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Classical statues were not painted horribly

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Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#21

Post by barrkel »

meindnoch wrote: post #17

I don't really buy the premise of this article, and honestly I'm not sure I want to. Even if the evidence ends up showing that most statues weren't actually that brightly colored, it seems like we should still favor the garish reconstructions anyway. The vivid, borderline-ugly versions tell a better story and a more useful one, societally. They force us to confront how contingent our tastes are, and how the austere w…

Thing is, the old paintings that survive aren't garish and are beautiful and that beauty is not obviously contingent.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#22

Post by mc32 »

bluGill wrote: post #19

One issue: the paints/pigments available in times past were not the full range we have today. Sometimes they had to make things somewhat ugly to both our and their taste because that is all they have available. They would still have done their best, but there are limits. We are hampered even more today because blues and greens tend to be sourced from organic materials that decay quick, while reds and browns are from…

Another thing is they may have wanted to use newly available colors to show they had new colors -the novelty aspect. Kind of like when people learned to make aluminum it was sought as a luxury item —whereas now no one would think of aluminum as a luxury item.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#23

Post by crazygringo »

meindnoch wrote: post #17

I don't really buy the premise of this article, and honestly I'm not sure I want to. Even if the evidence ends up showing that most statues weren't actually that brightly colored, it seems like we should still favor the garish reconstructions anyway. The vivid, borderline-ugly versions tell a better story and a more useful one, societally. They force us to confront how contingent our tastes are, and how the austere w…

> They force us to confront how contingent our tastes are, and how the austere white-marble ideal was elevated by centuries of patriarchal, gatekept taste-making that declared one narrow aesthetic "timeless" and everything else vulgar.

But the whole point is that the white-marble ideal didn't come from "patriarchal, gatekept taste-making". That the statues were still mostly white marble at the time, with colored ornamental features, or very light pigmentation for something like a sunburn. That there is something timeless about human taste in that sense.

> If we end up concluding "actually, ancient art was basically compatible with modern elite taste" that's not just boring, it's actively harmful to diversity of ideas about beauty.

When ideology clashes with evidence, isn't it time to let go of the ideology? Also, nothing is "actively harmful" to diversity here. This isn't taking away from space in museums for African art or Chinese art or anything like that, or saying that they are any less beautiful or timeless themselves. Or taking anything away from Norman Rockwell paintings or hip-hop album covers or whatever you consider to be non-elite. The same timeless aesthetic principles can be at play, expressed in different cultural systems.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#24

Post by mopsi »

rwmj wrote: post #7

His final conclusion is terrible and spoils an otherwise excellent article. Unless he has really strong evidence of it, the specialists are very unlikely to be "trolling" the public. They are scientists and conservators doing their best, working away in museum backrooms.

  > They are scientists and conservators doing their best
Perhaps they're simply the wrong people for this problem? I'd very much prefer to see how artists would approach painting the figures, instead of scientists and conservators. Give them the tools that were available at the time and let them do their best.

Even if tastes have indeed changed, something that matches our current taste will reproduce the impact of the statues better than a scientifically meticulous and factually accurate depiction that misses the emotional truth.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#25

Post by dv_dt »

wavefunction wrote: post #6

Weren't they painted so they could be viewed from a distance, as many of them were not exactly eye-level. It's like stage makeup, you wouldn't want to apply the same makeup for performing in a play as you do... as normal.

I think there are a lot of different possibilities. As hinted to in the article, another is that the most evidence is left by pigments close to the raw surface isn't very well representative of the actual statue. If you're familiar with a lot of art processes - a base rough layer of paint is what is used to seal the raw surface and provide stable surface and rough background color sections for much more detailed painted features in following layers.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#26

Post by DuperPower »

Loved the article, the author is a smart person to doubt the changing taste hypothesis, I think everything based on "we are smarter and have better taste that the ancients" have to be extremely doubted, knowing we, the west, are the same society since the romans is so humbling

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#27

Post by dv_dt »

sdenton4 wrote: post #18
dv_dt wrote: post #4

It seems a shame that there is a gap between the limits of what is possible to deduce from direct evidence, and what is likely possible given human ability. And further that the public viewing the reconstructions doesn't take away the subtleties of the difference. To me it's unlikely that some of these works weren't vastly better works of art created by what were likely master artists and craftsfolk of the day. One w…

If only there were some system that could start from some sparse and noisy observations and weave together a plausible completion...

I would much rather see human artist interpretations after they were briefed by the archeological experts on the evidence.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#28

Post by Geonode »

I will die on this hill, because I'm right. Painters put on the first layer in saturated colors like this, then add detail, highlight and shadow. The base layer stuck to the statues, and the rest was washed away.

This whole thing just won't go away because many people are operating outside their area of expertise on this subject.

Painters layer paint, starting with a saturated base color. These archaeologists are simply looking at the paint that was left in the crevices.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#29

Post by fsloth »

meindnoch wrote: post #17

I don't really buy the premise of this article, and honestly I'm not sure I want to. Even if the evidence ends up showing that most statues weren't actually that brightly colored, it seems like we should still favor the garish reconstructions anyway. The vivid, borderline-ugly versions tell a better story and a more useful one, societally. They force us to confront how contingent our tastes are, and how the austere w…

I think the museums should hire trained academic artists to do best guess reproductions next to the garish ones.

The garish ones are _equally_ misleading.

Imagine you got a reproduction of a "five year old with finger paints" version of Mona Lisa and you were told this was made by a person considered a geniuous in his time and an artistic giant. What would make that think you of his patrons and him?

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#30

Post by Geonode »

meindnoch wrote: post #17

I don't really buy the premise of this article, and honestly I'm not sure I want to. Even if the evidence ends up showing that most statues weren't actually that brightly colored, it seems like we should still favor the garish reconstructions anyway. The vivid, borderline-ugly versions tell a better story and a more useful one, societally. They force us to confront how contingent our tastes are, and how the austere w…

Preferring a narrative that supports your politics over fact is the most dangerous trend today. Please stop that.
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