Beth Severy-Hoven
February 22, 2004
Classics 370: Roman History
Article Review

Allison, Penelope M. "The relationship between wall-decoration and room-type in Pompeian houses: a case study of the Casa della Caccia Antica," Journal of Roman Archaeology 5 (1992) 235-49.

In this article, Allison challenges trends in the study of Pompeian houses and wall-painting. As she briefly documents, scholars often assume that the style of painting found in a room reflects chronology, that is, when the fresco was painted, rather than the use of the room. In turn, room functions are often assigned based on terms found in Roman literature. Allison points out that rooms of similar size and location across many houses are often decorated similarly. She thus argues that room-type or function played a more important role than date of composition in determining the paintings now visible in Pompeii.

Allison proves her thesis about decoration and room-types by focusing on one Pompeian house. Coin impressions found in the plaster of the atrium of the Casa della Caccia Antica, as well as "analyses of the plaster, the 'painter-workshop', and the iconography" of the home's other paintings, reveal that all of the rooms were painted between 71 and 79 CE (Allison, 236). Thus, dramatic differences in decoration between rooms cannot be explained by differences in date. She proceeds to describe in detail the size, architectural arrangement and decoration of seven rooms in the house. For each, she also identifies rooms in other houses of comparable size, position and decor, or rooms similarly decorated but of differing sizes or architecture. On the whole, she finds a close correlation between the size, shape and location of rooms and their decoration. The only notable exception is a type of theatrical scene found in a room off the atrium in this house, but in rooms off the garden in other houses, as well as in an atrium, and even in a public bath complex.

Overall, I found Allison's presentation convincing, but limited. Her evidence demonstrates a clear correlation between fresco decoration and room size, shape and location within a house, and to that extent she successfully calls into question interpretations of date based on decoration. On the other hand, despite a harsh critique she gives of other scholars who blithely use terms for rooms found in written sources, she herself uses those terms, and she provides little analysis of how we might interpret the physical evidence to identify how rooms were used instead. She makes a few general observations, such as that "light decoration...with small panels, scant architecture, and no opening of the wall, was considered appropriate for small, closed, presumably private rooms off the atrium," and that "elaborate architectural decoration was appropriate for more open, accessible, public rooms" (Allison, 247). As Allison notes in her introduction, however, other scholars have already made very similar observations (Barbet 1985, Corlàita Scagliarini 1974/6). She concludes the paper by calling for a "more rigorous examination of the relationship between decoration and room function" based on a better understanding of how rooms were used, an understanding that may come from her doctoral research on the distribution of artifacts in rooms of Pompeian houses.

For the purposes of my paper on the House of the Vettii, Allison's schema of light decor for private spaces and elaborate decor for public spaces probably oversimplifies. Few rooms in the Vettii house are decorated simply. Her work does encourage me to look for parallels in the decoration and architecture of rooms elsewhere in the ancient city, however, and some of her citations may prove useful as well. Most importantly, her careful analysis of one house, room by room, provides a nice model, and I have learned through this article how scholars describe certain details in wall-painting. My next step will be to describe the key rooms of the Vettii house using this terminology, and as I go to make a list of comparanda that I will want to look for elsewhere in the art of the city or in art more generally.

works cited

Barbet, A. La peinture murale romaine (Paris, 1985).
Corlàita Scagliarini, D. "Spazio e decorazione nella pittura pompeiana," Palladio 24-26 (1974-76) 3-44.

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