Today I am going to start with watching “Art of the Western World” episode 2, cause I feel like starting my day yesterday with episode 1 about the Greek – helped me to get back into the topic and I really appreciate it.
Notes “Imperial Stone – The Art of Rome”:
- Rome gave western world practical legacy à architecture
- They didn’t show glorification of war – but showed it the way it was: brutal
- Arch was revolutionary
- New conception of architecture of inside architecture – more space
- New building material – concrete – made all the great architecture possible
- Colosseum seems to be the expression of greatness that all Emperor were longing for
- Bricks had most of the time some sort of signature from who it was built in them
- The Pantheon was the world’s largest Dome for over 18 centuries (and is the only one that survived)
- Greeks gave the western world the incredible architecture for the outside – and the Romans gave the harmonious way of building the inside (lofty, spacious)
- The Pantheon was Paegon temple and Christian church
- Roman sculpture: used to decorate public places, decorate the amphora, palaces, gardens,
museums; Greek sculptures have “survived” as Roman copies; Roman
portrait busts
- To honour Constantine architectures built one of the last triumph arches in Rome
I was able to visit Rome in summer 2011 and I was very impressed by the triumph arch – all the detailed work in frieze and the numerous people that the artist carved into the stone. I didn’t know much about the history of it but I thought it must be some kind of monument for someone, but I didn’t know for who – so this is very interesting to finally know who it was built for – Constantine who also legalized Christianity.
I also visited the Colosseum of course and even I was kind of speechless standing in front of this amazing piece of architecture – and I just wonder what the people of the Roman empire must have thought when it was finally finished and they saw it for the first time. It must have been a little bit like a shock about its giant size. I also didn’t know much about what they showed inside of the Colosseum, I was sure that it was some kind of Gladiator kind of thing but I didn’t know that the Gladiators mostly were slaves, criminals condemned to death or prisoners of war who had no rights in Rome. Just from the first century AD free men started choosing fighting as their profession and trained hard to become Gladiators.
I also had the pleasure to visit the Vatican Museum and I was very excited about the architecture – just walking through the rooms looking up and seeing all these amazing details painted, carved into the ceiling was a great feeling. I am always very excited to think about the fact that I am walking through history that maybe a lot of important people have looked at it just like I did and for me going to a historical place also feels like connecting with art in another way. Of course it was very crowded in the Vatican Museum which meant that I didn’t have much time to look at things in detail so I just enjoyed the inspiring atmosphere of the place and listened to some interesting stories that I heard from people’s guided tours. I especially loved the circular room – it was beautiful and like the Pantheon there was light coming in from a small window at the top – connecting the normal world to heaven – it was wonderful!
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