Nero’s Torches

When Roman decadence has become a popular subject artists discoverd christians martyrs. It wasn't the old martyrs well known from religious paintings. Know art favoured a morbid horror show. Here the viewer of the painting is more absorbed by the roman side, he is not suffering, he is watching the spectacle.


This painting "Nero’s Torches" (1876) by Henryk Hector Siemiradzki (1843-1902), shows how christian martyrs are burned alive on stakes. But just as important (or even more) are the roman costumes, all the exotic details and the half naked slave girls.

Gladiators

Once people were prepared to see Rome as a decadent nation they started to enjoy this decadence. Roman chariot races, christian martyrs and above all the great show in the arena.

The first picture is the most famous by the French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). He called it "Pollice Verso" (1872), what means "thumb down". He's glamorizing the bloody spectacle as usual in his paintings.
But nevertheless its a great work and Ridley Scott said that he was convinced by it to make his movie Gladiator.

This painting is called "The Spoliarium" (1884) and it's by the Filipino painter Juan Luna y Novicio (1857–1899). It has not that glorification in Gérôme's style.
Luna didn't want to entertain at first, he wanted to critizize the abuses of the colonial rule in the Philippines.