Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 128: The Ancient Roman Forum
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A local guide brings the Roman Forum to life with her vivid description.
The birthplace of Roman greatness was in the original Roman market or Forum. Local guide Francesca Caruso brings this common ground between the iconic “seven hills of ancient Rome” to life with her vivid description.
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Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 128: The Ancient Roman Forum
Clip | 5m 21sVideo has Closed Captions
The birthplace of Roman greatness was in the original Roman market or Forum. Local guide Francesca Caruso brings this common ground between the iconic “seven hills of ancient Rome” to life with her vivid description.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThe Romans threw out their Etruscan king in 509 BC and eventually rose to dominate the Continent.
It was here that the first Romans gathered to trade, in what became their Forum or market.
Shoppers strolled the main street or via Sacra.
They worshipped at the temples.
Politicians gave speeches,█businessmen did business█ and there was a wide-open piazza where they hung out much as Italians still do to this day.
Art permeated ancient Rome.
To better appreciate how and why, I█ve invited my favorite Roman tour guide Francesca Caruso to take us back.
This is a city of builders.
Yes, the Romans were really practical people and great builders.
And one thing that█s interesting is that the Romans built a lot for people█not just for the gods█not just temples, but roads, sewers, bridges, and all of their buildings have to have three qualities: all their buildings have to be solid, useful and beautiful.
So, I know this was the political and commercial center, but I can█t imagine what it must have looked like in the day.
Imagine standing here at the peak of the empire.
We would have been surrounded by these immense buildings covered in marble, gleaming in the sun.
All of the bricks here must be imagined with the veneer of marble.
White, certainly, but also an element of color.
I imagine the city as gleaming white marble.
No the classical white never existed in classical times.
We have to get rid of this idea that Rome was a forest of white marble only.
It█s not true.
There was color everywhere.
And then we have to imagine this city and this place completely filled with statues█thousands of statues, maybe in Rome as many as one for every two people.
We imagine them as those empty eyed white ghosts staring into nothing in museums.
But those statues were painted and they looked impressively realistic: painted eyes, painted hair, maybe a skin tone, maybe part of their clothing painted.
So you could say Rome really was a city of art.
It was.
The Romans would never understand how we would have to pay a ticket to go see art in a museum behind a rope or behind glass.
The art that we see in museums today lived with them, around them, wherever they went.
And then, on a celebration day, when they had a big procession coming down the main street.
Oh, it would have been right here.
So, imagine a procession with the prisoners in chains, wagons full of spoils, imagine the trumpets, the flower petals thrown in the emperor█s path, the cheering as they passed.
They also had these wagons full of art that they brought back from foreign lands as spoils.
So, imagine wagons full of statues, and paintings and objects that people here had never seen.
So even the art was shown on these parades.
And the art and the festival and the pageantry was a kind of propaganda.
Yes.
It█s making everything visual.
You█re showing that you conquered, you use art and architecture to say that you█re in power and that it█s better to obey.
Yes, it█s all propaganda.
So just how big was Rome at its peak?
At its peak the Roman Empire went from Britain all the way to the Middle East.
And every inch of land overlooking the Mediterranean Sea was Roman.
And they called the Mediterranean “Mare Nostrum”█ our sea.
Eventually Rome did not refer just to the city but to the entire Roman world.
So, if you had to sum up the key to success for the Roman empire—they█re so successful?
The Roman Empire was successful because of brutal military force without a doubt.
But also an incredible talent for assimilation.
They assimilated other cultures, they admired them, think of reverence of Greece for example.
And Egypt.
They were fascinated by Egypt and its antiquities and they used Egyptian art both as propaganda and as inspiration.
Think of the obelisk.
There are more obelisks in Rome than there are in any place—even in Egypt.
And they█re everywhere today and they were everywhere in antiquity and they stood for the fact that Rome had taken over Egypt.
But there was even an ancient Roman who had a tomb made in the shape of a pyramid so we even have an Egyptian pyramid in Rome.
And when you think of assimilation, they really included other people█s religions The Romans assimilated the gods of the people they came into contact with and conquered.
They actually invited them to come to Rome and protect them too.
So, in the Roman empire you could worship your own gods and keep your own customs as long as you obeyed█ and you paid your taxes.
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Clip | 1m 29s | What began as tagging and street graffiti has evolved into a new art form. (1m 29s)
Art Bites 195: Social Realism, the Art of Communism
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Clip | 1m 51s | The art of Communism diligently promoted the heroic symbols of the state as propaganda. (1m 51s)
Art Bites 194: Picasso’s "Guernica"
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Clip | 2m 54s | With the large Cubist-inspired painting, Picasso put a human face on “collateral damage.” (2m 54s)
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Clip | 1m 36s | With heavy outlines and brilliant colors, Chagall celebrated nature and its creator. (1m 36s)
Art Bites 192: Surrealism and Salvador Dalí
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Clip | 2m 34s | Surrealists explored the subconscious painting everyday images in jarring juxtapositions. (2m 34s)
Art Bites 191: Edvard Munch and Expressionism
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Clip | 2m 6s | Expressionism captured emotions, trauma, and cynicism with distorted and garish works. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 190: Romanticism and Romantic Era Painting
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Clip | 2m 43s | Epic, melodramatic canvases, images that stir the emotions, and an embrace of nature. (2m 43s)
Art Bites 189: Pablo Picasso: Cubism, "Guernica," and Much More
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Clip | 5m 14s | Picasso invented Cubism, captured the horror of warfare, and found freedom in abstraction. (5m 14s)
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Clip | 1m 35s | Gustav Klimt, with paintings like “The Kiss” captured a simmering hedonism in Vienna. (1m 35s)
Art Bites 187: Toulouse-Lautrec
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Clip | 1m 46s | Toulouse-Lautrec painted the turn-of-the-century bohemian scene on Paris’ Montmartre Hill. (1m 46s)
Art Bites 186: Modern Art and the Isms of the 20th Century
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Clip | 4m 31s | 20th-century art was a parade of isms: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism. (4m 31s)
Art Bites 185: Art Nouveau, Mucha, and Gaudí
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Clip | 5m 3s | Art Nouveau went organic with willowy maidens, melting eaves, and an embrace of nature. (5m 3s)
Art Bites 184: Vincent van Gogh
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Clip | 3m 1s | Van Gogh’s wild brush strokes and vivid colors portrayed the world he felt so intensely. (3m 1s)
Art Bites 183: The Post-Impressionists: Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh
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Clip | 3m 51s | Dots, slabs, primitive Tahitian scenes, wild brush strokes, and vivid colors. (3m 51s)
Art Bites 182: Claude Monet and His Waterlilies
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Clip | 2m 10s | The true subject of Monet’s “Waterlilies” is the changing reflections on the pond. (2m 10s)
Art Bites 181: Rodin, Impressionism in Sculpting
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Clip | 1m 27s | Auguste Rodin brought Impressionism to stone with iconic statues like “The Thinker.” (1m 27s)
Art Bites 180: Impressionism, Monet, Renoir, and Degas
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Clip | 6m 20s | The Impressionists revolutionized art with a focus on nature: light, shadow, and color. (6m 20s)
Art Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
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Clip | 4m 53s | Hals, Steen, Vermeer painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs. (4m 53s)
Art Bites 178: Baroque Music, Bernini for Your Ears
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Clip | 2m 5s | This mini piano concert demonstrates how Baroque music can be like Bernini for your ears. (2m 5s)
Art Bites 177: Rubens, a Master Painter of the Northern Renaissance
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Clip | 3m 28s | Rubens painted mythic battles, Catholic miracles, bloody hunts, and “Rubenesque” women. (3m 28s)
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Clip | 1m 53s | Gritty realism, stark lighting, and drama gave Caravaggio’s art an emotional punch. (1m 53s)
Art Bites 175: Bernini and Baroque Sculpture
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Clip | 5m 37s | Rome was Bernini’s gallery where you can see his squares, fountains, and finest statues. (5m 37s)
Art Bites 174: Baroque Art as Propaganda
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Clip | 3m 29s | Baroque art was propaganda for the state or for the Church. (3m 29s)
Art Bites 173: Baroque Art, the Catholic Church, and the Virgin Mary
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Clip | 3m 42s | Pro-Vatican Baroque featured big canvases, dramatic statues, and exuberant architecture. (3m 42s)
Art Bites 172: The Reformation and the Baroque Age
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Clip | 5m 6s | The roots of Baroque go back to the 1500s when it told the story of the religious wars. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 171: Neoclassical Art, the Age of Revolution, and Napoleon
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Clip | 5m 6s | The French Revolution came with art that celebrated liberty, equality, and brotherhood. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 170: Neoclassical Art and Architecture, the Age of Enlightenment
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Clip | 5m 49s | Neoclassical was a stern, no-frills style that celebrated a new age of science and reason. (5m 49s)
Art Bites 169: Rococo Art and Architecture, Baroque Gone Wild
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Clip | 2m 7s | Rococo art featured aristocrats playing in their Baroque palaces and bucolic backyards. (2m 7s)
Art Bites 168: Royal Palaces of the Baroque Age and Versailles
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Clip | 5m 36s | Versailles, with its heavenly painted ceilings, was the ultimate Baroque palace. (5m 36s)
Art Bites 167: Royal Portraits and Velázquez
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Clip | 3m 33s | Painters, such as Velázquez, were paid to make royals look more divine than they were. (3m 33s)
Art Bites 166: Rembrandt, The Great Dutch Master
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Clip | 3m 51s | Rembrandt earned a living painting and told Bible stories with a subtle mastery of drama. (3m 51s)
Art Bites 165: Sandro Botticelli
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Clip | 2m 24s | Botticelli painted big colorful celebrations of the Renaissance like a fertile springtime. (2m 24s)
Art Bites 164: The Medici Family, Patrons of the Florentine Renaissance
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Clip | 3m 27s | The Medici family nurtured and employed the great Florentine Renaissance artists. (3m 27s)
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Clip | 2m 6s | A humble monk, Fra Angelico frescoed exquisite sacred scenes for his monastery. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 162: Early Renaissance Painting: Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico
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Clip | 5m 26s | These painters brought art from medieval two-dimensional to more life-like 3-D. (5m 26s)
Art Bites 161: Donatello and Early Renaissance Statues
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Clip | 3m 12s | The sculptor Donatello gave his proud statues unprecedented realism and emotion. (3m 12s)
Art Bites 160: Renaissance Artists: Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello
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Clip | 4m 58s | Florence, home of the Renaissance, was also home to three early artistic heroes. (4m 58s)
Art Bites 159: The Renaissance Defined
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Clip | 3m 30s | For two centuries, the Renaissance was an explosion of secular learning, art, and culture. (3m 30s)
Art Bites 158: Hieronymus Bosch and "The Garden of Earthly Delights"
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Clip | 2m 7s | Bosch’s three-paneled masterpiece takes you from earthly delights to a nightmarish Hell. (2m 7s)
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Clip | 2m 6s | Weyden’s exquisitely detailed Last Judgment is filled with symbolism. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 156: Pieter Brueghel the Elder for a Slice of Flemish Life
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Clip | 2m 14s | Brueghel was a master of slice-of-life scenes capturing country folk at play. (2m 14s)
Art Bites 155: Oil Painting, an Improvement over Tempera
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Clip | 2m 9s | Oil paints freed artists like Jan van Eyck, Raphael, and Leonardo to raise the bar. (2m 9s)
Art Bites 154: The Northern Renaissance, Flemish Painting, and Jan van Eyck
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Clip | 3m 10s | Flemish paintings were happy slice-of-life scenes, feel-good, and affordable. (3m 10s)
Art Bites 153: Albrecht Dürer, Realism, Humanism, and the Master Engraver
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Clip | 1m 54s | Albrecht Dürer’s meticulous attention to detail was ideal for his work as an engraver. (1m 54s)
Art Bites 152: El Greco and Mannerism
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Clip | 4m 8s | El Greco painted supernatural visions, faces that flicker, and otherworldly altarpieces. (4m 8s)
Art Bites 151: The Age of Discovery: Portugal and Spain
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Clip | 5m 52s | Portugal had lacy Manueline architecture and Spain’s emperor had far-flung tastes. (5m 52s)
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Clip | 6m 53s | Michelangelo sculpted “David,” painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and designed St. Peter’s. (6m 53s)
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Clip | 3m 36s | Raphael’s sweet Madonnas set a new standard in High Renaissance painting. (3m 36s)
Art Bites 148: Building a Gothic Cathedral Out of 13 Tourists
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Clip | 2m 2s | Gothic church design is best illustrated by building one with 13 travelers. (2m 2s)
Art Bites 147: Gothic Church Architecture, the Pointed Arch and More Light
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Clip | 6m 51s | The Gothic Age was famed for its towering churches filled with glorious stained-glass windows. (6m 51s)
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