1. MOSAICS FROM HADRIAN’S VILLA
A lion, a couple of cows, and some goats.

2. GOATS & A GOATHERD

3. LION ATTACKING A BULL

4. So tell me about these mosaic then…
These mosaics were discovered in a hall in the Central Court of Hadrian’s Villa that belongs to the second phase of building (125 – 134 AD).
They are made in polychrome tessellated technique:
multi-coloured pieces of imported marble and glass.
a painstaking and expensive process.
superseded the previous technically simpler black and white mosaics.
The naturalistic characteristics present in this mosaics are usually associated with wall paintings of the time.
The Greeks had a strong influence on Hadrian:
he spent lots of time in Athens,
Athenian influence is seen in his architecture plans,
Greek-influenced revival during Hadrian’s reign.

5. STYLISTIC FEATURES
To create the illusion of depth in the scene and volume in the characters the artist has used:
shading,
highlighting,
three-quarter view,
foreshortening,
diminishing scale (of goats towards the background).

6. The Goat Mosaic
The scene is set in a rocky landscape with a flock of goats near a stream.
There is a bronze statue dressed in the Greek fashion with a long tunic belted about the waist.
The statue also wears a wreath on its head,
it holds a bunch of grapes in its right hand,
in its left hand it holds a staff topped with leaves.
R. Hannah says this statue is probably an image of the god Dionysus.
M. Wheeler says it is just a goatherder.
Underneath the statue is a painting that could be of a phallus connected with the fertility god Priapus.
The figure of the deity and the tablet means the peaceful county scene is ‘sacro-idyllic’.

7. The goats are shown from different viewpoints and angles:
The goats set higher in the scene are meant to be further away,
two goats are slightly smaller and therefore further away (‘linear perspective’),
one goat has its rear overlapped by a tree to add the feeling of depth.
there are also shadows cast by the three standing goats.
The trees on the left and smaller than the trees behind the statue giving the impression of space and distance.
The sky is not strongly contrasted and is a lighter shade of the far-ground.

8. THE LION MOSIAC
In the foreground a lion attacks a bull while another bull watches on.
The lighter colour bull leaps back in fear.
The golden colour of the lion contrasts with the chocolate colour of the bull.
Red lines of blood fall from the bulls wound made by the lion’s claws and its mouth.
The scene includes a tree in the front right and a rocky outcrop to the left.

9. A variety of techniques is used to indicate volume and depth:
there are shadows cast by the bull and the lion,
severe foreshortening on the bulls body with a ¾ view of its body from the rear,
shading and highlighting on the bulls horn’s,
the far lighter rock is overlapped by the closer darker rock,
the trees in the background are not as detailed as the one’s in the foreground.