The Four Roman Fresco Styles

Roman society was that of violence, triumphs, opulence, and poverty, but most of all it was a society that adored the dramatic. From arranged battles in the colosseum to the adoration of generals that destroyed the barbarians, the Romans loved a good story. One way they told stories was through their frescos-an aesthetic style that began with a thick layer of plaster being placed on a wall and then painted upon with bright vivid colors.

Figure 1: Cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale
ca. 50–40 BCE

The Roman Fresco style originated loosely with Etruscan Tomb Paintings but had a stronger tie to Hellenistic culture, although the Romans developed their own distinct styles. The Roman Fresco aesthetic can be broken down into four styles.

Style 1: ca. 200–60 B.C.

The first Roman Fresco Style was from around the second to first century BC. It was a painting style that tried to mimic fancy marble houses by painting fake marble on the wall, like fake brick wallpaper today(although in my opinion better looking).

Figure 2: Fresco from the Samnite House in Herculaneum, 2nd Century BC

Style 2: First Century BC

The second style of Roman Fresco paintings was dominated by an imitation of architectural forms. These architectural forms like pillars, homes, frames, etc were painted inside a villa and gave the viewer a story to read and look at instead of just a marble imitation like in the first style. This style was achieved by an advanced knowledge of shading and perspective.

. Figure 3: Fresco from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale in the year ca. 50–40 B.C.

Furthermore, this style also starts to include more abstraction with the walls including a fantasy reality, shown in figure 3.

Style 3: 20 B.C.– 20 A.D.

As art can follow politics and daily life, this style was especially affected by the first Emperor of Rome, Augustus. He had just taken power in 27 BC and this created an hunger for a new kind of art, art that was not architectural or sculptural. This new style rejected illusions of marble casings or pillars and instead focused on surface ornamentation, human figures, and more abstract ideas. They usually had a more monochrome background with small figures or landscape themes.

Figure 4: Aedicula with small landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, painted around 10 BC.

Figure 5: Polyphemus and Galatea in a landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, painted around 10 BC.

Style 4: 20–79 A.D.

The Fourth style is generally less ornamented than in style 3. It also brightens up with a refocusing on bright colors like in style 2. The bright colors also allowed the paintings to be viewed in dimmer rooms, making them more accessible. It combines large scale panoramic vistas with architectural details found in other roman styles. Furthermore, they are used frequently in depicting scenes of Roman gods.

Figure 6: House of the Vettii, Pompeii, painted around 30-60AD. 

The overall aesthetic of the Roman Pompeian frescos differs widely in the 300 year period. They began with simple illusions of the eyes to show marble and then columns and eded with abstract representations of people, gods, and landscapes.

Sources – Information