Welcome to our first room dedicated to Roman art! However, the example of Greek art will always remain noticeable and visible in this room and also in the following ones. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the founder of the history of ancient art, attributed no importance to Roman art. He saw in it, as in the art of Hellenism (Room G), only a late form of the all-powerful Classical Greek art. In the course of the third and second centuries BCE, Rome rose to be the dominant power in Italy, and by the first century BCE to be the most important power in the entire Mediterranean area. The Romans were great admirers Greek art and culture. Indeed, a great Roman poet aptly wrote “Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit” (“Conquered Greece in turn defeated its savage conqueror,” Horace, Epistles 2.1.156). The Romans adorned their villas and palaces with Greek works of art (at first, looted originals and then, increasingly, copies). Even original works of Roman art were expressed in a Greek style and with frequent allusions to Greek models.

Today, two and a half centuries after the death of Winckelmann, the scholarly consensus has shifted. Roman art is entitled to a place of honor in the history of art. The Romans did not always blindly copy the masterpieces of Greek art, but instead they sometimes very creatively adapted and combined individual elements of the great prototypes into something completely new. In this way, new works of art of high quality were created, being adapted to the specifically Roman context and the new functions of art in quite different political and social circumstances.

In some art forms the Romans achieved outstanding results. This is especially true for architecture, as a tour of the Forum Romanum impressively proves (Link Rome reborn). This is also true for mural painting, portraiture, and art as political representation in general. Start your tour through the world of Roman art with a portrait, a particularly important genre in Roman art.