Arch of Constantine - Essay Example

ch of Constantine is a beautiful example of a monument which has a tremendous history as well as a magnificent art in terms of sculptures and styles which decorate it. The Arch was created to commemorate the victory of Constantine over Maxentius at the battle of Milvian. The era when it was created places it in the Ancient Roman Corinthian style of art and as per the characteristics of the art of the era, the imagery used and the characters shown on the building are quite detailed (Strong, 1963).

Strong (1963) also suggests that the detail level in such works of art is quite high and even though many centuries have taken their toll on the Arch, it is not difficult to imagine how it would look when it was first completed and shown to the public. Of particular interest are the sculptures and the messages which are placed on the arch itself. Dimensionally, the arch is about 20 meters in height and is roughly 25 meters in width. The distance covered by the arch is seven meters. There are three archways of which the middle one is the main archway with a height of 12 meters.

The side arches are seven meters and are relatively smaller in width as well as height (Storage and Maish, 2007). It must be noted that as a work of art, the arch has certainly changed over time as things have been added, removed and renovated through history. For example, while there were eight yellow colored fluted Corinthian columns of Numidean marble originally, only seven of those remain today. The eighth original column was taken by Pope Clement VIII in 1597 and that is now in present day Laterano.

This is certainly an irony in art since all the original columns are supposed to have been taken from a building of the Flavian era when the arch was first build (Storage and Maish, 2007). This can be seen as a case of vandalism conducted on a monument which was the result of vandalism conducted on other buildings. Therefore, instead of being a pure reflection of the building arts of the era,