Excavation of Pompeii's wall paintings provides a record of the city's art history.
TheRomans painted frescoes to open up and lighten the space in the interiors ofprivate homes in Roman cities and the countryside. From this came thedevelopment of four painting styles, which provides insight into the stylisticshifts in Roman art.
The four styles were originallycoined by German archaeologist August Mau, while excavating wall paintings atPompeii, which houses one of the largest groups of surviving Roman frescoes.These frescoes were created by applying pigment onto wet plaster and fixing thepigment to the wall. This made for more durable art because it does not wear inthe same way that a painting does if pigments are applied topically.
The first style, popular betweenabout 200-60 B.C., drew from early Hellenistic art in an attempt to simulatecolorful marble slabs. The wall was typically separated into three paintedhorizontal zones and crowned with stucco. The decline of this style occurredduring the Roman colonization of Pompeii, which provided heavy Greek influence,leading to the development of the second style.
The second style emerged andmaintained popularity throughout the first century B.C. when Greek influenceinspired artists to depict figures and structures strictly by pictorial means.Instead of crowning the paintings with stucco, they painted them using shadingand perspective. This style expanded in complexity when they began to paintmasonry, pillars, and columns. In the later era of this style, they evenpainted objects from daily life such as metal, vases, and tables that appearedto project from the wall.
The third style emerged alongsidethe second style during the second half of the first century B.C. leading intothe first century A.D. This style functioned as the opposite of the second,rejecting perspective. Paintings in this style typically included a monochromebackground with small elaborate details ranging from figurines to landscapescenes. The simplicity of this style rekindled an interest in intricate andelaborate details similar to that of the second style, evolving into the fourthand final style in the later first century A.D.
The fourth style revives largenarrative paintings while drawing inspiration from the previous style. Thisstyle uses a palette of warm colors and a textile-like quality to depictfigures and structures, similar to the third style.
These four styles depict stylisticshifts in Roman art and open the door to understanding the prosperity and tasteduring specific times, as well as understanding the Greek influence on the Romans.
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