5 ms·

Rediscovering the Blazingly Bright Colors of Ancient Sculptures

71 points by benbreen 9y ago

toomanybeersies 9y ago
This reminds me a lot of how we've discovered that dinosaurs had feathers. I wonder how long this imagery will take to come into public consciousness, both painted sculptures and feathered dinosaurs. Popular culture doesn't seem to be catching on, the new Jurassic Park movies still have scaly dinosaurs and I expect that any new Ancient Greek or Roman movies will have white statues. I think it makes people uncomfortable to discover that they've been visualising something wrong their whole life.
- acheron 9y ago
  Well, certainly this has been known for quite awhile and hasn't really caught on as far as I know. I mean, people who care are fully aware, but I'm sure you're right that any new scene depicting ancient Greece will have plenty of white marble. File it under Reality is Unrealistic. [1] (Offhand I bet part of the issue is that the general culture probably doesn't make much distinction between classical statues and Renaissance or neoclassical statues and carvings, despite the couple millennia of separation. And obviously the Renaissance statues were not painted.) [1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealis...
  - colanderman 9y ago
    I wonder whether Renaissance statues were unpainted also due to influence from the "white" Greek statues.
    - TomK32 9y ago
      Renaissance artists had plenty of chances to use colour in buildings and on canvas, maybe they wanted some contrast to that?
    - labster 9y ago
      Yes, definitely, both during the Renaissance and the Neoclassical eras. Works that would have been considered unfinished in the Classical era were appreciated in later periods for representing pure figures without the need for ostentation. Well, that and the Classical sculpture was pretty darned good.
  - rsynnott 9y ago
    Also, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AluminumChristmasTrees http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AluminumChristmas...
- alanfalcon 9y ago
  There was an off hand remark in Jurassic World about how the dinosaurs are genetically engineered to look like the public expects them to look, rather than how they would naturally look.
jackfoxy 9y ago
No mention of the kinds of pigments and binders. That would be interesting to know as well.
benbreen 9y ago
Last year I had a chance to go to the archaeological museums in both Athens and Istanbul and was surprised to see how many classical statues and fragments still have pigment left on them. Here's one particularly well-preserved example - from a museum in Berlin, but pretty close to the examples I saw in Athens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychrome#/media/File:Altes_Museum-Tanagra-lady_with_fan.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychrome#/media/File:Altes_M... It makes me wonder if part of the myth about Greco-Roman sculptures being pristine and unpainted came not just from the pigment wearing away over the centuries, but from the fact that 18th and 19th century printed texts tended only to feature black and white engravings. In person it's strikingly apparent that many were brightly painted.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  I think it's more to do with the fact that Renaissance sculptures weren't painted. So the question is why did they believe that ancient sculptures weren't painted in the 1500's?
  - kijin 9y ago
    Most of the paint on ancient sculptures that didn't make it to the 21st century would already have been gone by the 16th century.
ridgeguy 9y ago
Maybe fabrics, too. Last November, I visited the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. There were woven fabrics that showed lovely colors and designs after at least 4 millennia. Our forebears had lots of coloration options for their art. I doubt they did everything in neutral color. I'm glad we're using our technology to see better the beautiful things they made so long ago.
gumby 9y ago
You need only go to India and see the brightly painted sculpture to understand what Greek sculpture looked like. The same people moved into/invaded Greece, Iran, India, Bactria, et al bringing a common language(-root) and religious(-root). I say (-root) since this process likely took centuries, perhaps several.
- empath75 9y ago
  There was also a reverse influence from Alexander invading India as well. The first sculptures of Buddha were made by Greek artists, for example.
  - gumby 9y ago
    That’s quite true but I’m talking of a common influence about 1500or more years prior to Alexander. Interestingly the first time I encountered Kartikeya under the name “Skanda” was in fact on a visit to the Bodh Gaya! I guess Alexander was a contemporary or near contemporary of Ashoka. There was a lot of connection between the Greek empire and the Mauryan empire!
ggm 9y ago
Edinburgh college of art had incredibly fine casts of great works made and subsequently painted by the Victorians. Apparently a confused college body decided to remove the polychrome finish and "restore them to the pristine white' which not only destroyed their heritage, it lost a huge amount of fine detail. -told to me by my mum who worked there in the sixties and seventies and eighties.
huffmsa 9y ago
Makes sense that they'd have been painted, but I prefer the clean marble look. Lincoln all fleshy, sitting there in his temple on the Mall seems incorrect to me. As would a tonal David.
caio1982 9y ago
When I visited Egypt a few years ago I was amazed at how colorful some ruins and temples were. To this day you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut and see colorful walls and columns and such that are about 3500 years old. It still gives me goosebumps.

71 points by benbreen 9y ago

This reminds me a lot of how we've discovered that dinosaurs had feathers. I wonder how long this imagery will take to come into public consciousness, both painted sculptures and feathered dinosaurs. Popular culture doesn't seem to be catching on, the new Jurassic Park movies still have scaly dinosaurs and I expect that any new Ancient Greek or Roman movies will have white statues. I think it makes people uncomfortable to discover that they've been visualising something wrong their whole life.

acheron 9y ago
Well, certainly this has been known for quite awhile and hasn't really caught on as far as I know. I mean, people who care are fully aware, but I'm sure you're right that any new scene depicting ancient Greece will have plenty of white marble. File it under Reality is Unrealistic. [1] (Offhand I bet part of the issue is that the general culture probably doesn't make much distinction between classical statues and Renaissance or neoclassical statues and carvings, despite the couple millennia of separation. And obviously the Renaissance statues were not painted.) [1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealis...
- colanderman 9y ago
  I wonder whether Renaissance statues were unpainted also due to influence from the "white" Greek statues.
  - TomK32 9y ago
    Renaissance artists had plenty of chances to use colour in buildings and on canvas, maybe they wanted some contrast to that?
  - labster 9y ago
    Yes, definitely, both during the Renaissance and the Neoclassical eras. Works that would have been considered unfinished in the Classical era were appreciated in later periods for representing pure figures without the need for ostentation. Well, that and the Classical sculpture was pretty darned good.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  Also, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AluminumChristmasTrees http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AluminumChristmas...
alanfalcon 9y ago
There was an off hand remark in Jurassic World about how the dinosaurs are genetically engineered to look like the public expects them to look, rather than how they would naturally look.

jackfoxy 9y ago

No mention of the kinds of pigments and binders. That would be interesting to know as well.

benbreen 9y ago

Last year I had a chance to go to the archaeological museums in both Athens and Istanbul and was surprised to see how many classical statues and fragments still have pigment left on them. Here's one particularly well-preserved example - from a museum in Berlin, but pretty close to the examples I saw in Athens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychrome#/media/File:Altes_Museum-Tanagra-lady_with_fan.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychrome#/media/File:Altes_M... It makes me wonder if part of the myth about Greco-Roman sculptures being pristine and unpainted came not just from the pigment wearing away over the centuries, but from the fact that 18th and 19th century printed texts tended only to feature black and white engravings. In person it's strikingly apparent that many were brightly painted.

toomanybeersies 9y ago
I think it's more to do with the fact that Renaissance sculptures weren't painted. So the question is why did they believe that ancient sculptures weren't painted in the 1500's?
- kijin 9y ago
  Most of the paint on ancient sculptures that didn't make it to the 21st century would already have been gone by the 16th century.

ridgeguy 9y ago

Maybe fabrics, too. Last November, I visited the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. There were woven fabrics that showed lovely colors and designs after at least 4 millennia. Our forebears had lots of coloration options for their art. I doubt they did everything in neutral color. I'm glad we're using our technology to see better the beautiful things they made so long ago.

gumby 9y ago

You need only go to India and see the brightly painted sculpture to understand what Greek sculpture looked like. The same people moved into/invaded Greece, Iran, India, Bactria, et al bringing a common language(-root) and religious(-root). I say (-root) since this process likely took centuries, perhaps several.

empath75 9y ago
There was also a reverse influence from Alexander invading India as well. The first sculptures of Buddha were made by Greek artists, for example.
- gumby 9y ago
  That’s quite true but I’m talking of a common influence about 1500or more years prior to Alexander. Interestingly the first time I encountered Kartikeya under the name “Skanda” was in fact on a visit to the Bodh Gaya! I guess Alexander was a contemporary or near contemporary of Ashoka. There was a lot of connection between the Greek empire and the Mauryan empire!

ggm 9y ago

Edinburgh college of art had incredibly fine casts of great works made and subsequently painted by the Victorians. Apparently a confused college body decided to remove the polychrome finish and "restore them to the pristine white' which not only destroyed their heritage, it lost a huge amount of fine detail. -told to me by my mum who worked there in the sixties and seventies and eighties.

huffmsa 9y ago

Makes sense that they'd have been painted, but I prefer the clean marble look. Lincoln all fleshy, sitting there in his temple on the Mall seems incorrect to me. As would a tonal David.

caio1982 9y ago

When I visited Egypt a few years ago I was amazed at how colorful some ruins and temples were. To this day you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_Temple_of_Hatshepsut and see colorful walls and columns and such that are about 3500 years old. It still gives me goosebumps.