Abstract
This essay argues that abstract colouristic effects were favoured in the arts of ancient Rome in a manner long overlooked. Taking the wall paintings of Cubiculum B from the Villa Farnesina as a case in point, the article demonstrates that these images display an interest in interlocking planes of colour and shape that might be described as formalist. It juxtaposes this visual evidence with overlooked passages in ancient texts to explore how such effects were conceptualized in ancient Roman thought. What emerges is a model of aesthetic value that foregrounds terpnopoietic planar effects of colour and shape above those of mimetic representation – so long revered as the most important artistic practice theorized in the classical world. This paradigm of visual value is employed in relation to both figural and non‐figural works alike. The absence of these surface effects in the standard narrative of classical art becomes testimony to that narrative's limitations.
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