We still find it
difficult to imagine the buildings and statues in Greek and Roman cities in
full blasting colors. In an earlier blog, Ancient
In recent years, in-depth reconstruction work has been done by the team of Prof. Vinzenz Brinkman. For more than 15 years, they analyzed the pigmentation of antique sculptures using digital methods, whereby the originals were left untouched. New technical photographic techniques using UV-light and –reflectography enabled them to disclose the painted parts of the statues. The chemical and mechanical transformations on the surface, which happened over the centuries, left areas where no pigment had survived. They applied the matching colors on copies of existing statues based on those discoveries. The results are absolutely mind-blowing.
It is noteworthy that rather than merely coloring their sculptures, the Greeks and Romans managed to expand the formal and narrative structure of the objects.
The
exhibition Bunte Götter – Golden Edition. Die
Farben der Antike will run
until 30 August 2020 at the Liebieghaus in
Is very interesting that in hellenistic period were in fashion pastel colours.
ReplyDeleteThese colors in pastel tone had been found also as decoration of buildings and temples.
So,we can say that while in the classic period were in vogue strong and bold colors (deep red,deep blue or green,deep yellow), in hellenistic period,above all in early hellenism III-II century BC,were favorite in textiles and decorations.delicate pastel tones.
Your comment sounds pretty much correct. However, there may be exceptions. I am thinking about the Abduction of Persephone in Vergina, for instance, which dates from around 340 BC, i.e., still within the Classical era. The colors are very true to reality and pastel tones have definitely been used here.
DeleteThere may be more such examples, who knows ....