I am searching for information on what the interior walls of the homes and houses of Romans would have looked like.
I see lots of pictures of floors, I have a book on Roman Furniture, but nothing on how they decorated the insides of their houses.
I have seen and read of some walls with murals, but what about the homes of people other than the senatorial class?
Did they prefer light pastel colors inside, whitewash, dark mahogany paneling?
Any thoughts, any resources you would recommend for me to get?
Books on Roman art tend to be full of pictures of Roman buildings!!
However there are specialist books on Roman painting. Try anything by Roger Ling. Books on Pompeii usually contain pictures of wall paintings, the majority being from private houses and not always of the very wealthy
Roman wall decoration was certainly not plain and even military buildings had the usual explosion of colour! You would need archaeological reports to get details of those but Roger Ling's book on Wall painting in Roman Britain includes a few fragments from military sites.
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
From what I can see the evidence would suggest there is not a whole lot of difference in the kind of decoration you might find in Pompeii and Xanten except that in Pompeii theres a lot more surviving and generally its more complete....
A reconstructed room at Xanten
[attachment=12116]WalldecorXantensmall1.jpg[/attachment]
Ivor
"And the four bare walls stand on the seashore. a wreck a skeleton a monument of that instability and vicissitude to which all things human are subject. Not a dwelling within sight, and the farm labourer, and curious traveller, are the only persons that ever visit the scene where once so many thousands were congregated." T.Lewin 1867
Thank you all for your help. I knew this was the place to ask.
Robert, I am writing about the last decade of the 4th and the first of the 5th centuries AD.
Can you provide the name and author of that book?
Thank you.
It's a great book. Actually there were big decorative parallels between late Roman clothing and interior decorating! If you have old tunics you could easily make them into cushions. Curtains and drapery also have very similar motives.
A. De Moor and C. Fluck eds. (2009) Clothing the House. Furnishing textiles of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries (Proceedings of the 5th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley’. Antwerp, 6-7 October 2007. Tielt 2009.
Thanks for asking. It is not a text, it is a novel about Alaric starting with him as a bandit in the Rhodopes. The story is in the beta read phase and should be going out to agents next month (I hope).
South Shields (Arbeia Fort) put a lot of research into the amazing colours and patterns put into their Headquarters building (Severan Period). If that's not too early and you would like to see the photos I took, PM me with your email address
Moi Watson
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
I've been in two houses in Pompeii, and they really liked their red. Also a combination of red and black, just the color-scheme to sicken a modern interior decorator. :whistle:
Alan J. Campbell
member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians
Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)
"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
