
The myth of whiteness in classical sculpture - fanf2
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture
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chongli
This is a textbook example of the trope _reality is unrealistic_ [1]. Those
sculptures look kitschy and childish when painted. Seeing them that way
destroys my childhood image of the ancient Greeks. It's so strange!

It fits right in with my struggle to imagine the 19th century and early 20th
century as being anything other than black and white, since almost (
_exceptions exist_ [2]) all of the photos from back then were monochrome.

[1]
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnreali...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic)

[2]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alim_Khan_(1880%E2%8...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alim_Khan_\(1880%E2%80%931944\),_Emir_of_Bukhara,_photographed_by_S.M._Prokudin-
Gorskiy_in_1911.jpg)

~~~
iguy
In addition, it's also hard to imagine how they looked to people then. By
which I mean that people would not have seen so much other color in their
everyday lives -- obviously trees & flowers were as now, but paint and dyes
were expensive and nowhere near as bright & varied as today.

~~~
maxxxxx
It would probably have had the same effect as cool computer animations have on
us now "wow that's cool!"

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andrewl
For more examples of what this might have looked like, see the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, where the statues on the pediment are painted in the old style:

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

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

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alricb
Another thing that was "whitened", or rather, polished: medieval armor. A lot
of it was painted, but the paint was removed by collectors and "conservators"
in the 19th and 20th century.

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Footkerchief
Source please! I'd like to read more.

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alricb
I don't have a book reference, but this talk by Tobias Capwell is my source:
[https://youtu.be/COAIQPsgZWY?t=2311](https://youtu.be/COAIQPsgZWY?t=2311)

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montenegrohugo
I'd love to see the pyramids when they were first built. They are still very
impressive 4000 years later, but to see them when just completed, with the
golden top and the polished limestone and all the other decoration that
probably existed then...

The massive structures still remain, but they must be ruins compared to their
past splendor.

~~~
KineticLensman
Ditto Hadrian's Wall [0] in the UK. It's still impressive as it cuts across
the Northern moors, but is a mass of grey stone. Back in the day, it was
believed to have been plastered and whitewashed, creating a stunning 70 mile
long visual marker of the Northern extent of the Roman empire

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall)

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SolaceQuantum
"As the artist and critic David Batchelor writes in his 2000 book,
“Chromophobia,” at a certain point ignorance becomes willful denial—a kind of
“negative hallucination” in which we refuse to see what is before our eyes. "

It's interesting to note that this psychological phenomenon has occurred much
before the prevalence of social media, and hasn't changed in how significant
the cultural influence is of the phenomenon. I'm pretty interested if there's
any solution at all to it.

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fedups
Professor Bond and this finding are discussed as a case study of 'polarization
cycles,' where innocuous claims somehow give rise to controversy in the book
"Coddling of the American Mind." (this is obliquely referenced around the
middle of the OP). For those interested in these online social dynamics I'd
highly recommend the book.

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danans
The Enlightenment, among many other things, was characterized by a movement
toward simpler styles of attire, especially among men of higher means - i.e.
no more high heels worn by men. That sort of dress became seen as superfluous.

It was also the beginning of the modern sciences using rational methods,
including the modern study of ancient art and archaeology.

It wouldn't surprise me, therefore, if Enlightenment scholars and those who
followed interpreted ancient aesthetics through their more recently acquired
sense of style, or really projected their style on the ancients, since it
would have flattered them to think that they shared a style sensibility with
the ancients.

As a contrast, in India, where the Enlightenment arrived relatively late, the
color intensity of ancient aesthetics has been preserved to a far greater
degree.

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YeGoblynQueenne
>> In the nineteen-thirties, restorers at the British Museum polished the
Elgin marbles, the most treasured sculptures from the Acropolis, until they
were as white and shiny as pearls.

As good an argument as any for the Greeks getting them back from those
ignorant barbarians.

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growlist
> ignorant barbarians

Anything the British have done to the Elgin marbles pales into insignificance
compared to the _actual blowing up with explosives_ of the Parthenon at the
hands of the Ottomans/Venetians in 1687.

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topang1
Quite a bias article with a political axe to grind starting straight away with
the title. I thought hyper-political articles weren't allowed here?

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baldfat
> political axe to grind starting straight away with the title

Yes someone absolutely didn't read the article nor look at the examples of the
paint remains found on the statues.

> Incredibly bias article

The reason the whole idea of color and whiteness was presented was to answer
the question of why did people remove the color from the objects and why
wasn't it common knowledge about how they were actually painted objects.

Political against Alt-Right? I have a political ax to grind against Alt-Right
and so should you.

~~~
lmm
> The reason the whole idea of color and whiteness was presented was to answer
> the question of why did people remove the color from the objects

Extremely unconvincingly, though; the linguistic accident that we use the same
word ("white") to describe a shade and an ethnicity is doing most of the
rhetorical work. None of the reconstructions shown in the article looks
particularly "non-white". Doesn't it seem more plausible that people removed
traces of colours because, as even the article acknowledges, they make the
statues look gaudy and childish?

~~~
iguy
It is a bit strange how the article veers between ethnicity and paint. I mean
both are interesting, but the fact that we came to think of the naked marble
of these statues as the canonical version seems largely unrelated to whether
the greeks were, well, greek.

(And to other questions, like how did their society think about these things,
and how much has post-classical migration changed the makeup of the people
living there. IIRC the African component of North-Africans has increased a
bit.)

There is one picture in TFA of an African-looking child. And interestingly
they say that this effect was often conveyed by choosing to work in basalt, as
well as painting with darker colors. I guess these must be fairly uncommon, I
can't recall seeing any in museums?

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yourbandsucks
The skin tone of Greeks themselves got a huge injection of germanic whiteness
after Rome fell and the Italy was taken over by Lombards and Normans.

~~~
iguy
Indeed. And of course some of what was Greece has now became Turkey, and for
which enough Turks must have shown up to switch the language... I don't know
the current data here but I'm sure it's improving rapidly.

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jmh530
This has been known for some time...

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scoot_718
If they weren't faded from their tacky paint jobs perhaps the classics would
never have gained popularity.

