Fourth Style Roman Wall Painting, 1 st century A.D., Domus Aurea Neronis.

The Fourth Style (about 45-100 A.D.)

The construction of the Fourth Style wall decoration has developed from the late Third Style decoration. Architectural elements, working plastically to the eye, like in the Second Style, are applied again. The total painting construction works quite baroque and fantastic to the eye of the beholder and this is why the Fourth Style is also called "fantastic". We can see an entanglement of architectonic elements, carrying small figures, masks, still lifes etcetera. Often, vertical parts of the wall painting are opened to give a view on a portico of rather fantastic working columns. In the upper zone of the painting there are perspective figural motives derived from theatrical wings and backgrounds. Sometimes, whole walls are decorated with theatrical buildings decorated with statues and paintings (Domus Aurea Neronis in Rome; Casa di Pinario Ceriale in Pompeii). The central figural scene is a square piece and is often set into the total wall decoration as a loose piece. The colors are, in contrast to those of the Third Style, very bright and rich in contrast.

The research into the partition in phases of the Fourth Style is rather young and so far, two phases have been distinguished. However, in the last twenty years, a lot of research into the Fourth Style, especially concerning the Domus Aurea Neronis, has been done and has delivered a lot of new evidence, which I hope to comment in a later article on the Roman Styles in Wall Painting.

The Fourth Style is higly eclectic: many elements of earlier styles have been used here. Wall, varying highly in typology appear next to eachother at the same time. Ver globally, as said, we can distinguish two phases of the Fourth Style:

Phase II: the architectural and decorative elements become moer sober and the decorative elements lose their function gradually (cf. Casa del Menandro, Pompeii).

The earliest walls picted in the Fourth Style, to be dated with any certainty, are to be found in the old palace of Emperor Nero on Palatine Hill, i.e. the Domus Transtoria. In 64 A.D., this palace burned down during the great fire of that year in Rome. The paintings in the Domus Transitoria are, therefore, to be given a terminus ante quem of 64 A.D.

The walls of Nero's new palace, the Domus Aurea, are to be dated between 64 A.D. and the year of Nero's death, 68 A.D., or a little later.

A number of walls in Pompeii can, thanks to the great earthquake of 62 A.D., quite positively be dated between 62 and 79 A.D., because of a huge restaurantion of walls operation which had to be carried out there. There is some controversy about the question whether the Fourth Style appeared in Campania (the region of Pompeii) before 62 A.D. or not. Proff. Beyen and Basted claim the Fourth Style to have appeared in Campania already before 62 A.D., because pieces of Fourth Style wall painting had been found in trash ditches made by the Pompeians as a result of their reconstruction works after the earthquake, and thus these pieces have to be dated before 62 A.D. Prof. K. Schefold claims that there was no Fourth Style Wall Painting in the Campania region before 62 A.D.

Outside Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Fourth Style was used in Roman Wall Painting until the first years after 100 A.D. The most important post-Pompeian wall painting evidence for the Fourth Style comes from Ostia Antica (the harbor of Rome) and Ephesus, where it was carried on into Late Antiquity.

Generally, it can be stated that the paintings become more simple as time goes on. Motives are derived from all four styles of Roman Wall Painting. The art of wall painting is pushed to the back by the wall mosaic and the opus sectile, i.e. the decoration of walls by means of marble plates, which was originally used only in imperial palaces, but later on in citizen's houses as well.

Tanaquil