An exhibition of ancient sculpture speaks to contemporary audiences in many of the same ways the busts and portraits did to people centuries past. Meet the figures and motifs of the time.
Written by David Masello
Statue of Emperor Augustus on a Throne, 1st century CE.
Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Everyone spoke the same language in the Roman Empire, especially at its height in the second century. Even though the Empire stretched across all of Europe, into Asia and throughout North Africa, everyone living under Roman rule was able to speak and read one language: that of sculpture. While people in the Western realm of the Empire spoke Latin and those in the Eastern region Greek, most people of the time were illiterate, unable to write or read. And, so, sculpture became the way for the emperors of the Empire to communicate with their subjects, as well as for cities and towns to convey messages to the local populace.
Statue of a Resting Goat, late 1st century CE, attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Everywhere a person would go in many parts of the empire, they would be confronted with a visual language. Sculptures of people, both living and mythological, of animals and victorious battle scenes, adorned institutions and public gathering places—bath houses, gymnasiums, temples, libraries, theaters, amphitheaters. Carved marble portraits might stand alone tall on plinths or be tucked into display niches within buildings or lined atop porticos. And now, in galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), 58 of some of the best examples of ancient Roman sculptures can speak to people today.
“Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman sculpture from the Torlonia Collection begins its run at the AIC March 15 (running through June 29), before traveling on to the Kimbell Museum of Art and the Museé des beaux-Arts Montreal. As one of the AIC co-curators for the show, Katharine A. Raff., says, “A point we want to drive home with this collection is that these objects communicated a visual language. One of the biggest stories that gets told in this exhibition is that Romans lived in a visually saturated world—not so unlike the way we do today. There was an analogy between then and now and we’ve sought to establish that in this show.”
The Torlonia Nile, formerly the Barberini-Albani Nile, late 1st century CE.
Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
The Torlonia Collection remains the largest private holding of Roman sculptures in Europe, and it consists of 622 works. Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1800–1886) purchased, and even found on his family property, the works in the 19th century and he created a private museum to house them that opened in Rome in 1870. A comprehensive catalogue that was written in 1880 says of the collection, that is “an immense treasure of erudition and art, amassed in silence over the course of many, many years.” Although the museum remained open for decades, it closed during World War II and, so, many of the works included in this show have not been seen by the public before.