Roman Art

Liam Madden
Dr. Long and Jordan Vinyard
World Thought 2
06 October 2014

Art is a visual media which can capture the imagination of everyone in many different ways. Every new piece of art brings new ideas and metaphors to the mind and how it portrays the feelings and personalities of different people and their cultures. This can be based on the artists themselves or the figures in the art which allow for them to be viewed more deeply. Such types of art which this relates to which also have many similarities and differences include Roman, early Christian and Islamic Art. I will aim to explore these differences and similarities in more detail and describe how these time periods influenced the types of
The main forms of art which dominated in this time period were paintings, sculptures and even architecture. The basis of which the Roman Empire worked was one of strength and power with it being one of the most dominant nations on earth. They had the lead on every other country in the world in terms of military resources and their architecture was truly exceeding everything which had been seen before. Many of their art pieces take this form with strong, dominant looking statues being very prominent which symbolized the way the Roman Empire ruled much of Europe at the time. One of the greatest pieces of architecture the world has seen is the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. Made of purely concrete, it is truly a terrific piece of engineering and is the largest Colosseum in the world even today. This extraordinary structure only exemplifies how strong and powerful the Roman Empire was as a civilization that they were able to create such a powerful structure. Other art forms used during the period of the Roman Empire include various types of statues of roman leaders which were common due to the Romans having an emperor to look up to and admire. These statues were used on street corners and were used by wealthy citizens at gatherings etc. to show loyalty and tradition. Many Roman statues are now on display at museums in some of the largest and
They both show the strong powerful figure of someone to put their beliefs in and put their admiration towards, in this case God is the main representation to the Christian faith and is the figure head of early Christian art. Christians have a very strong belief in their God, particularly in the early era of Christianity and he is seen as the leader of all humanity. This strong hold on the people allows every image of Christ to be worshiped and admired by all Christians, just as the Romans were also able to do with their leading emperors. In many ways, early Christians merely continued on the traditions of many of the traits which were carried by the Romans. However Christians were wary of being persecuted for showing their beliefs publicly through the media of art. Another similarity between Roman and Christian art was the introduction of catacombs. These were religious passageways underground, situated on the outskirts of Rome and many other cities, which were used to bury the dead. Created and decorated by Christians, these catacombs had all types of different arts within them such as paintings and statues of Christ as this was a very religious setting. Byzantine art is also a media which is another similarity between Roman and Christian art. This type of art originated with the Roman Empire and is a very serious and formal type of art. Mainly paintings, these art pieces frequently portray the