But mainly because they were white and their slaves were black.
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I see your Russian buildings and respond with:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Trier_Kurfuerstliches_Palais_BW_1.JPG
The photo doesnāt really do it justice. Itās bright pink.
Bonus points for it backing onto/incorporating Constantineās throne room.
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Well, extravagance is no stranger to art, but then thereās a fine line between it and exploration. Itās an important point that paints are restricted by technology. We donāt generally fault Vermeer for his delight in ultramarine, that there was finally a good blue for painters to use, even though it was an indulgence that pushed him into debt.
Our idea of garish is formed in a world where we can make anything whatever fluorescent color we would like, and so people can pride themselves on sticking to somber tones. I donāt think thatās because muted colors are inherently better, though, just because we get too much of the bright ones otherwise. Weāre used to color buildings and so donāt bother with the bright blue and orange palaces. Weāre used to color film and so do orange-and-teal over technicolor (and often enough that people start to miss it).
Iām not surprised that in a world where a purple shirt meant fermenting thousands of snails, artists preferred the technicolor route when they could. Sure, sometimes just as showing off, but also sometimes as a way to beautify a world where people werenāt saturated with bright colors the way we are. And I imagine sometimes like Vermeer, out of delight at being able to create such colors, that you can make things look the way you want.
But I think the main reason ancient statues were painted is simply that it makes them look more like the things they are supposed to. We only think to question that because weāve grown up with an alternate version of them. For the ancient works that we do normally see still painted, I donāt think Iāve ever seen anyone wonder at the taste or motive behind coloring them, itās obvious.
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The first time I ever went to a museum, age 6 (school trip), the guide showed us there was still some paint in the whorls of a Greek bustās beard. She also explained that at first antiquarians had thought the paint was dirt and washed it off, and why they were wrong.
To me this is like a ādinosaurs had feathersā thing. Weāve known dinosaurs had feathers for years now, but every damn Jurassic Park film shows them without, because tradition, or something. Meanwhile my nieces donāt believe me that dinosaurs had feathers, even though this was well established before they were born.
The only bright side is they are used to Auntie hitting Google and showing them history and science stuff, and that part they like.
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I think that colourizing statues would be a great application for augmented realityā¦
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Another thought: I just went back to admire the photos again (because I do not find the painted sculptures garish or gauche), and it occurred to me this is like the religious and garden statuary I grew up with. Italians and Eastern Europeans, at least the ones from my parentsā and earlier generations, still like polychrome. A man my grandfather went to school with painted the murals for the interior of their church, and itās not unlike the antique reproductions.
Thereās layers of appropriation going on here.
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These works have been around for thousands of years and at some point early on they were painted. We donāt know who did it or when. The idea that the original was painted is a guess. Most of them also have their genitals and noses broken. Do we believe this to represent the intent of the artist. No. The paint could also be the acts of well-meaning vandals. We actually have contemporary examples of that happening.
I believe in acknowledging that we are in the dark about things we donāt have evidence for. It is interesting that they were painted and it could have been the original intent. This is a good thing to know, but we donāt know the intent of the artist or his client.
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Agree. And weāre still learning from even more recent times.
āItās not the first time a paint company has created a historical Williamsburg paint palette; the colors were updated as scientists over the years discovered that many paints used during Colonial times were actually brighter than originally thought. Using even more advanced research technology, Colonial Williamsburgās conservators recently reexamined period documents, paint samples, wallpaper and architectural fragments to uncover new evidence of even more intense colorations.ā
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There are texts contemporary with the sculptures mentioning how colorful they look. Thereās also ways of dating paint.
Also, there are examples of sculpture from the same eras which were not meant to be painted, (like metal items), and they use different conventions than the sculptures meant to be painted ā the eyes are sometimes done differently, for example.
So yes, we do know when the sculptures were painted and who painted them.
As for the genitals and noses, we can usually tell whether they were deliberately broken off or simply damaged. Genitals were often broken off in more prudish times ā the Vatican has a lot of examples of these.
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Kept handy as ārelicsā no doubtā¦
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Eh, I would be more sanguine with a proclamation that āMaybe . . . they were painted when they were new.ā Certainty is not really a signal that the speaker is correct, but a signal that the speaker is over-confident.
Now, I suppose if I went and read the paper in question that is exactly what I would find. The qualifiers are often stripped out in the re-telling. I do that myself.
Thanks for the clarifications. I couldnāt resist responding even though I know you are more informed about this. I have āissuesā that are tweaked here regarding things not being as black and white as we would like them to be. As I said above, I think we should embrace not knowing for as long as possible, because biases are hard to overcome once set. Then everything suddenly confirms our opinion.
Hereās the thing; I have seen statues painted to ālook more real.ā Those sculptures were only maybe 30 years old at the time. I imagine that someone studying them in the distant future would say that the paint and the sculptures are the same age, but in the moment of it happening the original intent was long forgotten and completely ignored. Newspaper accounts of the incident might garble the facts, get mis-understood because of missing factors thought to be known to the reader by the author, or survive as strange fragments.
I just donāt want to see one mistake replaced with another mistake. Best to say we were wrong before and now we are less sure because of new facts that have come to light.
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I agree with that. I would say best practice is to show the original object in its current state along with a separate representation of what we think it used to look like.
What I donāt understand is why anyone would get het up over the suggestion that these things were probably painted and maybe we should tell people that and that maybe when we depict these things in popular culture we should take a bit more notice of what the current state of guesswork is rather than insisting on sticking with the old guesswork.
Apparently some people do and Iād genuinely like to know why.
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Did you read the linked article? As I understand it, what some object to is the positioning there of the valorization of white statuary within the context of racial white supremacy (which supposedly constitutes āpoliticization of polychromyā and ādriving trolliesā).
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That bust is possibly the most beautiful object Iāve ever seen. I saw it in Berlin a few years ago. Photos really donāt do it justice.
Yeah, I read the article.
As you said it seemed a well-written article making a valid argument and suggesting a solution which seems entirely uncontroversial.
I just donāt understand the objection. I guess Iām not going to.
Oh, well. ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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Soā¦ Letās obliterate the entire field of archaeology until we can invent reliable time travel?
No thanks.
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Photographers can make unlimited copies of their work. They can just print in color or b/w.
The form of a photo is (for the sake of this example, say) a 6x9 piece of paper, with an image painted on it with an exposed emulsion. Color or not.
I see these marbles now as just photo paper. We couldnāt capture the human form photographically then, to then PLAY with color, so the paper is the shape and form of a person. and it is blank and white as an overexposed photo, equivalent of a 6x9 piece of paper.
But heck if youāre creating a cast copy (which is pretty common even for museums now) treat it like your own work and do what you want to with the color scheme. Museums were built around snow white marbles, to compliment them - and memorialize the rich who paid for the structures that house these early works of talent/genius.
Well, then we could free up the money that goes to departments of archaeology to more useful fields, right? Who needs to understand history! /s
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