peristyle framing a tholos temple (FIG. 10-19,right). Linear per-
spective was a favored tool of Second Style painters seeking to trans-
form the usually windowless walls of Roman houses into “picture-
window” vistas that expanded the apparent space of the rooms.
VILLA OF LIVIA, PRIMAPORTAThe ultimate example of
a Second Style picture-window mural (FIG. 10-20) comes from the
Villa of Livia, wife of the emperor Augustus, at Primaporta, just
north of Rome. There, imperial painters decorated all the walls of a
vaulted room with lush gardenscapes. The only architectural ele-
ment is the flimsy fence of the garden itself. To suggest recession, the
painter mastered another kind of perspective,atmospheric perspec-
tive,indicating depth by the increasingly blurred appearance of ob-
jects in the distance. At Livia’s villa, the artist precisely painted the
fence, trees, and birds in the foreground, whereas the details of the
dense foliage in the background are indistinct. Among the wall
paintings examined so far, only the landscape fresco (FIG. 4-9) from
Thera offers a similar wraparound view of nature. But the Aegean
fresco’s white sky and red, yellow, and blue rock formations do not
create a successful illusion of a world filled with air and light just a
few steps away.
10-20Gardenscape, Second Style wall paintings, from the Villa
of Livia, Primaporta, Italy, ca. 30–20 bce.Fresco, 6 7 high. Museo
Nazionale Romano–Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.
The ultimate example of a Second Style “picture-window” wall is
Livia’s gardenscape. To suggest recession, the painter used atmospheric
perspective, intentionally blurring the most distant forms.
10-21Detail of a Third Style wall painting, from cubiculum 15 of
the Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscotrecase, Italy, ca. 10 bce.Fresco,
7 8 high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In the Third Style, Roman painters decorated walls with delicate linear
fantasies sketched on predominantly monochromatic backgrounds.
Here, a tiny floating landscape on a black ground is the central motif.
250 Chapter 10 THE ROMAN EMPIRE1 ft.1 ft.