Verism

Verism is the artistic preference of contemporary everyday subject matter instead of the heroic or legendary in art and literature; it is a form of realism. The word comes from Latin verus (true).

Verism first appeared as the artistic preference of the Roman people during the late Roman Republic (147–30 BC) and was often used for Republic portraits or the head of “pseudo-athlete” sculptures. Verism, often described as "warts and all", shows the imperfections of the subject, such as warts, wrinkles and furrows. It should be absolutely noted that the term veristic in no way implies that these portraits are more "real". Rather, they too can be highly exaggerated or idealised, but within a different visual idiom, one which favours wrinkles, furrows, signs of age as indicators of gravity and authority. Age during the Late Republic was very highly valued and was synonymous with power as one of the only ways to hold power in Roman society was to be part of the Senate. Yet to be on the Senate a Roman patrician had to be at least forty-two years of age, which in relation to ancient times was considered mature stage of life.

It is debated among scholars and art historians about whether these veristic portraits were truly blunt records of actual features or exaggerated features designed to make a statement about a person’s personality. As it is widely believed in academia that in the ancient world physiognomy revealed the character of a person the personality characteristics that were seen in veristic busts expressed certain virtues that were very much admired during the Republic. Yet scholars can never know for certain of the accuracy of the portraiture since all were not alive during that period of time.

As stated in the section above, verism first appeared during the Late Republic. The subjects of veristic portraiture were almost exclusively men and the men were usually of advanced age, for generally only elders held power in the Republic. However, women, to a lesser extent, are seen in veristic portraiture as well and were almost always depicted as elderly persons. A key example of this is a marble head found at Palombara, Spain. Carved between 40 BCE-30 BCE, during the decade of the civil war that followed Julius Caesar’s assassination, the woman’s face shows her advanced age. The artist carved the woman’s sunken cheeks and pouches under her eyes to illustrate her age much like male veristic portraiture of the time.

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