Professor Kleiner discusses the development of Third Style Roman wall painting in late first century B.C. villas belonging to the imperial family and other elite patrons. Third Style painting, as Professor Kleiner demonstrates, is characterized by departure from the perspectival vistas and panoramas of the Second Style toward an attenuation of architectural elements and a respect for the inherent flatness of the wall. The Third Style remains popular until the middle of the first century A.D., when it is replaced by the Fourth Style of Roman painting; both styles coexist in the Domus Aurea, the luxurious pleasure palace of the emperor Nero in downtown Rome. Professor Kleiner characterizes the Fourth Style of Roman wall painting as a compendium of previous styles, with imitation marble veneer, framed mythological panels, and the introduction of fragments of architecture situated in an illogical space.

Reading assignment:

Claridge, Amanda. Rome, pp. 49 (interior decoration), 268, 290-292 (Domus Aurea)

Credits:

The lectures in HSAR 252 are illustrated with over 1,500 images, many from Professor Kleiner's personal collection, along with others from a variety of sources, especially Wikimedia Commons, Google Earth, and Yale University Press. Some plans and views have been redrawn for this project. For specific acknowledgments, see: Lecture 7 - List of Monuments and Credits [PDF]