File:Roman sculpture from Augustus to Constantine (1907) (14778146821).jpg

Identifier: romansculpturefr00stro (find matches)
Title: Roman sculpture from Augustus to Constantine
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Strong, Eugénie Sellers
Subjects: Sculpture, Roman Sculpture, Greco-Roman
Publisher: London : Duckworth and Co. New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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ally fine portrait in the Capitol (No. 121)should also be studied. If we turn to the portraits othis beautiful mother, the younger Faustina, we under-stand whence Commodus inherited the sensuous traitswhich so distinguish him from Marcus, in spite of thegeneral resemblance of feature between father and son.Lucillas fat, vacant countenance,* animated only by alocik of slyness, resembles those of her mother andbrother—minus the beauty. In the busts of the Antonines we are able to observethat innovation in the treatment of the eye, pointedout by Riegl. It consists in showing the iris as abean-shaped segment filled with two dots to indicatethe points of light.f This plastic indication of thepupil had already made its appearance in relief as early * Museo delle Terme, Mariani-Vaglieri, p. 92, No. 609 ; phot.Anderson, 2156. t In earlier art the pupil had been indicated, but withoutaesthetic significance. It was merely the rigid material imita-tion of the pupil on the eye-ball. PLATE CXXr-
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COMMODUS AS UKltCULESTofitwp. 37i P(ila::odei Conserratnri ROMAN PORTRAITURE 375 as on the Ara Pads, but it is not adopted for singleportraits till the period of Hadrian. It is, however, inthe busts of Commodus that we first find the device usedfor obtaining effects closely observed from the movementof the eye in nature. The aim is to show the glance ofthe eyes by the position of the pupil—while the twodots imitate the reflection of the light in the positionin which the eye is turned. It is this innovation aboveall which imparts such a striking life-like character tothe portraiture from Commodus to Gallienus. The facesnow become animated as never before in antique sculp-ture, and thereby acquire a new psychological quality. In the portraits of Commodus we see the definite andsuccessful attempt to bring into portraiture the samecolouristic effects as in other sculpture. The hair andbeard are deeply undercut or drilled, with the result that—as on the reliefs of the contemporary sarc

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