Roman Art

Fülszöveg

The Romans were the master builders of the ancient world. The story is one of great warmth and splendour, there are numerous brilliant examples of temples, frescoes, statues, columns and triumphal arches – also huge baths, theatres and aqueducts for the Romans were daring and accomplished engineers. In sculpture the Romans followed the Hellenistic tradition – and built onto it a highly personal, realistic brand of portrait sculpture that was entirely new and wholly Roman in character. And from the excavations at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, buried under an eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, have come superb wall paintings of Dionysian rituals, mythological scenes, and delicate still lifes and landscapes. In this compact and authoritative guide more than a hundred excellent full-color illustrations take the reader through the art and architecture of six centuries in Pagan and Early Christian Rome and her provinces.