But the piece is not beautiful in the conventional sense. It is realistic in its slightly unbalanced facial formulation. The emperor Marcus Aurelius is slightly bearded, with unruly, curly hair. His small and slightly bulbous nose is not the idealized, hawk like profile favored by the elites in their portraiture. His thick, curly hair also stands up from the forehead, making the subject look more ordinary than domineering, as might a more prominent and protruding skull shape. If the gazer did not know the subject's identity, the depicted emperor would seem like an ordinary, rather unattractive man. Thus, despite the fact he was an emperor, evidently the Stoic Aurelius eschewed idealism in his official stone portrait. He had no need to lionize himself in image -- his face was already on every coin of the real. Thus, it is interesting to compare this man with the "Portrait Bust of a Woman" also likely from the same period in Roman History. This portrait of an anonymous Roman matron was sculpted to convey the impression of a woman with...
The woman looks both decorous as befitting a married woman, yet lovely to the gazer's eye. She is perhaps part of the aspiring class of wealthy elites, as described in Roman Art, for the portrait evidently desires to say something positive about the woman's character and her social position, rather than to merely convey her image. She is not haughy in appearance, because humility was valued in Roman women, but clearly because of her clothing and her soft facial features she is a woman of leisure, of good birth, and with enough financial resources to commission a portrait, even if she is anonymous.
Sistine Modonna and the Swing Paintings The Swing and the Sistine Madonna are both masterpieces of their era, long lasting in both technical success and celebration of their chosen subjects. Raphael and Fragonard approach their sources with deliberate composition through color, texture, lines and shapes, creating images of powerful resonance. The Sistine Madonna tells the story of great abandonment and celebration of lavish sensuality, while the Sistine Madonna explores the
The artworks prevalent during the early Middle Ages in many ways stand between these two extremes. The art of this period was one that was both religiously inclined but also celebrated the human form and human nature that was to become so prominent in the Renaissance. In many ways much of early Medieval art was similar to the abstract and decorative art that we find in Islamic examples. An example
Eyes Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Sculpture Different cultures see the world in different ways. Religion, society, and even politics, shape our views, and give form to our human environment. Architecture, music, literature, dress -- all are visible manifestations of a people's values. This is no less true in the realm of sculpture. A religious people will create works of art that express its most deeply held spiritual beliefs; a cerebral people,
Roman Sarcophagi sculptures, one sarcophagus of portraying Roman deity as portrayed on the Sarcophagus with the Indian Triumph of Dionysus' triumphal return from India, contrasted with the other the Sarcophagus Depicting a Battle between Soldiers and Amazon made for a military leader. During the second and 3rd centuries, inhumation became more and more used than cremation, and this created a push for a greater need for sarcophagi, as the departed
This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to differentiate when the actual Roman work first emerged that stood on its own apart from the Etruscan works. It is also true that the time periods overlapped, and something is only known as Roman because it is consists of specific Roman items such togas. Both the Etruscan and the Roman bronzes had very fine detail in the folds of
(269) It would seem that the artists and the press of the era both recognized a hot commodity when they saw one, and in this pre-Internet/Cable/Hustler era, beautiful women portrayed in a lascivious fashion would naturally appeal to the prurient interests of the men of the day who might well have been personally fed up with the Victorian morals that controlled and dominated their lives otherwise. In this regard, Pyne
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