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· 15 Oct 2022

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Ancient Roman Art Sculptures and Its Importance

Ancient Roman Art Sculptures and Its Importance

My name is Betty and I am a writer for https://exclusivepapers.net/
I have been writing academic assignments for over 5 years and have loved every minute of it. I love being able to help people with their writing and give them the tools they need to succeed. So here want to share with you one of my work that I wrote for the client. Guess you will like it, like the tutor of my client who graded this work with A+ mark.


Ancient Roman art is a broad topic that comprises art from three different continents, namely Africa, Europe, and Asia. Fundamentally, the first Roman art including Byzantine art can be dated back to 509 B.C.E or earlier. It encompasses broad media spectrum, such as painting, mosaic, silver, bronze work, gem, and terracotta’s among others (Cartwright, 2013). Greeks and Egyptians greatly influenced Roman art. Capturing ancient Roman history, the sculptures explored artists’ creativity and their importance to Roman people.

Ancient Rome was perceived as the most powerful nation on the Earth having sculptures that explored Roman artists’ creativity. In Rome, it was believed that they had original artwork. However, the idea of Roman art, especially the idea of sculptures was borrowed from Greek and Egyptian precedents. As a result, Roman art preferred recycled design from the Greeks. Creativity characterizes the Roman artwork, and it was practically applied in the hallmarks along the streets of Rome (Roman Art, n. d.). The standard form of art found in Rome included the sculptures, portrait painting, landscape, and genre painting (Cartwright, 2013). This made the painters and sculptures produce limited work. However, due to the development of the realistic technique of art, other art forms and methods have been introduced such as low metalwork, coin art, mosaic, as well as bronze casting. The sculptures in Rome represented the nature, gods, evil spirits, and people. Hence, original Roman artwork has been preserved, but Greeks greatly influenced it.

Kings of Etruscan initiated the history of Roman art. They also commissioned numerous Etruscan art including sculptures, murals, and metalwork for their palaces and tombs to celebrate their military victories. The wealthy Romans were very materialistic, and they decorated their walls with different arts pieces, wore artistic jewelry, and placed decorated artistic objects in their homes (Efland, 2017). The Romans flourished the Greeks in the history of sculptures, and they abandoned Byzantine style. Every Roman artist described arts in their own language, symbols, humans among others things. However, this did not tamper with the quality of the artwork produced. The various types of sculptures were a matter of concern in Roman artwork (Tuck, 2015). The statues had defining characteristics, such as three-dimensional, representational, as well as were viewed as a solid form (Efland, 2017). The Romans had the quality to explore creativity in artwork and produce a unique sculpture that could be used in celebrations. For instance, a sculpture that represented Roman gods was curved uniquely and differently from other statues. For that reason, Roman art played the major role in preserving the history through carved sculptures.

The types of sculptures would explore every artist’s language because it showed their creativity in their art language. For instance, the commonly known sculptures involved “stone, jade, wood, bronze, and clay” ( “The History of Sculpture”, n.d.). Types of sculptures were either to represent gods or ancient civilizations. This depended on the material utilized and the value of the art form. The art forms followed two principles, namely space and the mass, and had to use the sculptural design principles that included the orientation, the proportion of scale balance, and articulation (The History of Sculpture”, n.d.). The earliest Roman sculptures were used to represent gods and were made to supply magic to assist hunters. In the kings’ attempt to make them immortal, the portrait sculptures were created with the king’s resemblance carved. Therefore, sculptures played the major role in exploring artworks and artist languages.

The sculptures had devils and evil spirits descriptions as a reminder of the presence of evil to many people in the society who could neither write, nor read. The early Romans made sculptures to offer spiritual support, or honor the forces of the nature, which were worshiped as good or evil spirits (Cohen, 2015). At that time, medicine men wore the sculpture to beg for favors from good spirits, or drive away evil spirits. There was a common belief that the spirit of the dead men could return to the images; thus, the sculptures were placed either inside, or outside the temples and in burial chambers.

Sculptures in Roman art had many roles to play. First, it was used for decoration of public places, public parks, and gardens. Primarily, the sculptures were a reflection of the decorative styles time (Davis, 2018). For instance, Roman explorers could command to decorate the streets and palaces by installing the sculptures at different locations to beautify the country and remind the citizens of their power. According to Smith (2017), the sculpture incorporated the principle of ‘ar?te’ culture that was an indication of society reaching its full potential with beautiful sculptures. So, the role that sculptures played in decorating the country in the ancient times is still crucial in the contemporary world.

Sculptures of humans, kings, and noblemen sculptures were center of attention in that era. This is because they used the finest material to signify beauty and immortality of the kings. For instance, the figure of human was very important as it was believed to be the measure of all things created. The Hellenistic sculptors greatly emphasized on human figures as they were reflection of the changes in their society. Fundamentally, the sculptors could carve human figure in an exact and possible natural way (Doyle, 2018). For instance, a sculpture of an old woman carrying a basket from the market could be sculpted to look very realistic. Therefore, the statues were center of attraction as well as reflection of changes that had occurred in the society.

The country art would gain importance in exploring an artist’s creativity. Such countries included Egypt, the Indus Roman valley, Mesopotamia among others (Smith, 2017). The countries presented an outrageous belief in sculpture. For instance, the “Egyptian art was based on belief in a life after death” (“The History of Sculpture”, n. d.). When a ruler died, the body was carefully preserved and their sculpture was placed along the corridors as their spirit was believed to return. Smith (2007) states that in relief sculpture, every part of the human figure is clearly displayed. The artists had also a tendency to combine features of other creatures to symbolize new ideas. For instance, a pharaoh’s head was added to a lion crouching figure to form the great sphinx. The combination was a representation of strength and intelligence. Therefore, the artwork creativity was explored through carved sculptures.

The artwork was related to tombs due to the culture and beliefs of some countries. For instance, in Egypt, the sculptures of tombs were very common as the Egyptians believed in host spirits. Davis (2018) states that pharaoh and his wife were buried inside the block of stone of those tombs. The most magnificent monumental tombs also known as the pyramid of Giza were built by burying the rulers of the early times. Thus, the sculptures represented Roman beliefs and cultures.

In other countries, the artwork was related to rivers and land. For example, in Mesopotamia, a land that was known to be between rivers, the sculpture was cone-shaped to represent the land in the country. Cut lines used to symbolize the natural movement of water in the regions characterized the sculptures (Davis, 2018). This was a true reflection of a sculptor’s ability to design abstract patterns. The sculptors also used wood to explore the artwork and form a unique design of rivers (Smith, 2017). This was a different type of sculptures since the most common type was carved from stones. Due to the development of types of sculptures, the colorful civilization of artwork has therefore been the greatest expression. This has been achieved by curving sculptures from various materials such as wood, metals, and stones. Therefore, sculptures epitomized ability to design patterns as well as portrayed artwork civilization.

Roman artwork was explored in terms of creativity and sculptures were augmented in the fictitious forms. The forms, space emotion, and the beauty that were said to characterize the artists’ works only gave them a new shape. The creativity dissipated in the sculptures was only designed as solid forms (Rose, 2016). In Rome, there would be original artwork. The sculpture could have gained the fame due to the class of society that appreciated it. The rich people mainly used sculptures for the decoration of their houses or other roles. As a result, there could be a possibility of ignoring other artworks. So, as much as the artwork appeared fictitious, the artist maintained the originality of sculptures.

Every Roman artist described arts in their own language of symbols. Various authors explored other artwork as fictitious as there was no common language of the artwork. Therefore, they lacked a common way for art description because the techniques and the symbols, which they used, differed from one artist to another (Doyle, 2018). The sculptures included monuments since they were big in size unlike the small sized statues that an artist could easily carve.

The fact that sculptures included gods, ancient civilization, and devil and evil spirits could be an indication of fiction in the artwork. This is because sculptures were curved to play various roles and not just represent gods or spirits. According to Kampen (2018), the feminism art history explored art and gender. The aim was to “encourage the representation of women” in the art sphere (Kampen, 2018). Thus, the claim that the sculptures showed gods that assisted hunters seems to be works of fiction.

In conclusion, Roman art explored artists’ creativity in various ways. Moreover, Roman artwork was greatly influenced by the Greeks and the Egyptians. Roman artists described arts in their own language of symbols, and the country art gained importance in the artistic creativity. However, the artwork could have been explored in terms of fiction. This was because apart from the sculptures of the evil spirits and gods, other art history was explored, such as feminist art history.

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