(piano music) Man: It's clear looking at this. Who the Romans are. The
good guys, and who their enemies, likely the Goths. Lady: And the Romans
perpetrating themselves as the good guys here, and they
look more noble, more heroic. Their features are more idea. The Goths, their enemy, look almost character with puffy
noses, and cheeks, and wild expressions on their faces. Man: Well, their the barbarians, and it's interesting because
that's something that the Ancient Romans are
borrowing directly from the Ancient Greeks. Yet,
this is the style that is pulling away from the
traditions of classical antiquity. Lady: In that we have none
of that clear since of space around them. Instead,
their piled one on top of another. Man: That's right. They've
lost their autonomy in the world. They
don't have room to move. Instead, we have this
dense carpet of figures. We're looking at the
Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus. It's this large tomb.
A huge piece of marble, that has been carved in
this incredibly deep relief. Lady: And the skill of
the carving, I think, is one of the most remarkable things here. Not only is every area of this sarcophagus covered with figures,
and horses, and shields, but there are some
places where the carving is so deep that the forms,
the limbs, the heads of horses are almost completely
off-set from the background. There two to three or
four layers of figures and forms. Man: Well, it's such a
dense tangle, that it actually takes us a moment
to be able to follow each body and understand
where each persons body begins and ends. Lady: And when we look
closely, what we see in the center at the top
is obviously the hero. He is coming in on his
horse. He's twisting around opening his right
arm bringing his horse along with him. Look how
he is off-set against his horse. He looks almost
wild and passionate, but he looks calm. Man: His body is splayed
out. The drape of his armor creates this
radiating sense. He's almost like a sunburst in the
center of this composition. Lady: Yeah and moving at the same time. In fact, everything here is moving. Man: It's almost
impossible to remember that this is just static
rock, because the surface is so activated. Lady: When we look
closely, we see that the Romans look stern and serious. For example: The figure
at the far left. He's charging into battle.
So there's a sense of the seriousness of battle. Man: There are these moments
of moral decision making. Look at the Roman soldier
who has a captured Goth bound at the wrist.
He's holding his chin, he's holding the back of his head, and you have the sense that he's
making a decision as whether to be merciful
or to slay this prisoner. Lady: And strangely if
we look toward the bottom of the sarcophagus the
figures get smaller instead of larger. Which we might
expect for the horses along the bottom are
smaller. The figures who are slaying or wounded
on the bottom are also slightly smaller. Man: It's as if we are
looking down from above some hell. We have a kind
of interesting perspective that's constructed in
here, certainly not linear perspective, but kind of
an organizing perspective that makes sense of this complex surface. One of the issues that
I find most interesting is the way in which the
shields and other elements create canopies that
frame individual figures, and bring our eye deeply
into this composition. Lady: Look at the figure
who we see in profile. Whose head is framed by two shields. Man: That's right. Peeking
through at this wonderful moment. Lady: That dark shadow
behind him, it's really wonderful about this
sarcophagus is the alternation of light and dark that
animates the surface. Where we see the most
shadow and the most deep carving is in the hair
of the Goths, in their faces, and the smooth
surface of the marble is reserved for the Romans,
who are left deeply carved. Man: That's right. That
texture is associated with the enemy and a kind of roughness. Lady: We see more and
more sarcophagi, or the plural of sarcophagus,
beginning in the second century in Rome, and
continuing through the third century. Man: Right. Previously
the Romans had cremated their death, but we know
that by the second century it became fashionable
to bury the dead in the sarcophagus. After all
it does give one the opportunity to create
these monumental sculptural forms. Lady: Artisans have been
trying to identify the figure whose sarcophagus this is, and they have one or two ideas,
but we're not really sure. It must have been someone
wealthy and powerful, because this is an
enormous piece of marble. That would have taken a
very long time to carve. Man: So what we can see
here is a choice to move away from the high classical Greek carving that we associate with
the great sculptures of the Parthenon that
we know the Romans also loved. Instead, we see
the intention been put on the interaction between these figures. Lady: It's important
to remember than in the second and third centuries
the empire was not as stable as it was in 100
or 200 years after Augustus. There's civil war,
there's instability in the empire generally, and
it's possible to associate this style with these
political and historcial changes. Man: It might be too much
to say in the chaotic qualities of this surfacing
to mirror the chaos of the empire. I think
it is appropriate to say that we see a turning away
from the high classical tradition, and the
adventure of a more complex style that is less
concerned with the elegance of the individual human body. (piano music)