What is your theory on why verism in their art is so important to the Romans?

What is your theory on why verism in their art is so important to the Romans?



Before Roman art, Greek art, sculptures were in a way, perfect, and those who were being sculpted were made to look like gods. Although Greek art greatly influenced roman art one aspect of roman art was greatly different. The Romans did not carry on all the same ideas that the Greek art introduced, instead the Romans seemed to embrace the idea that people were not god like and they were determined to show it through their sculptures. Verism is a term used to describe a type of art work which shows all the imperfections of the subject, which is exactly what the Romans did. The Roman sculptures were in no way always sculptures of godlike beautiful people, instead there were sculptures of elderly, sick, unattractive and simply average people. I think one reason they did this was because they no longer thought of their subjects as gods and because of this there was no need to sculpt them as if they were. I also think that the public wanted to truly know what their leaders and such actually looked like. It may not have been as important that their leaders looked like gods, but instead, it was more important that the sculptures looked like the actual people being sculpt. I think that the Romans realized that it was important that the sculpture looked like the subject, even if that meant that they would have to include the subject’s imperfections. They may have thought that in order to make a truly artistic and realistic piece of art work they must truly sculpt the subject, “warts and all”.