THE EXPRESSIVE HUMAN FIGURE: ARTH 200 Paper

Roman artists of the Augustan age created a new style—a new Roman form of idealism that, though still grounded in the appearance of the everyday world, revived Greek Classical ideals. They enriched the art of portraiture in both official images and representations of private individuals, they recorded contemporary historical events on public monuments, and they contributed unabashedly to Roman imperial propaganda. AUGUSTUS OF PRIMAPORTA In the sculpture known as AUGUSTUS OF PRIMAPORTA (FIG. 6–18)—because it was discovered in Livia’s villa at Primaporta, near Rome (SEE FIG. 6–31)—we see the emperor as he wanted to be seen and remembered. This work demonstrates the creative combination of earlier sculptural traditions that is a hallmark of Augustan art. In its idealization of a specific ruler and his prowess, the sculpture also illustrates the way Roman emperors would continue to use portraiture for propaganda that not only expressed their authority directly, but rooted it in powerfully traditional stories and styles. The sculptor of this larger-than-life marble statue adapted the standard pose of a Roman orator (SEE FIG. 6–13) by melding it with the contrapposto and canonical proportions developed by the Greek High Classical sculptor Polykleitos, as exemplified by his Spear Bearer (SEE FIG. 5–43). Like the heroic Greek figure, Augustus’s portrait captures him in the physical prime of youth, far removed from the image of advanced age idealized in the coin portrait of Julius Caesar (SEE FIG. 6–14). Although Augustus lived almost to age 76, in his portraits he is always a vigorous ruler, eternally young. But like Caesar, and unlike the Spear Bearer, Augustus’s face is rendered with the kind of details that make this portrait an easily recognizable likeness. To this combination of Greek and Roman traditions, the sculptor of the Augustus of Primaporta added mythological and historical imagery that exalts Augustus’s family and celebrates his accomplishments. Cupid, son of the goddess Venus, rides a dolphin next to the emperor’s right leg, a reference to the claim of the emperor’s family, the Julians, to descent from the goddess Venus through her human son Aeneas. Augustus’s anatomically conceived cuirass (torso armor) is also covered with figural imagery. Mid-torso is a scene representing Augustus’s 20 bce diplomatic victory over the Parthians; a Parthian (on the right) returns a Roman military standard to a figure variously identified as a Roman soldier or the goddess Roma. Looming above this scene at the top of the cuirass is a celestial deity who holds an arched canopy, implying that the peace signified by the scene below has cosmic implications. The personification of the earth at the bottom of the cuirass holds an overflowing cornucopia, representing the prosperity brought by Augustan peace.

Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History, Volume 1 (p. 175). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.