Ancient Roman Paintings

Ancient Roman paintings survive chiefly as decorated walls, with further evidence in portraits and painted panels from across the empire. Frescoes from Pompeii and nearby villas use color, shading, and imagined architecture to extend the apparent space of a room. At Boscoreale, painted columns and projecting ledges create the illusion of depth, while walls at Boscotrecase place small landscapes and mythological scenes within broad fields of color. Gardens, still lifes, and stories of Greek and Roman gods connect domestic surroundings with religious and literary traditions. Painters worked on prepared plaster, sometimes adding further color after the surface had dried. The Severan Tondo and Fayum portraits preserve other forms of painted likeness, connecting the medium with imperial identity and the remembrance of the dead in Roman Egypt.