Introduction to Roman Art and Architecture

From ZuluNotes - Free Leaving Cert Notes

The Architecture of Ancient Rome adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for their own purposes, which were so different from Greek buildings as to create a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture. Sometimes that approach is productive, and sometimes it hinders understanding by causing us to judge Roman buildings by Greek.[1]

As this is rarely a direct question on the leaving cert, this page consists of brief notes.

Contents

The Column

There were three types of Roman column designs.

  1. The Doric Column
    1. It was always made five and a half times the height of it's lower diameter
    2. It's capital was plain
  2. The Ionic Column
    1. This is narrower and taller than the Doric column
    2. The capital has a design of ram's horns
  3. The Corinthain column
    1. It has an Ionic base and shaft
    2. Which is surmounted by an inverted bell shape capital surrounded by rows of Acanthus leaves

The Arch

The arch was originally invented by the Greeks, but developed by the Romans. The key features include:

  • It was built using mainly a curved lintel
  • The were used heavily to span wide areas (see Roman Bridges, Roman Aqueducts)
  • They were self supporting

The Romans developed the arch into three further designs;

  1. The barrel vault
  2. The cross/groing vault
  3. The dome

There are many uses of the arch/vault/dome to be found:

Materials

  1. Tufa - In the ancient world, tufa's relative softness meant that it was commonly used for construction where it was available. Tufa is common in Italy, and the Romans used it for many buildings and bridges. The Servian Wall, built to defend the city of Rome in the 4th century BC, is built almost entirely from tufa.
  2. Travertine - This is a limestone based sedimentary rock. The largest building in the world constructed largely of travertine is the Colosseum
  3. Concrete - This was the most important development made for Roman construction, and allowed it's architecture to flourish!

References/Sources

  1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Art_and_Architecture
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