
Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked - jawngee
http://io9.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how-ancient-greek-statues-really-looked
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lmkg
I knew that ancient architecture was usually vividly painted, but it didn't
occur to me that the statues might be as well. The interesting thing is how
nowadays we model buildings and statues after our notion of what classical art
looked like, but the models were never intended to look like that. It's almost
cargo-cultish, in its own way. Of course, the non-color elements like the
shapes and the proportions still stand through, and those are definitely
worthy of study. But painting such a sculpture or building like this would
probably be outright offensive to some people.

The color-restored versions somehow look less... impressive with the colors
on, but that could be just because I'm used to thinking of the colorless
versions as more regal. On the other hand, black-and-white photographs look
more artistic as well, so it could be something about the lack of color
itself.

If you want to see how ancient classical buildings looked when they were in
use, check out the old British TV series "I, Claudius." It's strange to see
everything so bright and garish, but it's accurate in spirit, if not in
detail.

~~~
gcv
It _is_ a little cargo cultish. The architecture looks good, though, and
that's what counts, and why it continues to be influential. I'm rather more
annoyed with idiotic signs on buildings which say "PVBLIC BVILDING" or "COVRT
HOVSE". Just because Latin does not need to distinguish between "u" and "v" in
writing (they're unambiguous in context as either a vowel or a consonant),
does not justify torturing English.

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wallflower
Just in case anyone did not know: 'V' was a lot easier to chisel than 'U' (why
they are interchangeable)

~~~
samatman
Incorrect. The letter U was simply not a part of the Roman/Latin alphabet. It,
and the letter W, were Carolingian-era developments.

Besides: why would "U" be hard to chisel compared to, say, "R"?

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andrewl
The statues on the pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art are painted in
the old style:

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pediment,_Philly_Art_...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pediment,_Philly_Art_Museum_%281%29.jpg)

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pediment,_Philly_Art_...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pediment,_Philly_Art_Museum_%282%29.jpg)

~~~
sbov
Those look much better than the colored statues in the original article. Any
idea if the difference is due to the lighting, the quality of the job, or
historical accuracy?

~~~
Luc
Here's a different couple of reconstructions: [http://www.leica-
microsystems.com/news-media/our-customer-ma...](http://www.leica-
microsystems.com/news-media/our-customer-magazines/resolution-materials-
technology/materials-technology-resolution-no-4/ancient-feast-of-colour/)

I think the ones in the original article are painted on plaster replicas and
the lighting is horrid compared to the professionally lit marble sculptures.
It does seem hard to believe the artists would have caked on 'fond de teint'
on the face and arms of the statue like in the reconstruction, without any
subtlety, and losing all the lovely skin-like glow of marble.

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msluyter
In the Euripides play about Helen of Troy:

 _My life and fortunes are a monstrosity, Partly because of Hera, partly
because of my beauty. If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier
aspect The way you would wipe color off a statue._

Strange as it seems to our modern eyes, they really did consider this
beautiful. I'd guess that such bright colors were rare (and expensive) back
then, so anything that vivid would have been extraordinary.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Also, though we can detect which pigments were used on the statues we cannot
determine the quantity. The degree of artistry, and perhaps subtlety, that was
used to paint these statues is lost to us. We know that they were not plain,
but beyond that we know very little of what they actually looked like.

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yread
The terracota army - a tens of thousands strong army buried close to Xi'an in
China is also colored brightly but the colors fade away quickly. And the
scientist have decided not to continue with the excavations so that in the
future when we have the technology to conserve the real colors we can dig up
the rest and see it and keep it in its current beauty.

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presidentender
I wonder whether I think the 'traditional" blank white statues look more
dignified because that's what I'm familiar with, or because they actually do
look more dignified.

Perhaps we should paint all the DC monuments in festive colors?

~~~
hugh3
The particular pictures in the article look fairly awful; you'll notice they
all have a bunch of bright primary colours right next to each other. I can
only think of one place you'd see that many bright colours close together
nowadays, and that's on a clown outfit.

Go ahead, you try looking dignified when you're wearing that archer's pants.

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da5e
Many years ago a Middle-Eastern family bought a famous mansion in Beverly
Hills. There was a huge outrage that they had the Greek statuary colorized.
The press seemed to think that it proved the lack of taste of those
"foreigners". It's funny to now realize that they were probably more correct
than the sophisticated Americans who thought the statues should be
undecorated.

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KevinMS
Why do the have a painted statue of a roman emperor in a article about painted
Greek statues?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_of_Prima_Porta>

Also, weren't many roman and greek statues sheltered somewhat and protected
against wearing off all this paint?

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StavrosK
"The color? Always something tacky."

Pity the ancients didn't share our fashion sense, eh.

~~~
Ardit20
Didn't we simply copy what we thought was their fashion sense. If their
statues or architecture came down to us in colour, we would have a preference
for colourful statue and architecture. Just goes perhaps to show how much
influence does culture have on ones perception of such things.

~~~
StavrosK
That was my original point, that it's our culture that makes us consider these
statues garish and tacky. Back then, they were (obviously) the height of
fashion and pleasing design.

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da5e
I'm sure how to express it, but this information could be disruptive in a
fairly serious way. The whole purity of the white Greek statues sort of
connects to the modern minimalist aesthetic. I think the way the statuary has
been presented to us in popular culture and in general education in the US has
given us a sense of the Greeks that is subtly changed by this realization that
they weren't what we thought of them as. At least many of us.

Greek art may be less like the Miro in the Guggenheim and more like the mural
in the barrio. And as the truth spreads that their art was in many ways closer
to what white Americans think of as "immigrant" art, it will probably slightly
help with multiculturism. And influence design.

And as StavrosK appropriately snarked, "Pity the ancients didn't share our
fashion sense, eh." Yes, and I think there was/is a pretty strong myth that
they did.

~~~
klenwell
While I agree this will challenge a lot of popular assumptions about classical
art, this information isn't exactly new. See for instance Alma-Tadema's
representation of the Parthenon:

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1868_Lawrence_Alma-
Ta...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1868_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema_-
_Phidias_Showing_the_Frieze_of_the_Parthenon_to_his_Friends.jpg)

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macrael
Nashville, TN has a full scale replica of Athens' Parthenon, complete with
four story Athena. She was originally unpainted, but recently was updated to
match what she looked like in ancient days. Lots of gilt and garish paint.

Before:
[http://legacy.lclark.edu/~ndsmith/Acropolis/Nashville%20Part...](http://legacy.lclark.edu/~ndsmith/Acropolis/Nashville%20Parthenon%20Athena.JPG)

After:
[http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~amanda.n.krauss/AthenaGilded.j...](http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~amanda.n.krauss/AthenaGilded.jpg)

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Terretta
Better article:

<http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors.html>

This is one of those slow news day tropes "rediscovered" and recycled every
few years.

In the Hermitage in Russia, there are several centuries old paintings with
incidental Greek statuary in the background, painted in living colors. This is
one of those nuggets even art historians keep forgetting to pass along.

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postfuturist
Did they also use ultraviolet light to determine the colors and patterns
painted on the missing quiver of the bowman statue? Amazing. Also, could it be
true that the colors are not exact? Certain pigments could degrade more, leave
less of a trace, so assuming the reconstructed colors might be off slightly,
they could have been significantly less ugly than these depictions.

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sown
I wonder if there was certain lightning requirements.

For example, the famous bust of Abraham Lincoln requires light over head and
behind it to give it a serious, solemn almost brooding and suffering look

[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3504/3753443355_6ed82e886f.jp...](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3504/3753443355_6ed82e886f.jpg)

In full light, though, it looks less impressive.

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hernan7
I wonder if those solid colors were just the base of the paint, and some
shading effect was applied on top to make the statues look more realistic. I
mean, I have a hard time imagining that artists like the Ancient Greeks, who
got the human shape so right, would also get the color so wrong.

(By the way, the little color left on the Elgin Marbles look like a badly
weathered garden gnome. Oh well.)

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swah
I was thinking about the metal ones, and a comment in the site said "And yes
it is generally thought that the bronze originals were painted too."

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thingie
It makes all those monumental neoclassical buildings and art look quite funny.
Like your idea of beauty was based on a skeleton of some beauty queen of old
and you didn't even realize that it's not how she was expected to appear.
(Hyperbole, of course. But if you, for example, think about that history shows
parodied in Futurama, hey, it seems that we're exactly like that…)

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gradschool
but "ultraviolet light" is a contradiction in terms

~~~
jpeterson
What?

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gradschool
Light, by definition, is visible. "Ultraviolet radiation" would be a
preferable usage.

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whyenot
Nonsense.

Light, as defined by dictionary.com:

2\. Physics

a. Also called luminous energy, radiant energy. electromagnetic radiation to
which the organs of sight react, ranging in wavelength from about 400 to 700
nm and propagated at a speed of 186,282 mi./sec (299,972 km/sec), considered
variously as a wave, corpuscular, or quantum phenomenon.

b. a similar form of radiant energy that does not affect the retina, as
ultraviolet or infrared rays.

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chadmalik
Somewhere, Ted Turner is smiling.

