ectural elements illusionistically articulated ondifferent planes with foreshortenings and complex perspetive effects which culminated inbreaking through the wall towards an imaginary open space. The immediate models werethe illusionistic stage sets of the Hellenistic-Roman theater and the new baroquefashions of 2nd-1st cent. B.C. architecture. (Giuntoli 6). Some scholars have argued thatthis style also has precedents in Greece, but most believe that is roman invention. The aimof this style painters was not to create the appearance of elegant marble walls, but ratherto dissolve the confining walls of a room and replace them with the illusion of a threedimensional world constructed in the artists imagination. It seems he is inviting us into hisworld. In the cubiculum 16, in the Villa of the Mysteries, we can see how this style ischaracterized by painted columns breaking through the picture plane, architectural vistasteasing the eye with perspective recessions (Pompeii 1). It seems that the aim of the artistis to make the room look larger, and also appears deeper than it really is. He uses brightcolors to achieved these effects. There is an optical effect stronger than the one of theFirst Style.The Third Style, or ornamental, was a reaction to the illusionism of Style II,together with the preference for a more classic typical art of the Augustan period. Paintersno longer wanted to replace the walls with three-dimensional worlds of their own creation.Instead they decorated the homes of rich Romans with delicate linear fantasies, The wallsare once more simple flat surfaces which mark the boundaries of an enclosed space aresubdivided horizontally and vertically into monochrome areas articulated by slenderarchitectural and decorative elements. The focal point is a painting in the center, generallyof mythological, religious or idyllic subject, set inside an aedicule flanked by panels withsmall scenes suspended in the center which depict mini...
