Were ancient statues painted?

The short answer is ‘yes’. Much of the pure, gleaming white marble sculpture that we now admire was certainly coloured in some way. The question is how was it coloured: a delicate wash, or bright, glaring hues?

When I was in the States, I went to an exhibition in the Sackler Galleries at Harvard, which offered some examples of how Greek and Roman statues might have appeared with all their original paint. (You may have seen this show already – as a version of the same exhibition has appeared in Munich, Rome, Istanbul, and will soon go to the Getty.)

It’s a great, garish multi-colour spectacular. My question is  quite how far you believe the details. Does the colouring of  ancient statuary really mean this kind of bright, in-your-face, dazzle.

Or, to put it another way: if you are not entirely convinced by the gaudy blues and yellows, are you simply guilty of a romantic view of ancient sculpture that wants it all white?

How do we want our ancient sculpture to look?

The eminence grise behind the Harvard exhibition is a German archaeologist-cum-scientist, Vinzenz Brinkmann. He has brilliantly shown how some of the earliest Greek sculpture might look in its original colours, reconstructing the first appearance on plaster casts.

It’s a shock, but sometimes a convincing one. In fact, some of this stuff still carries the traces of the paint that Brinkmann has restored. So, for example, he is especially good at giving you a new -- multi-coloured -- look at the sculptures of the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina. You can see one of these at the top of this post (these are now in Munich, a German consortium having outbid the British rivals in the early nineteenth century and taken them back to their Glyptothek).

My problems come with wondering how far we should imagine all Greek and Roman sculptures painted in this way. Or whether in the Roman world, at least, we should really be thinking of a more delicate colouring, not a garish smearing. (On the left you see Brinkmann's unsettling version of the Augustus of Prima Porta.)

It has become unfashionable to argue against the Brinkmann line. And there is a tendency to dismiss any sceptic as a neo-Romantic, fixated on a version of pure white ancient art, foisted on the modern world by J. J. Winckelmann. But I am not wholly convinced.

For a start, although there are some references in ancient literature to coloured sculpture, they are not many – and they are far out-numbered by those Greek and Roman writers who sing of the translucent, unadorned white marble of their favourite statues.

Secondly,  while early Greek statues fairly often come out of the ground still with their traces of colour, for the later stuff we rely on the evidence of the microscope and the UV camera. Why does this not still retain visible trace of colour, if coloured it once was? And why on earth did Romans polish their marble statues (as we know they did), if they were going to cover them up with thick coats of paint?

The jury’s still out I think. The question is not whether ancient statues were painted (in bits, of course they were) – but whether they were done in this in-your-face way. I may be an old romantic, but I am still a bit suspicious.

Comments

[petalouda]

Beeswax was used a binding agent in classical painting; lovely, luminous tones could have been produced using encaustic and the four-color earth palette on statuary.

[F.Gamberini]

It's worth keeping an eye on the website of La Repubblica (www.repubblica.it), because it frequently gives news of archaeological discoveries in Italy. Right now we are being told of the excavation of the subterranean passages under Augustus's house on the Palatine, which have yielded a headless male statue in heroic pose, clearly showing traces of red on the clothing (http://www.repubblica.it/2008/01/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/roma-palatino/roma-palatino/roma-palatino.html).
Judging by the photographs, there would also seem to be red stains on one of three wings which might belong to the Nike acroteria on the temple of Victory. Find all the relevant photographs on the website (I'm not good very good at creating links).

[C Gens]

Confounding the issue of what color and how much color on the statues, is the context they were viewed in. Was the vividness attenuated by having the statues in brightly colored rooms?

Is the contrast between colored and uncolored jarring because we are used to seeing the plain marble statues in white walled rooms?

Possibly compounding the issue is under what lighting conditions were the statues viewed. Light from candles, oil lamps, and torches would have been significantly dimmer than our bright, focused, high-intensity museum lights. Furthermore the smoke from these lighting sources would have quickly dulled the statues.

The idea of color relativity was brought home by a recent return from bright sunny, flowery Hawaii to rainy gray Portland, Oregon. The bright paintings and object d'tourist just don't look right in this cool northern light.

[louise belanger]

This is an interesting discussion, I have drawn and studied ancient Maya painted stucco sculptures and ceramics. I agree with richard's post on 17 december, the colours, if used would have been based on earth and mineral pigments, and would have had a much softer and more aesthetically pleasing surface than that of the exhibited sculptures; these look unnatural due to lack of transluscency of the paint used, more like a thick coating of modern decorators' emulsion - which has an acrylic base; ancient paints were not like this, they were mostly mixed with a lime base; as for the polishing of the marble, this would have been essential if the surface was to be painted anyway, as colouring with transluscent pigments on to a rough surface would have resulted in a very uneven and unsightly finish. Probalby some ancient greek and roman statues were painted, some not, and on some just a few facial details may have been cooloured in for dramatic effect.

[Mary]

For Don Buck.. a bit off the top of my head, it being Christmas Eve and all:

Horace Odes, 1, 19, 5
Martial, Ep 6, 13

[Don Buck]

Mary, you write that "... references in ancient literature to coloured sculpture ... are far out-numbered by those Greek and Roman writers who sing of the translucent, unadorned white marble of their favourite statues." Can you provide citations to ancient literature? Thanks very much for an excellent overall blog.

[Lord Truth]

Its interesting how difficult it is for the modern mind to force itself back into the reality of the past -though it must be done if we are to understand that reality.
As I have indicated in a previous comment,the unpainted statue would have seemed merely unfinished.To us, living surrounded by artifacts totally unconnected with nature, anything natural is appealing because original.To Praxiteles the unpainted statue would have seemed little different to the marble floor it stood on- something crude and primitive.
To introduce questions of form into this debate is spurious as concepts of form though they exist may be overshadowed by other factors.If ones life is spent surrounded by stone then the emotion the unpainted statue produces is trumped by ones awareness that it is essentially a piece of building material.
Praxiteles would have found the museums of modern London puzzling though he would probably have been entranced by Madame Tussauds
The question Prof Beard ultimately poses-if painted then to what garish extreme-may surely be answered by reference to a quite recent phenomenon.
The Technicolor film process is quite capable of producing remarkably natural lifelike images-pale skins,delicate colours etc. as early test films show.
However Technicolor films will always be associated with very rich sometimes garish coloured hues produced at the direction of the film makers and intended to enhance the emotion or glamour of the subject.I suggest that exactly the same principle applied to the painting of these statues.They could have been painted in a naturalistic way but they represented either unnatural or Godlike people or were pieces of 'theatre' and like the producers of Technicoloured films they would have been similarly represented in an exaggereted unnatural way.
It might be interesting if the experts in these areas, instead of accurately recreating these exaggerated Technicolour productions,produced more natural colour productions-to make them more realistic to our eyes.
We might find the results opening up a whole new dimension regarding the ancient world, finding them startingly real and surprisingly moving .

[Tony Francis]

For Chryselephantine (mixed gold and ivory) art:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chryselephantine_sculpture
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Zeus_at_Olympia
And Acroliths (mixed marble and wood covered with gold or drapery):
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrolith

[Jenny]

I didn't find Albi cathedral tasteless at all, but it was certainly intriguing and in a strange way very 'foreign' - I haven't seen Toulouse so couldn't comment but I bet it's just as fascinating.

Painted statues would be more lifelike of course - I mentioned the terracotta warriors, which are startling enough without the colour - like making actual eye contact with such a remote past - and of course they were meant very directly to represent actual people who would guard/entertain the emperor in his afterlife - it would be interesting to think about how the ancients of Europe thought about/related to their statues - were these decorative artworks, status symbols or something more magical?

[Jan Stubbe Østergaard]

My reference to polychrome sculptures by Donatello and Michelangelo did not relate to the material used nor to the main body of their works. It was prompted by the 'aesthetic problem' introduced by Leopold 18 Dec. and now viewed from a different, just as interesting angle by Paul 20 Dec: He says that it is a 'fact'that colour detracts from form. Paul's assertion, followed by his remark that Praxiteles must have known this, brings us back to a crux in comments on Mary B's initial blog. Research on ancient sculptural polychromy is not an exercise designed to confirm or conform to modern European aesthetics of sculpture. It is an historical enquiry. An enquiry which has demonstrated that the ancients Greeks, those masters of form, allowed their forms to be 'detracted' from by the work of the sculpture painter: To the curvature of the three dimensional, high relief shields on the Alexander Sarcophagus we see painted hatching added. And if we are to believe Pliny, Praxiteles was most pleased with those of his sculptures which had been given colour by Nikias, one of the giants among 4th cent BC painters.
To gain an idea of the aesthetics involved, classical archaeology must avail itself of the analogies provided for the interaction of form and colour by early modern polychrome sculpture.
The polychromy of the Well of Moses by Claus Sluter, court sculptor to the Burgundian dukes, was due to Jean Malouel, court painter. The Vanitas group by the master sculptor Gregor Erhart was painted by Hans Holbein the Elder. Any reference to published work dealing specifically with the aesthetics of color on form, or form under colour, in such works would be very welcome.

[Nicholas Wibberley]

Might some have been painted for special occasions, festivals and such?

[Tony Francis]

For a man with blue skin, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa2OpNTX9Ck

The condition is called argyria, and comes from ingesting colloidal silver:
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria

[Tony Francis]

There are various anxiety disorders related to human-like figures. "Pediophobia" is a fear of dolls. By googling this term, one can find a clinic which specializes in treatment of the condition. Another is "coulrophobia", a fear of clowns. There is a wiki article on this. The emergence of animated, human-like robots has led to psychological studies which indicate that initial human curiosity and empathy quickly turn to revulsion. It is called the "uncanny valley".
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
They mention the film "Polar Express" which I found particularly off-putting. What is the difference between pure animated cartoon animals and humans, which are endearing, and humanoid figures that are disturbing? Apparently, the more realistic the human form, the more upsetting the reaction. It is an area ripe for study. Of course, these fears have been around for a long time. Think of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". The meaning of this book is still debated. But it is clear it addresses a fear of technology, in particular that which reproduces the human form. Painting statues changes the psychological impact. It is probably impossible to reconstruct the reaction to them centuries after the fact. But it could be the topic of more than one doctoral thesis.

[Lord Truth]

The question of painted/unpainted statues is surely quite simple.To the ancient mind an unpainted statue would have seemed simply unfinished and absurd.Such works represent technology as well as emotion and magic.Unpainted they would have seemed as absurd as showing off a new car with no wheels.Where are the wheels?-Oh I thought they would spoil the look of the thing.
Historically a pure white skin has been an essential upper class female attribute and also slaves for sex would have been kept in the dark to acheive this.Its possible therefore that the flesh areas of white marble would have been left unpainted.Interestingly the 'polishing'of (white?) marble mentioned by Beard may have been to create the slightly gleaming look of skin cleansed by olive oil- as distinct from soap..However such pure white statues would certainly have had the eyes, nipples, mouth etc. coloured to make them realistic.
If done today a remarkable level of eroticism might be revealed.
The cult of the unpainted marble sculpture has evolved from the painted churches and statues of the middle ages etc and represents an attempt to show the inate purity and spirituality of Christian man through the perfect whiteness of the marble.We have moved from wonder and emotion caused by the realistic-technology of the painted creation to emotion and wonder that is more abstract and not based on realism. In preferring unpainted scupture we are on our way to Henry Moore and abstract art.
It must be said however that excessive realism in any sculpture remains disconcerting.Such creations whether dummies in a shop window or Madame Tussauds affect us at a deep primitive level connected to our fear of death-they are 'dead' yet we are uncertain -they may not be..
In our non religious-nonspiritual world we may be particularly frightened and disturbed by this 'creepyness'-the unpainted scupture removes this fear and is acceptable.
Several people have mentioned other matters that relate to the statue debate.
Rulers would always emphasise their power and wealth by displays of colour and comfort-castles would be painted white wherever possible and the floors ,halls and stairways covered with dazzling technicoloured tapestries.
Yet none of this is apparent in any modern historical reconstruction ,from Olivier/Hamlets dismal Elsinore to early nineteenth century Drury Lane productions-and look carefully at the backgrounds in Cranford-a universal dark plain green-as uncluttered as a Docklands minimalist flat
We should always take care about making the past conform to our own fashionable age

[Paul]

I admit colored statues don't always look creepy. The wax dummy effect occurs mainly when a statue is life-size, naturalistic, and free-standing. Mediaeval statues don't offend because, though colored, they are usually smaller than life, highly stylized (e.g. elongated), and integrated into architectural settings themselves many-colored. The Donatello and Michelangelo examples cited by Østergaard were exceptions to those masters' usual practice. The question is, why did they normally choose not to add color to their statues? Apart from keeping art distinct from magic, and from the possibility that they were bowing to a misguided notion of ancient practice, there is the fact that color distracts from form.
This goes for other arts as well. Color photography can produce works of great beauty, but photographers more interested in shapes than in surfaces (e.g., Ansel Adams) have generally preferred to work in black and white. Shadow defines form; color up-stages --even hides-- shadow. Praxiteles must have known this.

[John Price]

As an aside from all this fascinating stuff, Jenny (17 Dec) mentions the decoration in Albi cathedral. She may also have seen the partial restoration in St-Sernin, Toulouse, both these (and others) looking rather surprising (tasteless ?)to one used to the bare (and beautiful) stone of British cathedrals. Imagine them before the Puritan clean-up which sets our northern tastes ...
The Albi and Toulouse restoration of "original" decoration didn't happen without some quite violent (verbal) opposition. And on another slant on getting back to the "original", see the heated discussions about "restoring" the Cité at Carcassonne to what it "was/must have been" like before Viollet le Duc got at it - and before neglect pre-le Duc nearly ruined it.

[SW Foska]

John, one medieval castle was painted only this year - check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__C-MjmVUrU
- or search 'Graffiti Project' on YouTube.

[John Lewis]

Someone once told me that our medieval castles were painted as well. Is this true?

[F.Gamberini]

I forgot to enter my name, and for the record I would like to add that the post beginning "Obviously an issue that arouses interest..." (20 Dec.) is my own.
FG

[Eileen]

it should be pointed out that Dontatello's John the Baptist in the Frari as well as his Mary Magdalene were both made of wood.. off the top of my head I cannot think of any (evidence of ) marble polychroming in 15th century italy, although I am sure some one out there can correct me on this.

[Allen Dunn]

Assuming the ancients' human nature was similar to ours, isn't it that likely each generation had its own "in" and "out" fashions regarding sculptural styles and the painting thereof and thereopon. We often forget that objects produced in 200 BC were ancient, very valuable, antiques by Augustus' time, likely widely and cheaply copied all over the empire.

Obviously an issue that arouses interest, judging by the number of comments, and some deep concerns about how things ought to be, whether in the past or in the inherited/imagined antiquity of today. The consensus here seems to be that we like our statues to be white; that at least the flesh parts would have been left white; and that we don't know enough or that more technical research is needed -an uncertainty which allows just enough room for us to continue thinking as we please.
Attention has been drawn to the many possible permutations of the problem. Just one of these might arise from another point made by some of the other commentators here: the use of coloured marble and bronze.
There would obviously be little point in painting a porphyry statue -or one in bronze, as this would nullify the particular qualities of the material. And if it is true that bronze became the main material for free-standing statuary, the issue then -at least as regards Greek sculpture after the archaic period- would seem to be restricted to white marble statues. But details in bronze statues (eyes, teeth, etc.) were, not unpleasingly (see Riace bronzes), done in different metals (copper, silver), and this raises the question of how they would have been dealt with in Roman marble copies.
How, in any case, would painted details look, aesthetically? The Augustus, were it not for his lipstick and eyes, might not be as bad as all that -it could be worse if he had been painted all over, as shown in another reconstruction that Mary's link leads to. But if it was detail that mattered, we may have to sigh and accept that eyes and lips may well have been painted.
Perhaps we could agree that paint in any form looks best on the less evolved statues of the archaic period, and one would like to think that later Greeks and Romans saw it that way too. But did they, didn't they? There's enough doubt there to leave us a bit disconcerted and dissatisfied, and perhaps not even knowing what it is we really want.

[Anu Koponen]

We cannot come close how any painting looked like if you just know some pigments used. So why we expect that we can spread the colour found in small pieces of pigments on the statue and we will see how the original was? In the most cases we neither know the variations of the intensity of the colour used nor the brusch strikes. There must have been numerous ways to add the painted colours as well as to use coloured stones in the statues. Most probably many artist favored at least partially the original colour of the stone especially if they were able to select the stone they preferred. The Romans were crazy for precious coloured stones.

One recent finidng in Herculaneum is a statue representing woman with the long eyelashes painted on the face so that you can see all the brush strikes clearly. But, in the most cases the visual impact of the original remains unknown. Do not trust reconstructions, we are speaking about various kinds of artworks some executed with delicate some with clumsy details, which have disappeared forever and, thus, we just do not know.

The famous statue "Fontana dei Fiumi" in the center of Piazza Navona (designed by Bernini) was originally painted by the painter Guidubaldo Abbatini so that the rocks, plants and animals of this monument were painted. However, I cannot see any traces of colours on this statue even if it is only c. 350 years old now. It is no wonder that most ancient staues that are c. 2000 years old have lost their colours for ever.

[Helen]

Am I the only person brave enough to say that coloured, the statues look like the tacky china ornaments on sale in the cheap tabloid supplements?

[Jenny]

Quite right too Foska - afraid I thought 'ablative of comparison' then forgot I needed to look for a comparative as well!

I do know there is never going to be just one interpretation, but I would argue it's not an impossibly long imaginatve leap in each case to an image of 'whiteness'. 'Parian' isn't just used for scansion - it denotes top quality marble from Paros, and by association the beauty of what's being described, and Ovid does emphasise Narcissus' gleaming whiteness ('niveo...candore') as a key part of his physical allure. And I was only thinking that it might be one possible interpretation, and obviously 2 random citations are no good by themselves. They don't even prove 'some Romans' said these things, just that Ovid and Horace did, once. I was just trying to give an example of the kinds of literary texts that were being mentioned.

Not that I'm in any way 'against' the idea of painted statues, as I tried to make clear before. The Globe Theatre was brightly coloured in Shakespeare's day, but the reconstruction, in accordance with modern tastes, is a much more muted affair, which seems a shame in a way since they tried so hard to be 'authentic'.

[Jason]

I just don't see the colors as garish ... I just see some beautiful paint. They look a lot more like contemporary art (Murakami for instance). Get over it and open your minds!

[Seth]

I wonder if the tromp-l'oeil painting of a statue of Mars from the House of Venus Marina at Pompeii is any indication of how Roman statues were painted. It appears to represent an unpainted white marble statue, which contrasts sharply with the colourfully painted background.

[Jan Stubbe Østergaard]

Comments on earlier comments.
Reading the 'Gods in Color' catalogue will enlighten a number of commentators (i.e on ancient pigments, on the polychromy of bronzes). Though still meager, our present knowledge is generally more developed than here supposed.
Bulley 18. Dec: Yes, they did not realize this. But it is generally overlooked that leading Renaissance sculptors of the 15th century also produced polychrome sculpture (Donatello to mention but one).
Leopold 18 Dec on the aesthetic problem presented by complete polychromy: Did Donatello disagree with the complete polychromy of his St. John the Baptist, or Michelangelo with that of his Crucifix? Is the Berlin Nefertite not a work of art? In 1814 that great representative of neoclassical aethetics, Quatremere de Quincy said of Greek and Roman sculptural polychromy: We have to recognize that the ancients had an idea of beauty different from ours.

[SW Foska]

Jenny, lovely to have the Ovid & Horace citations - but you need the next word of the Horace ('purius') for it to make sense. And then it is clear that these are similes & comparisons. They show that some Romans said 'purer than marble' & 'immobile as a marble statue', but not that statues were not painted. Jan Stubbe Ostergaard stresses how delicate is the matter of extrapolation from literary texts. Pedantry, I know, but...

[dr venables preller]

One may wonder, in the interests of authenticity, whether the ancients, in adding their choice of pigments or variation of marble coloration available at the time, would have been fully aware of (and significance of) flushing from increased vascular supply of parts of the body (such as the back) at times of high excitement.

[Archimedes]

Is this the only blog on the timesonline where there is something intelligent to read?

[Robert Meyer]

How about Greek bronzes? Would the Youth from Antikythera bronze in the Acropolis Museum have been painted? How about the head of the philosopher of Antikythera? I cannot imagine the Greeks painting either. I also have a hard time imagining the sculptor of the marble statue representing Aphrodite, the goat-footed Pan and Eros in the Acropolis smearing the translucent depth of the statue's surface with paint.

[Jenny]

The Ovid ref is Met 3.417 - "vultuque inmotus eodem
haeret, ut e Pario formatum marmore signum."
Not a specific 'white' reference as I thought, though with the surrounding lines it's easy to read that in - certainly it refers the beauty of Narcissus', er, raw materials.

Horace's is for a girl, Odes 1.19.5, though I notice this time the marble is not necessarily in statue form -
"urit me Glycerae nitor
splendentis Pario marmore"

So not cast iron evidence in either case, but it points to white-limbed statues if nothing else, though maybe that was never in question.

[anthony alcock]

I think the colour of the painted statues matters quite a bit less than the light you see them in. Brightly coloured stuff in northern light looks a bit tackier than in southern light.
The head with the blue cap looks amazingly like Nigel Spivey (about twenty odd years ago). Or Bluto.

[Micheal Isaacs]

surely Roman use of coloured marble has a place in this debate somewhere too. Is that discussed in this catalogue?

[Paul Leopold]

Physical evidence of at least partial coloring survives in a few places, as David Parsons notes, and there is a priori reason to suppose that at least the irises of eyes were painted (blank eyeballs are disconcerting, and neo-classical sculptors, wishing nothing but pure marble to be visible, generally carved out the irises, willingly falsifying the smoothness of the eyeball for the sake of shadows to simulate color).
The overall coloring of statues, however, presents an aesthetic problem, for any three-dimensional simulacrum of a human being, in full color, tends, I would submit, to seem less a work of art than an attempt at magic, the conjuring up of a Sosia (hence the creepy feeling one gets from waxworks, even outside the Chamber of Horrors).
My guess therefore is that Greek and Roman statues were often painted or stained (and adorned with gilding etc) in part but not entirely, skin at least being left un-colored. Classical art may have been closer to magic than neo-classical aesthetics imagined, but I can't believe it was that close. The great Hellenistic statues in particular seem to me deliberate works of art in the most sophisticated sense, and as such very much more in mutual sympathy with their imitations by Thorwaldsen, Canova, Sergel, etc. than with any sort of voodoo dolls, however sophisticated. This is of course a purely intuitive view, which more knowledge might convince me to change. But I'm not aware that that more knowledge exists yet.

[Michael Bulley]

Am I right in thinking that sculptors of the Renaissance who took inspiration from classical art didn't know that ancient Greek and Roman artists painted their statues? Or did they know it and just ignored that knowledge or decided the practice wasn't for them? If they didn't know, what difference to the development of art in that period and later might there have been if they had known?

[Pinar]

I am also curious about the types of pigments they used in the Classical period and later. There are quite a few examples of Archaic sculpture in the Acropolis Museum, and because they were buried after the destruction of Acropolis, their paint survived considerably better than any other's. They are colored in deep, earthy reds and blacks mostly. I also would expect more earthy tones such as these, even for the Classical period sculpture, nothing overly garish.

[Keith Bentham]

The ancient world was pretty limited in their color pallette. All pigments would have had to be natural oxides. Lead for white, copper for green etc. Any artist can mix any color out of the primaries plus black and white. Blue though is difficult to obtain as its main source has been lapis lazuli though Iron oxides can stain blue though they may fade with insable conditions, humidity and light. The archaeologists should be able to analyse the chemical components fairly accurately to determine the actual coloration used. I doubt though that any two statues would be painted identically.
The Romans tended to mass copy greek stauary in plaster. No doubt you could order how you wanted it painted,for a price; cheap garish, plain white or realistically toned or whatever.

[David Parsons]

As a student in the late 1950s I visited the Agora Museum with a Greek acquaintance. My companion read a notice saying that one statue there retained flecks of the original paint. He then used his fingernail to scrap off a bit of paint, saying "So it does." Ow!

[Jan Stubbe Østergaard]

It should be noted that the catalogue contains an article by Oliver Primavesi on 'Colorful Sculptures in Ancient Literature? The Textual Evidence Revisited'with an extensive bibliography.In mentioning Latin love poetry, Mary B.introduces the problem of the relation of literary texts to external reality and thus their usefulness as archaeological sources. Primavesi's introduction sets out his view on this and thereby his premises for which texts to present in his article. But a presentation of the love poems alluded to would be welcome. And, yes, the Harvard catalogue is thinner. In fact, none of the catalogues are identical; to my mind, the best is the one from Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe 2007. A couple of minor points: The Prima Porta reconstruction is not due to Brinkmann, but to the Musei Vaticani; and the show as such will not go to the Getty (The Color of Life, March 2008), just some selected objects.

[Mary]

Jan Stubbe O. knows much more about this subject than I do (and I thank him for writinmg in on this)...but I am not sure that (despite some excellent discussions) the issues are all fully raised in the Gods in Color catalogue (I was using the version on sale in Harvard, which seems thinner than the German version). In particular, I dont think that the evidence form eg Latin love poetry is quite given its due weight...
(OK while I am being pedantic, I was also cross that in the catalogue V Brinkmann attributes the fantastic coloured Peplos Kore, painted by R Cook, to Oxford...when it is actually in the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge, a few yards from where I am writing this!
http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/museum/peplos_kore/

[Jan Stubbe Østergaard]

A number of the issues raised by Mary Beard and commentators may be answered simply by consulting the catalogues published at the various venues where 'Bunte Götter/Gods in Color' has been shown.The history of Greek and Roman sculptural polychromy spans over a 1000 years and a great geographical area: it is bound to be as diverse as is the history of sculptural forms. Research in the field stands at the beginning of the beginning. To move forward, interdisciplinary collaboration in acquiring hard basic data is required. The place to start is in major collections of ancient sculpture: none of them have so far been systematically documented according to agreed standards.

[Eileen]

why don't you set your students on it... would make a great thesis topic.

[Jenny]

I certainly remember Narcissus gleaming 'like a statue in Parian marble' or something along those lines (in what was definitely a reference to his pure white skin), and Parian marble turns up again in Horace somewhere if my memory serves me correctly, which would seem to indicate that there were some white statues, or the skin was left white, or else that they liked to show off very fine marble in its natural state.

The Chinese terracotta warriors were also painted, and the British museum shows a colour reconstruction, but then they were supposed to be like real guards, not pieces of art, so it seems more obvious that they should be coloured.

If you've ever been to the beautiful brick cathedral in the French town of Albi, you will have been struck by all the colours on display - but that's how mediaeval Catholic churches all used to be done out, apparently - not quite sure what happened to the paint in all the rest of them...

[Tony Francis]

According to Wiki "Most Greek statues were painted in strong colours."
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_in_ancient_Greece
I think pigments are still visible on the Sphinx. Would the Greeks or Egyptians have used more somber colors on statues, than those used in wall paintings?

[Neil]

the eminence grise behind the Harvard exhibition

Surely eminence criard?

[Xjy]

Love that Aphaia Papageno!
Maybe the triumph of the nude altered the role of paint? Stone (or clay) hues may have represented flesh well enough to only require a mist of saffron for the veiling.
Obviously colour tastes change over time, but the love of rulers for ostentatious display has remained very consistent. And the rest of us love fireworks and razzle-dazzle shows (and Lucretius has a striking passage on that singing about colour effects in the theatre.)
Perhaps it's romantic to think that old colours are and always were faded, but on the other hand suspicion is almost always justified! (de omnibus d...)

[Richard]

My concern is less whether many or most of the Greek or Roman sculptures were painted than with the intensity of their colours. The examples shown here are astonishingly garish and, given the fact that the available colours at the time were the 'earth pigments', I cannot help feeling that, gold leaf apart, they would have been much more muted and, to my eye, attractive to look at. Have those illustrated been painted with modern substitutes or has there been an attempt to use contemporary pigments?