Pompeii No.33: Painting Emperor Trajan

In my last posting I dedicated a dining room bust to the Emperor Nerva. His predecessors had been so cruel and tyrannical, and Nerva was so just by comparison, that he was perceived by the army to be weak. Fearing his own assassination, Nerva adopted the popular Trajan, a general of Spanish origin, and named him his successor. Nerva thereby placated the restless army, and soon thereafter died peacefully in his sleep.

click to enlarge   |   map by Mark D. Ruffner

Trajan (53-117 A.D.), a soldier-emperor, was regarded in his own time as the best of Roman emperors, and his reputation has endured. The Roman Empire reached its maximum territory under his reign, and if you click on the map above, you can see the extent of what he controlled. Trajan inaugurated public works and social welfare, and presided at a time of peace and prosperity. The Roman Senate would venerate all future emperors with the words, "Be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan."

en.wikipedia.org   |   trauwerk.stanford.com   |   artflakes.com

Almost all images of Trajan reveal a commanding figure with a low brow and a stern countenance. For my transom bas relief, I've chosen the image on the right. I like it because it's a little softer, yet shows someone who must have been very calculating.

Here's my version of the Emperor Trajan. And below is a perspective of the finished transom.

click to enlarge

By now you may have figured out that the remaining three of the Five Good Emperors will each be painted above one of the three muses on the other walls of my room. I hope you join me for my next posting and the fun of another imperial portrait!

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I posted earlier about a modern typeface called "Trajan," based on the inscription of the famous Trajan Column. You can find it here. Appropriately, the incised names of "Nerva" and "Trajan" are in the Trajan font, which I expanded for spacing.

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Pompeii No.32: Five Good Emperors

The next stage in the decoration of the Pompeii Room is to incorporate the images of five successive Roman emperors. They reigned at the height and might of the empire, during a period of relative tranquility that became known as the time of The Five Good Emperors.

(History buffs and authorities will have to excuse me, since all five reigned after Pompeii was already covered by ash. This will just have to come under the heading of artistic license!)

In fact the Emperor Titus, son of Vespasian, ruled when Pompeii was destroyed. Titus was succeeded by his brother, Emperor Domitian, whose reign was one of terror, at least for everyone in close proximity to him.

art-prints-on-demand.com

Domitian was assassinated, and the Roman Senate, weary of the last several reigns, decided to appoint one of their own, an elderly senator named Nerva, shown above. Nerva was popular within the Roman Senate and a fair and just man by the standards of the day. His surprise ascension might be likened to that of Gerald Ford in our own time.

Nerva (30-98 A.D.) was the first of the Five Good Emperors, and a bas relief bust of him will fit into the niche on the left side of my transom. 

nndb.com  |  sacredantinous.com  |  en.wikipedia.org

Here you see three busts of Nerva, each one more stylized than the last. We can be certain that Nerva had a cleft chin and a small mouth, and perhaps a rather pinched expression. But determining how he really looked is almost akin to a forensics case.

One thing that has occurred to me is that the center bust appears to use the image of Caesar Augustus as a template. I will use that image, but narrow the head slightly and combine it with the smaller mouths seen in the other two busts.

Here's my version of Nerva. Because of his age (65 was quite advanced by Roman standards) and because he appears to have had a smaller jaw, you will notice that I have given Nerva slightly hollowed cheeks. Next week we'll look at the second of the Five Good Emperors, Trajan. 
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Pompeii No.31: The Transom's Central Panel

In my last posting, I mentioned that I was going to paint my dining room's transom to look like the top of a triumphal arch. The little drawing above illustrates the effect I want to achieve in terms of a wider central panel and two smaller panels.

Here are three Roman triumphal arches, and in each of them you can see that the top's center plaque is equal to the width of the actual arch, plus its adjacent columns (It's interesting that there seems to have been a design rule, but then it's an obvious way to aesthetically divide the space.).

The arches, from top to bottom and in the order they were erected, are the Arch of Titus, Rome, circa 82 A.D.; the Arch of Trajan, Benevento, circa 117 A.D.; and the Arch of Constantine, Rome, 315 A.D.

sources, from top to bottom: tours-venice-italy.com  |  ancientrome.ru  |  studyblue.com

click to enlarge

For my central panel, I've chosen a bas relief that's filled with Roman symbolism, though it was actually designed for a post office in Hartford, Connecticut. I've made some detail changes to the original design, but they're very minor.

I start out by outlining the design, then paint light medium tones. I then work into the darker tones, and finally add any highlights.

click to enlarge

In my next posting, I'll be filling the left niche, and what I put there will quite possibly be the major theme of the Pompeii Room. I hope you'll join me then!
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