The Romans made many contributions to art and design, especially architecture. They copied Greek and Etruscan styles and advanced masonry techniques to create grand structures like the Colosseum, an amphitheater in Rome that could hold 50,000 people. Roman art also included painting scenes from everyday life and mythology, as well as sculptures that excelled at portraiture and narrative relief scenes. Coins and medallions produced by Romans provide valuable historical information through their iconography and inscriptions.

1. Roman Art/Design
Joyce Teoh Mei Kuan | Diploma in Film & TV
Roman Art/Design
The Roman City State dominated the Western World in the 8th
Century BC. The Roman Empire ruled
beyond their borders and brought their laws, religion, customs, and their language, Latin. The
Romans had admired Greek sculpture and copied their style of form. They also copied and learned
from the Etruscans who were engineers and town planners to create arches and masonry techniques.
Architectures
The greatest contribution of Romans to the arts was architectural design creating arches, vaults and
concrete, e.g. the Colosseum in Rome. It was an
amphitheater built in 80 AD. The building used
Classical Doric (first story), Ionic (second), and
Corinthian (third) style columns, Three Emperors
helped to build it including Vespasian, Titus and
Domitian. The amphitheater was used as a space for
dramas, executions, battles between animals and
gladiators. It can fit 50,000 Romans. There were eighty entrances.
Painting
The Ancient Romans lived in a highly visual society, surrounded by
images. Roman painting provides a wide variety of themes: animals,
still life, scenes from everyday life, portraits, and some mythological
subjects. During the Hellenistic period, it evoked the pleasures of the
countryside and represented scenes of shepherds, herds, rustic temples, rural mountainous
landscapes and country houses. Erotic scenes are also relatively common. In the late empire, after
200 AD, early Christian themes mixed with pagan imagery survive on catacomb walls.
Sculpture
Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece. In the
late 20th
century, Roman art began to be re-evaluated on its
own terms: some impressions of the nature of Greek
sculpture may in fact be based on Roman artistry. The
strengths of Roman sculpture are in portraiture, where they
were less concerned with the ideal than the Greeks of
Ancient Egyptians, and produced many very characterful works, and in narrative relief scenes.
Coins and Medals
Few Roman coins reach the artistic peaks of the best Greek coins, but they survive
in vast numbers and their iconography and inscriptions form a crucial source for
the study of Roman history. They produced medallions too which are similar to
coins, though larger and usually finer in execution. Coin
Medallions