Classical statues were not painted horribly • Hacker News Board

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#291

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 4:10 AM UTC

buescher wrote: post #193

WorldMaker wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a similar, maybe apocryphal, story recently of academic archaeologists stumped about an ancient tool until a person pulled out a crochet kit to fidget with their hands near the exhibit and it became obvious that it wasn't a lost tool they just hadn't put it in the right context.

That's the roman dodecahedrons that are a bit more mysterious than that - the "this is for knitting gloves" explanation is a real stretch, and not only because the Romans didn't have knitting.

My understanding is that while wool knitting may have been a later invention (and that's disputed) and gloves a need for colder climates than the majority of the Roman Empire (assuming just function over fashion, and the Romans didn't seem immune to fashion), the Romans still had some forms of knitting (and/or "nalbinding" if you want to get extremely technical, but knitting seems a useful enough catch all word), it was just mostly knitting of things that weren't wool. One of the related theories I've seen is that the dodecahedrons may have been for knitting gold and surviving gold necklaces with intricate knit patterns do exist. (That theory maybe also helps explain why the dodecahedrons were often found among "jewelry boxes" and gold stashes.)

Also, even if the Roman Empire had wool knitting a lot of it wouldn't have survived archaeological records (textiles rarely do, which is a shame in general, and also arguably why there is so much bias against certain types of textiles in "historical records") and it seems hard to entirely dismiss the Roman Empire from having wool knitting given the extent of the Empire and how deep the history of wool knitting in the British Isles goes, at the very least, to which the Roman Empire had contact and trading.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#292

Post by ianstormtaylor » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 4:29 AM UTC

nyeah wrote: post #201

sudobash1 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the medieval art article is making a different point. The art there had a style that was dictated by its purpose and the beliefs of the artists. For example, most of the examples given in that article are illustrations from manuscripts. This was something (as far as I know) that was new in the western world. The idea that books should be illustrated. And being before the printing press was introduced, ea…

Sure, but for me the standard isn't whether it's visually realistic. Plenty of good stuff isn't particularly realistic. Traditional Chinese landscapes aren't realistic, but a lot of them are great. David Hockney has a lot of good work that isn't realistic and uses primitive-looking technique. The standard is not realism or which style was used. The standard, for me, is whether the artist was any good at art. Hockney…

So, just to make it clear… you define good art by “whether the artist is any good at art”.

Illuminating…

——

For anyone who’s interested in a slightly more nuanced take on how people in the Middle Ages perceived of “art” — and how different that notion was to how we perceive it today — Forgery, Replica, Fiction by Christopher Wood [1] is a really interesting read.

Here’s the last sentence of the Goodreads summary, which describes the major transition in thinking:

“… Ultimately, as forged replicas lost their value as historical evidence, they found a new identity as the intentionally fictional image-making we have come to understand as art.”

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3921524-forgery-replica-...

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#293

Post by mcmoor » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 4:29 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #273

nyeah wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but medieval European art generally sucked. (Call this a hypothesis if that helps.) Compare the damn cave paintings of buffalo to most medieval European art. Some of the 10k-year-old stuff is much better observed. Europeans between about 500 and 1300 mostly couldn't paint. I'm sorry about that. It's just not always taste. Sometimes it's taste. Sometimes people are bad at making art.

Well, I mean you find lots of wonky sculptures and reliefs in medieval art but people in Europe still made some really stunning pieces of art, e.g. see The Lady and the Unicorn ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_and_the_Unicorn ), or the Choir Screen at the Amiens Cathedral ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiens_Cathedral#The_Choir_scr... .)) and so on. So it's kind of a sweeping generalisation to say that "med…

Mmm both of those are from 1400s and OP do limit it to 1300. And that 1300 limit is for good reason. Renaissance is usually dated after 1453 and that's when European art quality exploded. So yeah, those examples instead prove OP's statement.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#294

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 4:37 AM UTC

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.

I would agree with you, but archeologists often classify finds as "for ritual purposes" without any proof or evidence that it was used in a ritual, without specifying what ritual is involved, or how the find would be used in the ritual.

Likewise archeologists will classify finds as tools when they don't have nearly enough knowledge about the craft in question to be able to do this properly (see the extensive mis-classification of weaving swords/beaters as weapons [0], but there are many other cases).

So I'm a little reluctant to cut them some slack and say "this is how scholarship" works when they get all petulant about including colours that we know the ancients had, in ways we know they used them, for this kind of reconstruction.

[0] https://www.academia.edu/67863215/Weapon_or_Weaving_Swords_a...

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#295

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 5:49 AM UTC

griffzhowl wrote: post #267

naravara wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reminded of a Reddit thread long ago about a reconstruction of Roman garum by some American scientists. In their paper they conclusively declared that it tasted foul and a Filipino Redditor replied saying “This actually sounds a lot like the fish sauce we use in SE Asia. I wonder if people from a different culinary tradition would find it less off putting or even tasty?” Cue a bunch of Redditors downvoting the po…

There might even be a directish connection, one way or the other, between garum and SE Asian fish sauce, since Roman coins have been found in Vietnam. Can't find the better source on that specifically now but this is a nice article about the Roman trade with India and mentions the coins found in Vietnam and even Korea about half way down https://www.thecollector.com/why-was-the-roman-indian-ocean-... On the other han…

Worcestershire sauce is also considered a descendent of the fish sauces from ancient Rome.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#296

Post by Daub » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 7:06 AM UTC

Geonode wrote: post #28

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 sim…

That is certainly how oil painters paint. But painting on absorbent stone is likely very different - more akin to fresco, and would probably not support a very layered approach.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#297

Post by watwut » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 8:04 AM UTC

nyeah wrote: post #120

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that these marvels of artistry were painted like my 10th birthday at the local paint-your-own-pottery store always seemed incongruous, at best. Have you seen medieval art though? https://www.artistcloseup.com/blog/explaining-weird-mediaeva... The technique is quite different from the "old masters" of later periods that we often think of as fine art.

Sure, but medieval European art generally sucked. (Call this a hypothesis if that helps.) Compare the damn cave paintings of buffalo to most medieval European art. Some of the 10k-year-old stuff is much better observed. Europeans between about 500 and 1300 mostly couldn't paint. I'm sorry about that. It's just not always taste. Sometimes it's taste. Sometimes people are bad at making art.

The medieval art was better then those cave paintings. Like, common.

> Europeans between about 500 and 1300 mostly couldn't paint.

They could. And they had wide variety of what they painted and how.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#298

Post by watwut » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 8:12 AM UTC

_zagj wrote: post #77

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.

You didn't see all of the thinkpieces from leftwing academics (inlcuding Mark Zuckerberg's sister) making the link between white marble and "white supremacy," and emphasizing polychromy as a means of de-whitening the represented figures? It never quite made sense to me, as even with coloration, the figures still appeared European, though the academics seemed to think the (unsurprising) uncommonness of blonde hair and…

I totally see link between white supremacy and people who get offended over statue colors. Because that group went completely ape-shit over the most mundane articles on the topic.

And for that matter, people who admire Sparta and like, eventually end up doing nazi salutes.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#299

Post by simiones » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 8:26 AM UTC

archagon wrote: post #225

nyeah wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"some anon on a tech forum" Don't sell yourself short. Post some art from those 800 years that doesn't suck, and I'll change my views. Sure, there's plenty of crap in 20th century art. I've seen examples of that. But that's a different subject.

Like I said, I find the majority of European art before 1800 or so to be fairly dull, so I can't really answer this question. The prevailing technique improved remarkably post-Renaissance, and that's enjoyable to an extent, but the same themes get repeated over and over and over again. If you're looking for art with an impact, the iconography of Andrei Rublev (and other icon painters during this period) is still mass…

The problem is not a lack of naturalism, it's obvious mistakes in the way the naturalistic poses are attempted. Many of Rublev's icons have obvious mistakes in the way joints are painted, for example - but not all of them or the exact same thing; it's not a style, it's simply a limitation of his skills. Many later painters who were inspired by him have corrected this mistake, not sought to reproduce it.

Not to mention, Rublev lived at the end of the Medieval period, and well into the Renaissance - the period where painterly skill in Europe was revitalized.

Re: Classical statues were not painted horribly

#300

Post by archagon » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 8:32 AM UTC

simiones wrote: post #299

archagon wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I find the majority of European art before 1800 or so to be fairly dull, so I can't really answer this question. The prevailing technique improved remarkably post-Renaissance, and that's enjoyable to an extent, but the same themes get repeated over and over and over again. If you're looking for art with an impact, the iconography of Andrei Rublev (and other icon painters during this period) is still mass…

The problem is not a lack of naturalism, it's obvious mistakes in the way the naturalistic poses are attempted. Many of Rublev's icons have obvious mistakes in the way joints are painted, for example - but not all of them or the exact same thing; it's not a style, it's simply a limitation of his skills. Many later painters who were inspired by him have corrected this mistake, not sought to reproduce it. Not to mentio…

Again, I’m not sure why it matters. Henri Rousseau couldn’t draw for shit and yet people adore his art. The represented idea and its aesthetic execution are what people mostly respond to, not how realistic a figure’s joints happen to be. (And FWIW, a large number of Renaissance painters clearly have no idea what a female body looks like.)