The gardenscapes represent a clear departure from this trend, as they feature almost no architectural elements at all.

Artists used light, shadow, and perspective to create the illusion of columns, arches, niches, rooms receding and extending beyond the actual wall, and suggestions of a difference between indoor and outdoor space, all within the four walls of the room. The Second Style is characterized by its depiction of illusionistic architectural elements.

Yet although they were painted at a moment of transition, these gardenscapes do not fit neatly into either style. They were painted at a moment when the Second Style of Roman painting was still waning and the Third Style was just beginning to gain popularity. These gardenscapes would surely have wowed ancient viewers with their depth and accuracy of detail, but they would also likely have amazed viewers by virtue of their unusual departure from their artistic context. Since the time of their excavation, viewers have observed that these frescoes are astonishingly lifelike. This grove is said to have supplied the laurel for following emperors’ triumphal wreaths, and there seems to be evidence that there was actually a laurel grove at the site where these frescoes were found. A legend of the time told that Livia was at her villa when an eagle dropped a white chick carrying a laurel sprig in her lap, which grew into a brood of hens and a laurel grove, respectively. It dates to about 20 BC, and scholars are confident that it was hers because the laurels plentifully represented on the walls reflect the importance of laurels not only in the iconography of her husband’s reign, but also in the mythology surrounding Livia herself. This lush gardenscape, a series of frescoes on plaster, adorned the walls of a triclinium in a villa that belonged to Livia, wife of Octavian Augustus. Although thousands of years separate the gardenscapes from their original context, this effect would likely have been the same for the original viewers, albeit for different reasons. Several of my classmates approached me afterward with the comment that they had never seen anything like these wall paintings. Although our class merely walked through an open doorway into the room that now holds the gardenscapes of the Villa of Livia, rather than descending a staircase to enter the subterranean dining room they originally occupied, the work’s effect was still one of transportation and collective amazement.

Gardenscap villa of livia