Roman Portraits

A detailed Summary of Roman Portraits


Throughout history woman have most importantly played roles as the mother and caregiver of the family and were not valued as important figures in society that allowed them a right to speak or to be heard. The most notable way in which a person can view and try to understand the role of women and how they were viewed in their society is by observing and studying the art in a certain society. From depictions of women in paintings, portraits, and sculptures, they provide a means of translating the feelings of each society and how much women were admired and believed what position they belonged in their society. The society that took great pride in the articulate depiction of women were the Romans. I believe the examples of this can be seen in these three portrayals; the ancient Roman fresco portrait of Terentius Neo and his wife, marble portrait bust of Livia-wife of Augustus, and the portrait bust of the young Flavian woman. From these three portrayals, I will try to show how the women in this society were viewed by describing in detail the characteristics of each piece.

The wall painting of the husband and wife can be considered as a portrait because of a number of reasons: the character portrayal of the two subjects, the possi


Just observing and trying to study just these three examples of woman portraits as portraying the entire woman population of that time period would be very hard to do and convince others of that fact. Most of this information comes from frescos, records and of skeletons extracted from the ruins of the city. There may be other aspects of these women's lives that we know nothing about which might change our views of the lifestyle and role women played in the Roman period.

The last of the three Roman female depictions is of the young Flavian woman. The feature that is the most obvious and stands out the most is her curly hair. It seems as though she arranged it a pile and situated it on top of her head instead of having it drape down and over her shoulders. Each individual curl is sculpted as being by itself and not a complete single hair style. The only major difference between her facial features and that of Livia would be her larger mouth and her very long neck. Not only is her neck longer but it seems to long for a female feature. Maybe her neck was embellished a little to show elegance.

The portrait bust of Livia shows her facial features from her neck up. Livia, as was usual in official portraits, is shown in her youth.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Livia-wife Augustus, Seemingly Livia, , Emperor Augustus, Terentius Neo, portrait bust, flavian woman, curly hair, role women, facial features,

Approximate Word count = 834
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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