De italiska folkens förhållande till den grekiska konsten

Abstract

Summary Every scholar who—however slightly—has come to touch upon problems of Roman art is well aware that the most crucial of them all is the intricate question of the extent of the Greek influence that is undeniably present in all products of Roman art. It is one of those problems which are easy to state but extremely hard to solve. Horace's famous words about Greece that captured her ferocious captor and introduced the arts in Latium1 like most famous quotations from world literature are more striking than realistic. We may admit that they are mainly true for his own sphere of art, i.e. literature, but the decorative and figurative arts in Italy and Rome had a far more remote history which decided the course of development of what is commonly called Roman art. The First Contact. Towards the end of the Mycenean age Sicily and South Italy seem to have entertained close commercial relations with Mycenean Greece. With trade went art. Mycenean vases were imported and imitated, as is shown by the finds made ...