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AP®︎/College Art History
Course: AP®︎/College Art History > Unit 4
Lesson 5: Ancient Rome- Visualizing Imperial Rome
- Digging through time
- Pompeii: House of the Vettii
- Veristic Male Portrait
- Head of a Roman Patrician
- Augustus of Primaporta
- Augustus of Primaporta
- Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater)
- Imperial fora
- Forum and Markets of Trajan
- The Forum of Trajan
- Markets of Trajan
- Column of Trajan
- The Pantheon
- The Pantheon
- Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
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Veristic Male Portrait
Roman Republic sculptures showcased veristic portraits, emphasizing age and experience. Derived from Latin "verus" meaning truth, these portraits displayed wisdom and authority. Later, emperors chose between idealizing themselves or portraying realism, reflecting either ancient Greek or Roman Republic virtues. This visual language evolved over time. Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris & Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- What, if any, is the difference between the word "veristic" and the word "realistic"?(19 votes)
- The dictionary I use (The American Heritage High School Dictionary, 3rd edition) does not contain a definition of veristic, but it does include the word 'verism', from which verist and veristic are derived.
START QUOTE (true to the original except for punctuation):
verism [...] n. Realism in art and literature. {Ital. verismo: vero, true (<Lat. vērus[...]) + -ismo, system of principles (<Lat. -ismus, -ism).}
END QUOTE
In other words, something veristic is a special case of realistic, and all things veristic are realistic, but the converse (if I'm using this term correctly) is not true.(17 votes)
- In earlier videos on Greek art the narrators mentioned that artists used inlay for the eyes. Is there any thought as to whether this veristic art used inlay as well? Furthermore, would this bust have been painted?(7 votes)
- I don't think so. Most Roman sculptures have neither paint traces or inlays. Great question!(7 votes)
- Do we know who exactly is depicted in the sculpture?(4 votes)
- I searched through some art history texts and every time I saw this particular bust, it was referred to only as "Veristic Male Portrait" or "Veristic Bust" so if we do, we aren't using their name when we talk about it.(6 votes)
- Did any artists in Ancient Rome make veristic portraits of women?(3 votes)
- actually at first there were more wemen figures than men figurs(1 vote)
- How big are these portraits? They don't look very big.(1 vote)
- From the author:This veristic portrait is roughly life-sized.(5 votes)
- Would the person depicted in the sculpture been the one who commissioned it? And where would it have been originally located? In the person's home, in the senate, on a pathway to the senate?(2 votes)
- I think these busts/heads may have filled a number of functions. The Romans had private portrait busts of ancestors - real or imagined! (There are contemporary comments that some of those who commissioned ancestral busts really had no idea of what their male ancestors looked like.) Here is a statue of a man carrying two ancestral busts, which must have been heavy. http://ancientart.tumblr.com/post/28728440210/the-ancient-roman-sculpture-patrician-carrying
A head in itself may have come from a bust or from a statue. Some of the statues appear to have had detachable heads. The Romans did commission statues as an honor to important people and leaders. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ropo/hd_ropo.htm
The busts of dead relatives were kept at home where they were venerated, but statues of public figures were kept both in private and in public places. Or semi-public places. The senators would have semi-public parts of their homes where a large number of more or less dependent people (their "clients") would pay their respect regularly. Statues which are believed to show family members have been found in the garden of an Oplontis villa. Obviously a child would not have paid for a self portrait, this is much more likely to have been commissioned by the pater familias. In private homes, statues of poets have been found too - surely paid for by the owner of the villa. I do not know if it was common to commission statues of one self.(2 votes)
- Is there any similarity between us today and the Greeks in the olden days.(2 votes)
- Generally most of us human beings also have one head, ten toes, and two nostrils. Other similarities may exist between modern people and ancient Greeks in the areas of thought patterns and habits of life, but when it comes to language, what they used is all Greek to me.(2 votes)
- How do I cite this?(1 vote)
- Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Veristic male portrait," in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed November 30, 2016, http://smarthistory.org/veristic-male-portrait/.(2 votes)
- When he compares the male portraits to modern magazine what caused us to turn away from making art of older figures(1 vote)
- Maybe because today most people prefer to be considered young and beautiful instead of wise. Look at the anti-aging industry, forever young is a thing today. Maybe 'sex sells' plays into this too.(1 vote)
- At the end of the video, is it accurate to say that veristic portraiture reflects ancient Roman values? Aren't these portraits reflecting the Greek Hellenistic style which was introduced into Rome after the Second Punic War? At that time, many Romans spoke out against the individualism these portraits represented. Cato the Elder decreed that, "uncontrolled self-expression and the cult of the individual would destroy all that was good."
It's interesting that the introduction of Hellenistic art into Roman culture coincides with the rise of the military heroes and demagogues: Scipio Africanus, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar that controlled much of Roman political life until Augustus "restored the Republic" from all the resulting civil wars and strife.
These veristic portraits thereby do not reflect ancient Roman values, but Greek Hellinistic values. Ancient Roman values such as austerity, self-denial and service align with the idealized forms found in Greek classicism.(1 vote)- From the author:have a look at our newest video: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/beginners-guide-rome/v/romes-history-in-four-faces-at-the-met(1 vote)
Video transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Before
the emperor ruled Rome, Rome was ruled by a
republic, by a senate. DR. BETH HARRIS: A kind
of counsel of elders. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
These generally were older men, who had
come from the elite families in Rome. And so when we think of the
people accorded the most privilege, the most power
in the Roman Republic, these were older men. And their age, their
experience, is what counted. DR. BETH HARRIS: And so
we find during this period of the Republic,
especially the period of the late
Republic, sculptures. This sculptor seems to
have taken every pain to record a real sense
of age and experience. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: One
example of a veristic portrait is in the Vatican, from the
very late Republican period. This is just before
Julius Caesar will begin the
process of turning the Republic into an empire. We refer to these as
veristic portraits. DR. BETH HARRIS: That
comes from the Latin word "verus," for truth. And so there's this idea
that they're very truthful, but maybe there's
an exaggeration of that sense of experience
and wisdom and age. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We see a
head of a man that probably came from a much larger
sculpture, ultimately. We see his head is
covered with a toga, which suggests that he was involved
in some sort of ritual. Concern is expressed
through the eyes. Look at the way that the
lips, which are quite thin, are pressed together. There is a solemnity,
there is a seriousness. There is a kind
of authority that is born of the qualities of
the face that we're seeing. DR. BETH HARRIS: As we
look at this shelf with six or eight busts along it,
this face stands out. It's really different
from the tradition that will develop during the Empire. Augustus becomes the
first emperor of Rome and establishes a tradition that
looks back to ancient Greece, and the tendency that
we see there to idealize the human face and
the human body. So this kind of
veristic portrait will come to represent, later
on, noble republican ideals. What's interesting
is that we see, in the later images of
emperors, that they choose to some degree, more or
less, to idealize themselves. So that if they have themselves
portrayed more realistically, they're recalling the virtues
of the ancient Roman Republic. If they idealize
themselves more, they're recalling an
ancient Greek tradition. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
So in other words, this was a very conscious
set of attributes. It was a very conscious
set of symbols that you could draw
on, more or less. DR. BETH HARRIS: It
was a visual language. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
It's so interesting if you think about the way that
we represent ourselves now. If you open up a magazine,
you have young models that are ideal,
that are perfect. And the older are not
given primary status, in our visual culture. But the ancient Romans, at least
for a moment, felt differently. [MUSIC PLAYING]