Art

Palmyra is a city that is situated in the desert of Syria, famously known as the bride of the desert. Palmyra is a Greek term for the city Tadmor, which implies a palm tree. The remains of the city tell a lot about its history, and most importantly, its artistic history. In the ancient times, it was a city of great importance to the people of Syria. The people of Palmyra always built many large scale monuments, funeral arts being one of them, simply to honor the deceased. The funeral arts were made of limestone slabs with human busts (Richmond, 45). The oasis, another name for Palmyra, is near a hot water spring called Afqa, which makes it a convenient stop for caravans moving between Iraq and Syria. The strategic position of Palmyra made it prosper in a well established kingdom.

Palmyra grew into a city after being conquered by the Romans, and became known as a city of palm trees. The Romans helped renovate the city, by building new constructions, streets, arches, temples and statues. All these made Palmyra one of the greatest cities of the Roman Empire. However, there were disputes in Palmyra that caused its fall and the kingdom that was being ruled by a queen was replaced by that ruled by a military camp. Archeologists are still working on excavations in order to try and find out the queens palace that was destroyed by Romans and replaced by a military camp (Richmond, 49).

The most striking building in Palmyra is the huge temple of Baal. This temple is the most important building of the first century AD in the Middle East. The building originated as a Hellenistic temple where only as per now, only fragments of stones exist. The central shrine was built almost the same time that the temple was built, followed by a large arcaded entrance in a Corinthian style. The temple measures 205 by 210 meters, and starting from the temple, a street with tall pillars, corresponding to the ancient Decumanus, leads to the rest of the ancient city. It further has an arch monument with rich decorations that are very attractive. The second most largest and important building in Palmyra is the theatre that has 9 rows of sitting that can be increased to twelve with the addition of wooden structures.  It was also built in the 1st century AD. Just behind the theater is a small Senate. Here, the local nobility used to discuss laws and political decisions. Other buildings that can be traced with the history of Palmyra in Syria are the Transverse streets that lead to the Diocletians camp, built by the Governor of Syria, Sosianus Hierocles, with the remains of the large central hall housing the legions standards (Murray, 273). Also the temple of the Syrian goddess Allat, the Damascus Gate and the Temple of Baal-Shamin, were erected and later expanded under the reign of Odenathus.

The Palmyrenes also built a series of large scale funerary monuments, which form what is famously called Valley of the Tombs. The tombs have a series of large structures with rich decorations. These tombs were below the ground and had internal walls that were cut away or constructed to form burial compartments in which the deceased were placed. Limestone tabs sealed the rectangular openings of the compartments.  The extensive ruins at Palmyra reveal the network plan of the ancient city. The Corinthian order marks almost all the monuments, but the influence of Mesopotamia and Iran is also clearly evident (Murray, 275).

The art that is found on the monuments and tombs in Palmyra also reflects the influences of the surrounding Roman and Persian empires. The art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, married Graeco Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences (Downey, Takayasu  Saito, 230). The Roman art and artists was, and still is an outstanding combination in the history of Palmyra Syria architecture. In the first place, Rome was ruled by kings who always wanted a wide range of Etruscan style paintings and sculptures for their buildings and tombs, and further still, to celebrate victories in the military wars.  With the foundation of the Roman Republic, Etruscan influence grew on and as the Romans started interacting with the flourishing Greek cities of southern Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean. This led to the influence of Greek Art and culture. Later, a lot of Greek works of art were being taken to Rome (Stoneman, 273).

The Roman Art never had an important status in Rome, simply because the Roman leaders never took the Roman art as a priority since they were concerned with the survival and military affairs. There was an absence of an independent cultural tradition and this meant that the most Roman Painting and sculpture was highly derived from the Greek art works. In fact, ancient Rome was different from the imperial powers of the ancient world in developing only a limited artistic language of its own. Generally, the art and architecture of the Romans, in relation to the paintings and sculptures, were majorly imitative of Greek artists and influenced by art forms in its vassal states like Persia and Egypt (Stoneman, 274).

It is also clear that the Romans art was inferior when compared to the artistic achievement of the Greek, despite their great success in military. The Romans main objective was to recycle Greek sculpture as a response to their inferiority. This made the Greek despise the Romans so much in the fields of art, for instance, when Romans could go to buy statues from the Greek, they would be given statues without heads, so as to fit their own heads. The early Roman art seemed to be representational, realistic and direct. The portraits both in sculpture and paintings were very detailed and had a lot of implications in meaning of use. However, later during the Imperial age, the Roman artists became aware of the propaganda value, and decided to bring out political messages and implications through the poses and subject matter, especially in the portraits of their emperors, similarly in reliefs and wall painting. For instance, in commemoration of a battle, the artwork could be executed in a realistic style. This realistic style contrasts with that of the Greek artists who celebrated their military achievements indirectly, using legendary symbols (Delbrueck, 43).

The roman sculpture, which was influenced heavily by the Greek statues and reliefs of the Hellenistic period, included statues that are free standing, wall paintings and busts, that are made of purely bronze and stone. Viewers perceived them as paramount because they were designed as public art. Therefore, many Roman sculptures were designed mainly to impress the public which was composed of the Roman citizens and the barbarians. These sculptures communicated to the viewers the majesty and power of Rome. The wall paintings and reliefs of military scenes were highly detailed, on the other hand the mood and expressions of the Roman statues was typically solemn and unsmiling (Delbrueck, 44). Further still, the Imperial or rather the military groups of figures were arranged carefully to exhibit position.

The Roman busts and statues were considered the most important contribution to the sculpture of the ancient times in the ancient Rome. Statues of Roman leaders had been on the display in public places for centuries, but with the commencement of the Empire in the late first century BCE, Emperor Statues made of stone or bronze, were sent to all the Roman territories of the world. The statues served an important function in reminding Roman citizens of the Romes powers. More to that, the greatest contribution of the Roman sculpture to the history of Art in Rome, lies in its replication of original Greek statues, most of which no longer exist. Greek art also receives its appreciation that it deserves from these acts of copying statues and making similar ones.

The Roman paintings in Pompeii and Herculaneum are some of the most surviving paintings that exist. Most of these Pompeii paintings are decorative murals, featuring seascapes and landscapes, and were painted by skilled interior decorators rather than genuine artists, an indication of the function of art in Roman society. The paintings are believed to have survived from destruction by the eruption of Vesuvius in 1879 (Delbrueck, 45). This has always reminded the Romans of the history of their art.

The highest form of painting in Rome was the Panel paintings. These were also found in Greece. Panel painting refers to the pictures painted on panels, either on one piece or multi-piece, usually made of wood, even though rigid materials and metals are used. All Roman paintings, that were movable, were entirely built on panels. This happened till the discovery of canvas. However, most of the Roman panel paintings have been destroyed and the largest surviving groups of panel paintings from the ancient times are the Egyptian mummy portraits. These pictures were executed with the use of encaustic or tempera methods. In Rome, another panel painting that is surviving is the Severan Tondo a picture of the imperial family (Colledge, 436).

There also existed triumphal paintings in the Roman art. Roman artists were commissioned frequently to produce pictures highlighting the various successes of the militaries. Literary, these paintings depicted the battle or rather the wars the Romans fought in details and they were included with the mixed media decorations and map designs to inform and impress the public. These paintings encouraged the fighters during those times and as per now, they exhibit the mighty of the ancient Rome Empire. (Colledge, 445)

In the Roman art there also existed Roman murals that were executed in al fresco and in al secco. Al fresco painting is where paint was applied on wet plaster while Al seccos are the paintings where paint was applied on dry walls. These murals are classified into four periods as distinguished by a German archeologist following his excavations at Pompeii. The first style was the masonry style, derived from the Hellenistic palaces in the Middle East. It uses vivid colors and stimulates the appearance of marble. The second style of Roman murals had a main objective to create the illusion of extra space by painting pictures with significant depth. This included views overlooking a garden or other landscape. This second style later developed to cover the entire wall, creating the impression that one was looking out of a room onto a real scene.

The third style of the mural painting happened to be more ornamental with less illusion of depth. The wall was divided into specific zones with the use of pictures of columns. Scenes that were painted in the zones were typically either exotic representation of real or imaginary animals. Last was the forth style of the Roman mural painting. This was simply a combination of the third and second painting styles (Colledge, 449). It happened during the late Roman art, where the depth returned to the mural but it was executed more decoratively, with more use of ornaments. For instance, the artist can paint several windows which, instead of looking out into a landscape, showed scenes from Greek myths.

In conclusion, the end of the Roman art that marked the commencement of modern art is usually said to occur with the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity and the transfer of the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople in AD 330. Roman Artistic designs still remain in the history of architecture because of their classic styles.  Most importantly, Roman art is not just the art of the Emperors, senators, and aristocracy, but of all the people and citizens of the Romes vast empire, including the middle class businessmen, freedmen, slaves and soldiers in all parts of Rome. Generally, Romes monuments and statues were designed to serve the needs or their patrons rather that to express the artistic temperaments or the artists.