Page 240 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

art—ancient greece and rome 125

erence served as an elevating agent of monumentality in later took the name LuciusTarquinius Priscus and became
earlier Greek art, reference to, or even quotation of, the the first Etruscan king of Rome. On the heights of the
buildings and sculpture of the Periclean Acropolis Capitoline Hill in Rome, the central peak and religious
became a common agent of monumentality in the official center of Etruscan and Latin Rome, Tarquinius initiated
art and architecture of the Hellenistic kingdoms of the construction of the first monumental temple in
Greece, particularly of Pergamon. Rome, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the same
three divinities who in their Greek guise of Zeus, Hera,
Corinth and the Etruscans: and Athena dominated the central height and religious
Greek Influence on Rome center of Corinth. This cult of the Capitoline Triad
The connections between Greece and Rome are almost became the central cult of the Roman republic and
as old as the cultures themselves, and the origins of mon- empire, and the triple-chambered plan of their temple,
umental temple architecture in Rome were traced by the completed after the Etruscans were expelled from Rome
Romans themselves back to mid-seventh-century at the end of the sixth century BCE, formed the template
Corinth.Around the time the Corinthians were designing for all subsequent Capitolia.
and building the first truly monumental temple in From the Etruscans the Romans inherited the tradition
Greece, the old ruling oligarchy was overthrown and of monumental wood and terra-cotta temple architecture.
expelled from Corinth. When one of the deposed oli- They were also deeply influenced by Etruscan sculpture,
garchs, Damaratus, fled by ship from Corinth he carried painting, and religious and political institutions.The tra-
with him a host of artisans, including terra-cotta workers, dition of Roman portraiture, a paradigmatic manifesta-
craftsmen we now know were most responsible for the tion of an innate Roman fascination with the literal
monumental character of that temple—through their details of history, finds its roots in Etruscan funerary
invention of the tiled roof. Damaratus sculpture that goes back to the seventh
sailed with them to the west coast of century BCE.As much as any other art
Italy and settled in the Etruscan form, the super-realistic, warts-
town of Tarquinia, where and-all portraiture of republi-
Damaratus’s artisans intro- can Rome (509–27 BCE)
duced the Etruscans—who embodies the traditional
became the greatest terra- Roman dedication to his-
cotta sculptors of the tory, family, and age-old
Mediterranean—to the values. And as much as
art of molding terra- any other art form, the
cotta. So, in addition to conception and appear-
developing the first tra- ance of Roman republi-
dition of monumental can portraiture stands
architecture in Greece, in opposition to the tra-
Corinth was also a crucial ditional Greek concep-
source for the origins of tion of monumental art.
monumental sculpture and Through generalization and
architecture in Etruria. Damara-
tus then extended Corinth’s artistic
and cultural influence to Rome itself An engraving on the back of a
through his half-Etruscan son Lucumo, who mirror found on Crete.