The Art of the Ancient World is an extremely diverse sub field within Art itself, and features many unique artworks. The span of the artworks of the Ancient World go from Ancient Egypt, to Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome,  each place having its own unique set of principles and approaches to making art. As evidenced throughout the history of art, there are significant differences among the artworks of all three artistic eras. Nevertheless, there are also a sizable amount of similarities between them as well.

Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization of Ancient Egypt from about 3000 BC to 30 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic. It was famously conservative, and Egyptian styles changed remarkably over more than three thousand years. The artwork mainly focused on idolizing Egyptian gods and hierarchy. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and now there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past. Ancient Egyptian art included paintings, sculpture in wood, stone and ceramics, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories, and other art media. It displays an extraordinarily vivid representation of the ancient Egyptian’s status and belief systems.

Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.

Roman art refers to the visual arts made in Ancient Rome and in the territories of the Roman Empire. Roman artists copied, imitated, and innovated to produce art on a grand scale. The Romans did not believe, as we do today, that to have a copy of an artwork was of any less value that to have the original. The copies, however, were more often variations rather than direct copies, and they had small changes made to them. The variations could be made with humor, taking the serious and somber element of Greek art and turning it on its head. Recording historical events without the clutter of symbolism and mythological metaphor became an obsession. Immortalizing an individual private patron in art was a common artist’s commission. Realism became the ideal and the cultivation of a knowledge and appreciation of art itself became a worthy goal.

Egypt’s art focused heavily on the practice of worship and praise, either to the gods, who they thought controlled their lives, or to kings, who were the closest step to a god in the human form. The Greeks and Romans approached rather differently than the Egyptians. Both Greece and Rome were interested in this idea of humanism. Humanism in art puts more of the emphasis on the person and the human body, than it does on worshiping gods or offering praise. While Romans and Greeks both focused their art on Humanism these two did have some differences in how they approached this subject.  The Greeks worked almost exclusively in bronze and avoided marble, as bronze was also less likely to chip away over time and needs less structural support. Romans worked heavily in marble and loved Greek art, often replicating many of the bronzed statues that existed already, but in marble.