Am I crazy or can you see the birth of pointillism in some of these images.
Could have been an attempt to save paint on large images, but it worked.
Surprising that there are so few human images. You’d think the artitsts would have wanted to memorialize themselves as well as the animals around them.
Wait, we have to pick just one?!? ;’)
There was an impact on what passed for modern art when stuff like this was discovered. Pick-asso was influenced by folk art (basically, garage sale crap from countries which don’t yet have garages today), and earlier on paintings in the 18th and 19th centuries were influenced by the art found in Pompeii etc.
During the late middle ages/early renaissance the Papacy moved back to Rome, and all kinds of classical masterpieces (and some real junk as well) was excavated as new foundations were dug and the like. Michelangelo was profoundly influenced by the discovery of this Roman Empire masterpiece:
http://www.google.com/images?q=laocoon%20group&spell=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group
I seem to remember an allegation that the Laocoon group was sculpted by Michelangelo, and attributed to ancient Romans. I can’t imagine any way for that allegation to be the least bit credible.
Ah, here it is:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1386416/posts