Giovanni Battista Piranesi created Arco di Costantino in Roma (Arch of Constantine in Roma), which was an etching, after 1765. The art piece was a historiated landscape print, which portrayed the view of Arch of Constantine. The composition of this print was ingeniously organized and subjectively emerge the view of the Arch of Constantine. The print explicitly revealed three layers by those essential elements in an order of distance and provided the comfortable composition for the entire art piece. In this print, we can see the arch in the very front of the composition, and the value was presented by bright and dark and there was cirrus around the arch. The cabin in the middle ground of the was in the darker shadow and it seem not very important but can provide the sense of layer for the entire composition. The subject, which stood at the background took place the most part of this print, was the Arch of Constantine. There were some different statues on the wall of the subject. The three most important compositional elements are the arch, the cabin and the Arch of Constantine. The arrangement of the three elements served for the balance of the composition.
The first important element was the arch in the very front of the print, which leaped to my eyes as the first sight and could be referred as the foreground. The artist created a frame composition for the entire print by arranging the arch in the front of the view. The other elements, including the subject, appeared through the arch and endowed the sense of depth for the further landscape. The strategy of using frame composition would provide a specific angle of view, because audience tend to see the subject through the arch in horizontal level as if they were standing in front of the arch and appreciate the Arch of Constantine. Furthermore, the figure of the arch in foreground was detailed depicted by the creator, which contained the value and shadows on the appearance.
