Black-And-White Mosaic in the Baths of Neptune at Ostia (c. A.D. 140). While second-century mosaicists in parts of northern Italy and the north-
western provinces were moving towards a polychrome 'carpet' type of pavement decoration, the artists of central and southern Italy preferred a
highly effective style of all-over figured pavements with black silhouettes on a white ground. Here the god Neptune is surrounded by sea-creatures
in a grand marine cortege.
The same serene and rather lifeless quality also pervades some of the reliefs dedicated by Marcus Aurelius, probably on an arch of 175-6; these
display in addition an increasing simplification of composition and the beginning of a more frontal emphasis for the Emperor, a pose that was to
become de rigueur by the fourth century. All these state reliefs, however, despite high technical skill, mark the very end of the road for the Classical
tradition: sculptors now found themselves in a cul-de-sac, anxious for an avenue of escape from what was becoming routine and devoid of
challenge. The earliest sign of the search for a new sculptural language comes on the Antonine Column base of 161, in two panels showing scenes
of a funeral procession, each with ten foot soldiers of the Praetorian guard encircled by seventeen horsemen.
The combination of horizontal and bird's eye perspective in a single scene is not in itself new, but on this scale it is novel, on a neutral background
stripped of all setting; and the handling of the individual figures, with their large heads and dumpy bodies, also represents a new departure. The
trend towards a fresh simplicity and abstraction of form is further developed on the Column of Aurelius, commemorating the Marcomannic Wars of
172-5 but not finished until 193. Inevitably compared unfavourably with the Column of Trajan, it lacks the involved action, the variety, the attention
to detail of its forerunner. But its designer and sculptors were not seeking to make a duplicate of Trajan's Column. They intended to convey an
impression of war rather than a detailed commentary on it, by presenting fewer episodes carved boldly and clearly; and instead of careful modelling
we find rather flat surfaces, with grooved lines for drapery, and deep undercutting around the figures, designed to enhance the 'black-and-white'
effect of the whole. A yet further stage in the development of what might be termed impressionistic sculpture can be seen on the Arch of Septimius
Severus in the Roman Forum (A.D. 203).
It is easy to dismiss the groups of ill-proportioned two-dimensional figures with their heavily drilled hair and clothing as naive and degenerate