The Appian Way was one of the first and most important roads built in Rome. It is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, The Roman censor who began and completed the first section of the road. The road began in the Roman Forum and stretched all the way to Brindisi (Wikipedia). It was an outstanding 375 km long upon its completion (Blue Book pg 485). The Appian Way began as a leveled dirt road, stones and mortar were then laid. The Romans being the master builders that they were then topped the road with tight fitting stones to provide a flat surface. It was even said that a knife could not fit between the stones, they were fitted so well (Wikipedia).
As i was riding my bicycle i wondered what possessed the Romans to build this road, upon reading about the Appian way i found out that it was first built with military aspirations. It made it easier for the Romans to keep look out and ambush attackers. We actually saw one of the look out posts that were used in ancient times. The Battle of Anzio in World War II was a more recent battle that took place along that road (Wikipedia). However the road was used for many other things I learnt as we road along it. It was even the sight of the men's marathon during the 1960 Summer Olympics.
There were also many tombstones and monuments on the side of the road, i found this quite strange but the more I thought about it, it was not strange at all. Friday nights in the summer I would take the train and emerge in Times Square, New York City. The first thing that caught my eye was the enormous poster of Jay Z. His face was plastered across a skyscraper. Even though part of the purpose of this billboard is advertising, I also see it as a tribute to how great/successful Jay Z is. The tombstones on the side of the road did exactly this. As people walked past they would marvel at the different tombstones and say to one another how great that person must have been. Their tombstones were our billboards to how much that person had accomplished.
The Medusa Head is a work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and was created between 1630 and 1640, it did however have to be restored. The marble head was 68 cm (26 3/4 in.) in height and stands proudly in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in the Capitoline Museum.
When we look at other sculptures of Medusa we can see how very unique Bernini's sculpture is. The original Medusa by Phidias, a Greek in the 5th century BC shows a very calm, beautiful monster, a bit of a contradiction. Someone with snakes for hair that can turn people to stone with their eyes in my mind is not calm and emotionless. That is why Bernini's sculpture is so much more realistic, it shows anguish and pain.
What made Bernini take this classic and change it? I would think it had to do with the time that he lived in and the art that was going on during this time. Bernini was a prominent artist in the Baroque movement. This is an artistic style that is characterized by dynamic movement, over emotion and self-confident rhetoric (Wikipedia). The Baroque style was so popular because of the support of the Roman Catholic Church, they decided that art and religion should send similar messages and commissioned a lot of works. We can clearly see the effect of the Baroque style on the sculpture when we compare it to the previous Medusa from so many years ago.
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