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Classical statues were not painted horribly

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Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#131

Post by pqtyw »

the_af wrote: post #90
empath75 wrote: post #74

Earlier 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…

We do have a non insignificant amount of ancient frescoes, mosaics and even a handful of paintings. As the author has pointed out they generally seem much more appealing to modern aesthetic sensibilities. That seems like reasonably strong evidence than whatever thought processing went into making these so called. "reconstructions".

> To me TFA reads mostly as "this reconstruction looks bad, I refuse to believe ancient Romans painted statues like this, therefore it must be an incorrect reconstruction."

Which I agree is not a reasonably view IF we had no other data. Imposing the garrish 5-yeard old colouring book style is no less biased.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#132

Post by some_random »

esperent wrote: post #2

I've literally never heard anyone say that classical statues were painted "horribly", and unless I missed it, there's no sources in this article that say that, either (just several links to the same New Yorker article talking about whiteness). What I've always heard is that classical statues were painted "brightly". So, is this something that's so well known in the study of antiquities that no source was required, or…

For what it's worth, the "fact" Greco-Roman statues were painted garishly was taught in a packed auditorium to me in an art history gen-ed by a PhD. The specific judgement of painted "horribly" wasn't used but it was obviously incredibly ugly.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#133

Post by tootie »

esperent wrote: post #2

I've literally never heard anyone say that classical statues were painted "horribly", and unless I missed it, there's no sources in this article that say that, either (just several links to the same New Yorker article talking about whiteness). What I've always heard is that classical statues were painted "brightly". So, is this something that's so well known in the study of antiquities that no source was required, or…

Yeah same. I took a course on this years ago and it was explained that the garish colors were to make the statues more visible at long distances. Nuance would be lost. A lot of collosal roman sculpture was designed with the perspective of the viewer in mind. Proportions were exaggerated based on where they were being viewed from.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#134

Post by bjt »

resize2996 wrote: post #124
wisty wrote: post #111

Earlier 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.

And that's a fine standard to maintain when you're writing an academic paper.

When you are instead putting together a museum exhibition intended for the general public, and you observe over and over again that they will interpret your work as representing what the statues actually looked like, it is irresponsible to keep giving them that impression.

It's not an either/or question. They could do some of the statues with just the pure archaeological approach of only using the paints they found in the crevices, and do others in a layered approach that is more speculative but probably closer to how they actually looked. If they did that, this article would not be necessary.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#135

Post by some_random »

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…

If your goal as a historian is to "tell a better story" then you are not fit to be a historian. You should go find a job as a political hack or maybe federal judge.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#136

Post by pqtyw »

esperent wrote: post #2

I've literally never heard anyone say that classical statues were painted "horribly", and unless I missed it, there's no sources in this article that say that, either (just several links to the same New Yorker article talking about whiteness). What I've always heard is that classical statues were painted "brightly". So, is this something that's so well known in the study of antiquities that no source was required, or…

Why would the painting style they used for statues be so massively different from frescoes, mosaics and paintings during the same period, though?

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#137

Post by pqtyw »

rob74 wrote: post #52

> But they fail to correct the belief that people naturally form given what is placed before them: that the proffered reconstruction of ancient sculpture is roughly what ancient sculpture actually looked like. I'm pretty sure many museums with reconstructions of classical statues have a note on this topic somewhere on a plaque beside the statues - but who reads those?

I fail to understand what's the point in even having those reconstructions there if we are fairly certainly they looked nothing alike the originals. Making them pure white seems less dishonest.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#138

Post by mikkupikku »

smallnix wrote: post #100
mikkupikku wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statues were obviously carved by expert artists but these "specialists" would have us believe they were subsequently painted by half-assed amateurs. It fails the sniff test so badly, that trolling is a reasonable conclusion. You don't put that much effort into making something only then let some unskilled intern ruin it by covering up all your work with a flat coat of primer and leave it at that.

Unlike the article, your comment, does not provide evidence beyond "sniff test". The article brings up paintings of statues, which is an interesting data point.

If somebody tells you there's a dragon outside, you'd need to be stupid to ask for evidence.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#139

Post by notahacker »

mc32 wrote: post #22
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.

Extreme example: here's the Hawa Mahal in India https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One_of_many_windows_...

The large plain panes of boldly coloured stained glass probably looked particularly magnificent when coloured glass was rare and expensive and achieving consistency very difficult. They look somewhat less sophisticated in an era in which the multiple bright coloured translucent pane aesthetic is more often seen in cheap children's toys.

If it was a restoration job, many people who love the sombre wall colours and intricate decoration of Mughal architecture would be sure to insist they'd got it horribly wrong...

(Other aspects of the article's argument also apply here. Very different culture but theres a lot of aspects of the Hawa Mahal that look fantastic to modern Western tastes, the architects clearly valued detail in their carvings and painting of other items, they surely had the technical ability to produce stained glass in a way modern Europeans familiar with different approaches to stained glass windows in their own cathedrals consider to be tasteful and skilful. But there's no missing layer of subtle decoration that's been lost to the years: they just thought combining boldly coloured panes of glass looked fabulous)

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#140

Post by mikkupikku »

kijin wrote: post #87
mikkupikku wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder if they ever used the same sort of gimmicky paint, like paint with mica flakes to make something look metallic.

They probably used whatever paint was closest in chemical composition to the residue they found on the statue.

You mean the primer? Why would they use their fancy paint for that?
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