Roman art and architecture was shaped by extensive borrowing, first from Etruscan models, and then from Greek. Creative adaptations, along with regional and local influences made for a diversity of artistic styles, as did the tastes and preferences of individual artists and patrons. The invention of new designs and techniques further enriched the Roman artistic vocabulary. For Western Europe in later periods, Rome left a distinctive artistic heritage, to be blended with other traditions and to be re-used, adapted and imitated in response to new requirements.
In both public and private architecture, many Roman buildings followed Greek models, though with modifications. Thus the most common among the many forms of the Roman temple drew on Etruscan and Greek models. It was set on a rectangular platform that gave it its shape and was accessed by frontal steps, leading up to a porch with freestanding columns. Circular structures were common as well, exemplified by the Temple of Vesta and by tombs of various degrees of magnificence. Some of these were later adapted to other functions - churches, as in the case of S. Costanza (originally the tomb of an emperor's daughter) or fortifications, as the mausoleum of the emperor Hadrian which became the Castel Sant'Angelo, an urban fortress in Rome.
It was building technology as much as architectural style that made Roman monumental buildings the object of marvel and admiration for later builders who no longer had access to the same methods and materials and were not capable of duplicating them. This applied to such installations as aqueducts as much as it did to buildings. The key invention was Roman concrete, a mixture of aggregate or rubble and a mortar made from lime and a volcanic sand. Shaped in molds, concrete permitted construction on a very large scale and could be used to build arches and vaults which covered otherwise unattainable spans. The massive walls of monumental buildings were made up of a concrete core, covered with a veneer of other materials - brick or slabs of marble or other decorative stone. Two surviving monuments in the city of Rome exemplify both the very large scale of some public buildings and the harmony and simplicity of their design. The Pantheon was built c. 120 C.E. and became a temple dedicated to "all the gods." Its circular central space measures some 140 feet across, matching exactly the height of its flat hemispheric dome. The basilica (literally, "royal hall") begun by the emperor Maxentius c. 307 and completed by Constantine c. 327 was a secular building intended for public ceremonies. Though surviving only in part, it still gives an impression of the size and proportions which such structures achieved.
Both types of building, the circular and the rectangular, provided later builders with models and precedent. The design of the Pantheon is found in the central plans of later Christian churches, especially in East Rome. The Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is the best known example. In the West, instances are the Byzantine buildings of Ravenna, such as the church of S. Vitale, built by the emperor Justinian in the sixth century. More than two centuries later, the chapel that formed part of Charlemagne's palace at Aachen consciously imitated the key features of S. Vitale. The preferred model for Christian churches in the West, however, was based on the simple hall-like structure of the basilica, often subdivided into a central nave, flanked by two aisles and issuing in a semicircular apse. The church of S. Sabina in Rome is a fine early example of this type of structure, as are the surviving basilica churches built in the city on orders of the Emperor Constantine.
If early Christian architecture grew from the styles of pagan Rome, so did the visual images that symbolized aspects of Christian belief. In such images as the ceiling mosaics in the tombs below St. Peter's basilica in Rome, pagan motifs continue, but some of them are endowed with Christian meanings. Also other objects, such as the wedding casket of a Christian couple, or the sarcophagi (stone coffins) made to hold the mortal remains of well-to-do Christians continue artistic conventions that were well established in pagan Rome.
The migrations which brought new peoples into Western Europe were marked, on the one hand, by a general decline in artistic and architectural skills, and on the other by the introduction of new artistic motifs. In some regions, East Roman (Byzantine) influence remained strong. But on the whole, the seventh and eighth centuries were a period of low productivity in Western Europe. New stone buildings on a large scale are scarce before the ninth century. The few surviving churches of this period are comparatively small and cramped in design, and we know from particular cases that erecting large stone structures severely taxed the skills of North European builders. A similar decline in proficiency can be observed in such skills as stone carving and sculpting, where Roman achievement had been very high. On the other hand, the refined and intricate decorative patterns which characterized the art of Celtic and Germanic nations also found their way into the artistic vocabulary of Northern Europe, both in architecture and in manuscript decoration.
By the second half of the ninth century, a new style of building and sculpture had begun to emerge and to spread across Western Europe. The term, Romanesque, normally used to designate it reveals its derivation from Roman elements, but its solid harmonies foreshadow the refined art of the High Middle Ages.
Copyright © 1996, The Applied History Research Group
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