TruthHate

Were Ancient Statues and Buildings Painted?

The short answer is ‘yes’. Much of the pure, gleaming white marble sculpture that we now admire was certainly colored in some way. The question is how was it colored: a delicate wash, or bright, glaring hues, and just for the clothing and accouterments, or for the exposed skin as well.

The Sackler Galleries at Harvard, offers some examples of how Greek and Roman statues might have appeared with all their original paint.

It’s a great, garish multi-color spectacular. But does the coloring really mean this kind of bright, in-your-face, dazzle. If you are not entirely convinced by the gaudy blues and yellows, are you simply guilty of a purist view of ancient sculpture that wants it all white whether it was or not?

Additionally, this debate also goes to the matter of the ruined and damaged nature of much of ancient artifacts, statues and buildings. It may be Ok to leave them as they are, although that is questionable in the case of buildings such as the coliseum and the Parthenon, but when we are talking about teaching children and informing the general public it seems they should not be given a ruined view of their cultural heritage, and certainly not in print.

How do we want our ancient sculpture and buildings to look?

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

It’s a shock, but all in all a convincing one. In fact, some of this stuff still carries the traces of the very paint that Brinkmann has restored. So, for example, he is especially good at giving you a new multi-colored look at the sculptures of the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina.

Question is, how far we should imagine all Greek and Roman sculptures to be painted in this way. Or whether in the Roman world, at least, we should really be thinking of a more delicate coloring, not so garish.

Led by the scholars, we have certainly become overly fixated on a version of pure white ancient art.

Although there are some references in ancient literature to colored sculpture, they are not all that many and they are out-numbered by Greek and Roman writers who sing of the translucent, unadorned white marble of their favorite statues.

And while early Greek statues fairly often come out of the ground still with their traces of color, 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 color, if colored 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 paint?

The jury’s still out in some respects. For the question is not whether ancient statues were painted, certainly, in bits, at least, they were, but whether they were done in an in-your-face way. Practical purpose should trump theory, and the purpose of preserving and exhibiting antiquities should be to inform, educate and inspire the students and public generally to a greater appreciation and understanding of our ancient heritage from civilizations past.

It would seem a balanced view would be helpful. If it is all one-sided then the student is denied all that is possible. The view of broken ruined pasty statues and buildings should be amply supplemented with replications of how these treasures actually might have looked when in use by the people of those times. This balance is not present today in our teaching models and the lack damages both our students and our national purpose.

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