medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Some examples of ancient Greek colour taste in statuary:
http://tinyurl.com/2da35l
http://tinyurl.com/2gvfyl
http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_1_1c.html
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1fb11e/
An Etruscan example (see text for colours):
http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/Ancient/1926.19.html
And one from Roman Egypt:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/05/afe/ho_1991.76.htm
Those were all terracottas. My impression is that modern dislike of paint in sculpture is largely limited to surfaces that can take a polish, e.g. marble or alabaster, and that an ancient polychromed terracotta figurine is no more objectionable _per se_ than would be a modern polychromed cult statue in gypsum (vel sim.). Some examples of the latter are towards the bottom of the page here:
http://www.saintsilas.org.uk/section/125
Medieval painting of ordinary stone doesn't seem to offend when it occurs on church walls. Why it should be offensive on fonts or on column capitals escapes me.
An instance of ancient Greek polychromy on marble:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ACMA_675_Kore_1.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ACMA_675_Kore_2.JPG
We have fewer examples of ancient _Roman_ polychromy on marble than we do of ancient Greek. Here are two:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/prms/ho_1992.11.66.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2ywnaz
Best,
John Dillon
----- Original Message -----
On Tuesday, August 14, 2007, at 2:08 pm, Diana Wright wrote in response to Maddy Gray:
>
> Madeleine Gray wrote:
> > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> >
> > This ties in with our earlier discussion on painted fonts. We really
> don't like it. They apparently did. Traces of paint even on medieval
> alabaster tombs - it seems like sacrilege.. .What to do?
> >
> >
>
> Even the classical Greeks painted their sculpture. For museum
> purposes,
> any remaining color is preserved but not enhanced. [The Philadelphia
>
> Museum of Art has 'Greek' statues around its classicizing pediment &
> they look absolutely awful, but the Philadephia sun is not the Greek
> sun
> that so effectively bleaches out all but intense colors.] The
> Byzantines
> painted over alabaster and ivory. Our own monochromatic taste derives
>
> from looking at sculpture that has lost its taste.
>
> DW
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