The Romans
Like the Etruscans, the Romans were heavily indebted to the Greeks for their art forms, happily adapting Greek models to suit their own purpose, though they had little taste for the aesthetic values that had played such a key role in Greek art. Admittedly, the great heroic statues of the Greeks were highly prized. Many were brought to Rome, while others were extensively imitated and copied, and some of the most famous pieces of Roman sculpture - the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus of Cnidos in the Vatican, the Medici Venus in the Uffizi - are actually Roman copies of lost Greek originals, though they are successful pieces of work in their own right. The Empire's own contribution to artistic development is exemplified by Roman portraiture , which usually eschewed idealization in favour of an objective representation of the physical features, typically showing a bony facial structure, bare forehead, pursed lips and large eyes. Only occasionally, as in the reigns of Augustus and Hadrian, was this image softened. Marble portrait busts have survived in vast quantities, but the bronze equestrian statues - a particularly effective means of stressing the power and charisma of the emperor - were later melted down. Only that of Marcus Aurelius in Rome survives. The Romans also made full and varied use of relief sculpture, not least in the carvings which adorned the front of sarcophagi , their main form of funerary art, and on the triumphal arches and columns erected to celebrate military victories. Some of these, like Trajan's Column in Rome, which dates from the second century AD, display a virtuoso skill and attention to detail in their depiction of great deeds and battles. In the domestic environment, wall paintings were an essential feature, though relatively few survive. In Rome itself, there are the Esquiline Landscapes and Aldobrandini Wedding , and the frescoes from the Villa Livia, while the best examples are those preserved in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum after their submersion by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Some of these remain in situ, notably the spectacular paintings in the Villa dei Misteri; others have been moved to the Museo Nazionale in Naples. In general, a huge range of subject matter was tackled - landscapes, portraits, still lifes, mythologies and genre scenes - while both realistic and stylized approaches to the depiction of nature were attempted.
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