Pictura ornamentalis Romanaanálisis y sistematización de la decoración pictórica y en estuco de Augusta Emerita

Zusammenfassung

This doctoral thesis analyses the pictorial and stucco production in Augusta Emerita that developed in the city between the end of the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD. Roman wall painting is a material source that allows us to understand aspects related not only to the tastes and fashions of society, but also to economic, chronological, architectural and functional aspects, given the multiple implications involved in the execution of a pictorial work. In this way, their study helps us to reconstruct the dynamics of resource, commercial and cultural exploitation through the identification of workshops, whether Italic or local, the use of specific techniques and pigments, the organisation and identification of the use of the spaces through the ornamental programmes and their iconographic programme, the existence of phases of remodelling and their dating, and the economic level of the owners. On the basis of all this, and taking our previous knowledge of wall painting in Merida as a starting point, we have set out a series of objectives aimed at identifying the workshops, studying their production from a technical, compositional and ornamental point of view and carrying out archaeometric analyses to determine the materials used, their origin and the way they were captured, in order to obtain a global and comprehensive view of Roman wall painting in Merida. To achieve this, we have proposed a methodology that approaches the painting from four different interrelated perspectives, starting from the basis of previous studies, but updating those aspects that advances in research and new technologies have allowed us to improve. Thus, we have developed the procedures to be followed in field work for the extraction and storage of the painting; and in the laboratory with the cleaning and puzzle of the fragments and the technical, compositional and archaeometric study. In addition, we have proposed a deontology of restitution to establish the criteria to be followed when carrying out the graphic section. Finally, we have included good practices for the restoration and enhancement of wall painting with a view to its dissemination. On this basis, we have proceeded to analyse all the pictorial decoration documented in the city to date, including both ancient and recently discovered paintings, applying the methodological tools necessary in each case to obtain a global and complete vision of its development during the Early and Late Empire. Prior to the study, we have set out a general analysis of the geographical and historical-archaeological context of the city in the selected time frame to enable us to understand the transformations that took place and to relate them to the evolution of pictorial production. Likewise, for a correct reading, each of the analysed sets has been placed in relation to the space to which it corresponds, having identified paintings in public, private, cult, funerary and rubbish dump areas, also tracing the development and transformation of each of them. These have been analysed on the basis of technical-descriptive and compositional aspects, proposing a dating and restitution when possible. The results obtained have revealed the existence of a rich pictorial panorama during the entire period covered, which is far removed from the data available to date and which places Augusta Emerita as one of the most important enclaves for the study of Roman pictorial production in Spain. Thus, the new finds reveal the existence of an extensive production of italic workmanship that points to the presence of craftsmen from Italy from the time of the foundation of the city at the end of the 1st century BC, and which finds parallels in the pictorial work of Rome and Campania. This demonstrates the territorial circulation of workshops, techniques of execution and compositional cartons, as well as the involvement of the Vrbs in the development of the city from the very beginning, the traces of which can also be seen in the neighbouring territories. From the second half of the 1st century AD and especially during the Flavian period, the transformations in the socio-political and economic dynamics of the Empire favoured a change in the tastes and fashions of the Augusta Emerita society, leading to a major urban remodelling that is visible from the remains identified in the city's rubbish dumps and the appearance of local workshops. From this time onwards and during the 2nd century AD, pictorial production underwent a renewal in its decorative repertoire which tended to gradually distance itself from that of the 1st century AD, generating its own vocabulary in the provinces which in Augusta Emerita adapted to the productions developed in the rest of Hispania at this time, once again leaving its mark on the nearby towns. Together with this, the existence of a local workshop for relief decoration in the Flavian period, only attested in Carthago Nova, as well as the use of a system for attaching esparto grass to the cornices also at this time and whose cultivation did not occur in the ager Emeritensis, corroborate the existence of close commercial links and the transit of people with the southeast of the peninsula. Between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, pictorial production once again underwent a transformation, the beginnings of which can be identified as early as the end of the 2nd century AD, marked once again by the social, political and economic changes that took place after the crisis of the 3rd century AD, in which pictorial decoration was limited to the minimum, in some cases non-existent. With the recovery at the end of the 3rd century AD and the new boom that the city experienced in the 4th century AD, with its designation as the seat of the Diocesis Hispaniarum, we witness a new turning point that will favour the development of new pictorial sets by another generation of local craftsmen. Now, an iconographic programme that sought self-representation and exaltation of the owner, drawing on the models of late Republican painting, but with a very different aesthetic and technical quality, was once again visible both in the city itself and in the surrounding area. This broad evolution highlights the great importance of the city during its long development, also a consequence of its status as a provincial capital, both for the attraction of italic workshops and for the generation of local workshops, the traces of which can be seen throughout the public and private buildings of five centuries. Together with this, the transformations in the ornamental repertoire and the changes in fashions, which are reflected in the various political and cultural stages of the city and the Empire, confirm the idea that pictorial production is a reflection of the societies of the time.