Just as classicists might not be the best painters, metaphysics should stay out of criticizing methodology. Ralph seems completely clueless of the research literature, and is basing his whole argument on vibes from looking at some pictures. Ridiculous.
Classical statues were not painted horribly
121–130 of 351 posts
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
The archaeologists know that and say as much in TFA: "The paints used in the reconstructions are chemically similar to the trace pigments found on parts of the surface of the originals. However, those pigments formed the underlayer of a finished work to which they bear a very conjectural relationship. Imagine a modern historian trying to reconstruct the Mona Lisa on the basis of a few residual pigments here and there…
> that these are not exact copies, that we can never know exactly how they looked Meaning that these "reconstructions" are a pretty pointless and have no real purpose.
They show us what the base layers were, and what pigments of the day looked like.
It may be an academic point. But they are academics.
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#123I think the best explanation is that classicists are not makeup artists. I am reminded of reading some classicists' attempt to create garum in the kitchen by making some unpleasant horror of mashed fish or something back in the eighties or nineties. No one ever mentioned in those kinds of write-ups back then that they still make fish sauce in Italy. (I looked for the source I'm thinking of and it's drowned out by mor…
Huh. That's exactly how you make garum - an unpleasant horror of mashed fish. Refer to Max Miller and his spectacularly successful effort to reproduce Garum in his back yard.
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is what tfa says, and it's a good point. But tfa also points out that the archaeologists/reconstructionists know that what they're producing differs from the original. The thing is the discipline of reconstruction means that they only use pigments that they have direct evidence of, and this is just the saturated underlayers. The problem is this is seldom explained when the reconstructions are presented to t…
Reconstructioniats say that they only show th colours they can prove existed. The article suggests they obstinately do this because they know it creates a spectacle. I think there's another explanation - if they use their own judgement to fill in the gaps (making the statues more classically beautiful) then everyone will accuse them of making it all up, even if they were to base it on fairly rigorous study of e.g. th…
That is how scholarship works. It’s like a math proof: they’re interested in proving the base case. If someone else wants to do more speculative work to theorize what a well-painted version would look like, that would be super cool, but it wouldn’t be scholarship.
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the horrible version of the statues? They just look ... bad. While photography destroyed academic art almost to extinction, thank heavens it's still trained and you can find practicing artists. Finding good ones might be a bit hard though. So you could find a _bad_ artist to help you in your reconstruction project. But finding an incompetent accomplice probably is not in anyones best interest. So while hiring _a…
I'm not sure whether they look "bad" is enough justification. The author dismisses the possible explanation "maybe they didn't consider this bad style back then" without any real argument other than "there are other works of art with different styles". I agree that I, personally, do not consider them painted in a way that is pleasing to me. But is that what the reconstruction project is meant to achieve, i.e. a paint…
I believe it is basically irresponsible to present the statues with their base layers only. Either extrapolate the aesthetic top layers that might have been there, or just report that the statues were painted without a visual example. Presenting them as poorly as they do contributes to demoralization and a sense of alienation from one's own cultural roots.
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The end result would surely look better, but how would we be assured it resembled historical reality? You can be fairly sure that no reproduction would literally resemble the reality, _including the existing reconconstructions_, but you can certainly produce a range of possible reconstructions which would have produced the same evidentiary record, and which would be at least inspired by what we know about contempor…
How do you prevent introducing a bias that then becomes what we "know" about how statues were painted? By introducing modern aesthetic sensibilities and present them as plausible, we then reinforce that this is how statues were painted back then, and we don't know . I think the article is mostly begging the question, and is not particularly rigorous. At most it's appealing to some sort of common sense, and we know ho…
What about the paintings of statues from Pompeii cited in the article?
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#127I 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 sim…
Yes, this is what tfa says, and it's a good point. But tfa also points out that the archaeologists/reconstructionists know that what they're producing differs from the original. The thing is the discipline of reconstruction means that they only use pigments that they have direct evidence of, and this is just the saturated underlayers. The problem is this is seldom explained when the reconstructions are presented to t…
The "garish" statues are more akin to a false color image of mars that shows topography or something. That they're a visual representation of a particular portion of the pigments found and are not supposed to be an accurate recreation of how the statue looked at the time it was created.
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#128Did he talk to people who make those reconstructions? Why speculate from that outside perspective when you could talk to people who worked on them and the decisions they made. I think that would be very interesting. As is that‘s completely missing and it feels a bit like aimless speculation and stuff that could be answered by just talking to the people making those reconstructions. My experience is that people doing…
I liked the article but this is a very good point.
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#129I am of course not a historian, but whenever some historical (or contemporary political theory) flies against what we know about human nature, I always hold it in deep suspicion
Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reconstructioniats say that they only show th colours they can prove existed. The article suggests they obstinately do this because they know it creates a spectacle. I think there's another explanation - if they use their own judgement to fill in the gaps (making the statues more classically beautiful) then everyone will accuse them of making it all up, even if they were to base it on fairly rigorous study of e.g. th…
That is how scholarship works. It’s like a math proof: they’re interested in proving the base case. If someone else wants to do more speculative work to theorize what a well-painted version would look like, that would be super cool, but it wouldn’t be scholarship.
“The reason I’m totally misleading you with a speculative example is because of scholarship.”
No way. When they engage the public, they are not longer exclusively scholars. They responsible for conveying the best truth they can to non-experts.
A journal paper can be misunderstood when the reader lacks the context to interpret it. Out in the public square, that is not the reader’s fault anymore.