Art of Ancient Rome

Hi class!

Today we are moving away from Greece and move on to its neighboring nation — Rome (which is modern times is in Italy).

The Roman Empire was the most powerful nation of its time as it conquered nearly all of Europe, thanks to its highly-trained and highly-disciplined Roman army.

They are nearly undefeatable because they are master strategists in the art of war. With that in mind, they have the toughest celebrities of all time — the gladiator!

Gladiators are mostly slaves or prisoners fighting for their own lives within the arena, all for the sake of the entertainment of Roman citizens. Much of their battles were fought in the Colosseum!

The Colosseum is one the greatest and most popular architecture in Rome. Apart from that, they also built aqueducts, which brings water all the way from a water reservoir far, far away straight into your very homes to fill your fountains and hot baths!

But today’s lesson will focus on one of Ancient Rome’s greatest contribution to Art History — mosaics!

Nearly every ancient Roman villa were adorned with mosaics. These are made up of tesserae. These are colored rocks or glass that are cut down into cubes and arranged together like puzzle pieces to form an image. They are placed onto wet plaster and sanded down to even the surface. It is a very meticulous and very time-consuming process!

Today you will be making your own mosaic using colored paper.

If you don’t have colored paper, paint some. Be sure you have planned out what your mosaic will look like beforehand so you can determine which colors you need and estimate how much colors you need.

Once your painted paper is dry, take a ruler and draw some vertical lines and horizontal lines to make a graph-like markings of your paper tesserae.

Cut them out using scissors OR a hobby knife. Either will be fine.

Once again, you should already have a plan before beginning this activity. In the picture below, I drew a rabbit with carrot beforehand and laid out what colors I’ll put in to help me remember which colors go where.

Put the glue first before laying down your tesserae. If there are spaces that needs to be filled, but your tesserae is too big and too square, cut them accordingly to the shape that will fill out those spaces.

Come up with your own design and color schemes.

Submit your work before the end of May, and persevere! … like a Roman legionnaire.

Have fun!