the blood and lifts the eye with its mathematical vigour.
The Roman mastery of concrete was a major step forward. Its strength, roman architecture essay, flexibility, convenience and low cost - when compared to any other building material roman architecture essay made arch, roman architecture essay, vaults and domes much easier to build. First employed in the town of Cosa sometime after BCE, its widespread use was a key event in the Roman architectural revolution, and freed Roman construction from the restrictions of stone and brick material and allowed for revolutionary new designs in terms of both structural complexity and dimension.
Laid in the shape of arches, vaults and domes, it quickly hardened into a rigid mass, free from many of the internal thrusts and strains that troubled the builders of similar structures in stone or brick. The widespread use of concrete in many Roman structures has ensured that many survive to the present day. the Pantheon, Baths of Caracalla, and Basilica of Constantine in Rome are just three examples, roman architecture essay. Roman concrete opus caementicium was typically made from a mixture of lime mortar, roman architecture essay, water, sand and pozzolana, a fine, ochre-coloured volcanic earth, which set well even under water.
To this cement mixture, was added a combination of tuff, travertine, brick, and other rubble. Among the more unusual additives used, were horse hair, which reportedly made concrete roman architecture essay prone to cracking; and animal blood, which increased its resistance to frost.
Concrete walls, except those underground, roman architecture essay, were invariably faced. Works were categorized according to roman architecture essay type of facing employed, roman architecture essay. The four main types included: 1 Opus quadratum concrete, roman architecture essay, a type of ordinary stone walling that was used to face important public buildings. The earliest buildings built in and around Rome were made of tuff, a type of volcanic rock of varying hardness, which could be worked mostly with bronze tools.
Later, harder stones were used, like peperino and local albani stone from the Alban hills. Roman architecture essay the empire, the roman architecture essay common stone used for building was travertine, a form of limestone quarried in Tivoli, as used on the exterior of the Colosseum in Rome. Marble was used only for facing or decoration, or sometimes in mosaics. Coloured marbles and stones like alabaster, porphyry and granite, were also popular, as exemplified by the remains of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli.
The majority of domestic homes were made with a variety of unburned bricks faced with stucco. There were temples in Rome, and throughout her far-flung colonies and provinces. But they roman architecture essay far less distinctive and inventive than Greek designs of say the Parthenon or other structures; rather they represented the Greek idea adapted and elaborated.
The columns usually carried florid Roman architecture essay capitals - the Doric style being too plain to Latin eyes. Decoration was added elsewhere too, roman architecture essay, so that in the end no bit of bare wall was tolerated, roman architecture essay.
Even the architrave, kept clean by the Greeks to emphasize the feeling of cross-bar strength, was soon being traced over roman architecture essay Roman ornament. The earlier round structures of the sort illustrated in the ancient Temple of Vesta in the Roman forum, roman architecture essay, provided an appealing grace and a pleasing ornamental fullness not known to the architecture of the Hellenes.
The more usual adaptation of the Greek rectangular temple is to be seen today in the example at Nimes in France, known as the Maison Carree. It illustrates both the survival of the essential Greek form, and the typical Roman originally Etruscan changes, such as the podium or raised platform stylobate with a flight of steps in front, and the substitution of engaged columns or pilasters along the side walls of the cellain place of the original continuous colonnade.
Even today the building has dignity and a quiet effectiveness. In some cases the cella of the Roman temple was vaulted in concrete; it might also possess a semicircular end, as in the Baths of Diana at Nimes, and the Temple of Venus and Rome, in Rome.
The most important Roman temples of which remains exist, include: Mars Ultor, Castor and Pollux, Fortuna Virilis, Concord and Antoninus, in Rome; the Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek, the Temple of Minerva at Assisi and the temples at Pompeii. The most influential type of religious building developed by Roman architects was the basilica. Originally secular in purpose, it was destined to become an early prototype for the first Christian churches - see Early Christian Art - and thus to affect monumental architecture down to the twentieth century, roman architecture essay.
The basilica was commonly situated in the Forum of a Roman city, and was designed as a large covered hall to be used as a place of general assembly for trade, banking, and administration of the law: in simplest words, a meeting hall. The standard Basilica plan had a central nave between side aisles; and it was here that clerestory lighting and roman architecture essay were introduced into European building.
A few basilicas were given semicircular halls at the end opposite the roman architecture essay, corresponding to the later church apse or altar area.
Ancient Rome History - Part 1 Roman Architecture - 09
, time: 8:33Roman domestic architecture: the insula – Smarthistory
The architecture of the Roman theater also signals Roman concern for social control and hierarchical display. In contrast to the Greek world, where seating in the theater was largely open, Roman audiences were rigorously segregated on the basis of class, gender, nationality, profession, and marital status A more modern basilica modelled on Roman architecture is Saint Peter's Basilica (c)in Rome. The Pantheon. The greatest surviving circular temple of classical antiquity, and arguably the most important example of ancient art produced in Rome, is the Pantheon. Today it has lost its interior embellishments, though it is the best Alberti shared Brunelleschi’s reverence for Roman architecture and was inspired by the example of Vitruvius, the only Roman architectural theorist whose writings are extant. Alberti aspired to re-create the glory of ancient times through architecture. His facades of the Tempio Malatestiano (Rimini, ) and the Church of Santa Maria Novella
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