August Mau (1840-1909) was a prominent German art historian and archeologist who worked with the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut while studying and classifying the Roman paintings at Pompeii, which was destroyed with the town of Herculaneum by volcanic eruption in 79 AD. The paintings were in remarkably good condition due to the preservation by the volcanic ash that covered the city. 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... History of art usually refers to the history of the visual arts. ... Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ... Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ... Pompeii is a ruined Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania. ... Herculaneum (modern Italian Ercolano) was an ancient Roman town of the Italian region of Campania. ... Eruption redirects here. ... Diamond Head, a well-known backdrop to Waikiki in Hawaii, is an ash cone that solidified into tuff Volcanic ash is the term for very fine rock and mineral particles less than 2 mm in diameter that are ejected from a volcanic vent. ...

Mau divided Roman painting into Four Styles.

The First Style, also called the Masonry Style, is characterized by painted "stonework" that was meant to imitate costly marble, a sign of wealth. An example would be the wall painting in the Samnite House in Herculaneum (Late Second Century BCE).

The Second Style, "illusionism," is characterized by use of implied perspective (not precise linear perspective) to create tromp l'oeil (trick of the eye) in wall paintings. The picture plane was pushed farther back into the wall by painted architectonic features such as Ionic columns or stage platforms. These wall paintings counteracted the claustrophobic nature of the small, windowless rooms of Roman houses. An example is the architectural painting at the Villa Boscoreale (c. 40 BCE). Linear perspective is the art of representing three-dimensional constructions on a two-dimensional surface. ... Architects first real look at the Greek Ionic order: Julien David LeRoy, Les ruines plus beaux des monuments de la Grèce Paris, 1758 (Plate XX) The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and...

The Third Style involved wall paintings that were decorated with delicate linear fantasies, predominantly monochromatic, that replaced the three-dimensional worlds of the Second Style. An example is the Villa of Livia in Primaporta (c. 30 - 20 BCE). Also included in this style are paintings similar to the one found in Cubiculum 15 of the Villa of Agrippa Postumus in Boscotrecase (c. 10 BCE). These involve a delicate architectural frame over a blank, monochromatic background with only a small scene located in the middle, like a tiny floating landscape. Something which is monochromatic has a single color. ...

The Fourth Style is characterized by painted "windows" in which the viewer could see a variety of framed fantasy scenes. The viewer does not look out on cityscapes but on fragments of buildings or scenes from Greek myths. The windowless rooms of the Roman houses now have windows, albeit painted ones. An example is the Ixion Room (Triclinium P) of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii (c. 70 - 79 CE). Greek mythology comprises the collected legends of Greek gods and goddesses and ancient heroes and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ...