Several points occur to me about the very interesting variety of
responses on this topic. The whitewashing of paintings within
churches is different from the disappearance of polychromy on
statues. The same people who might have whitewashed wall paintings
would have been more likely to smash statues than remove the colour
from them. That, as has been pointed out, was more commonly done for
aesthetic than religious reasons. As has also been pointed out, the
weather is certainly a factor in the survival of exterior polychromy;
that is as much the case with the almost complete disappearance of
exterior frescoes (as, for example, in Venice) as it is for painted
portal sculpture, and never more so than recently: there are some
spectacular recent photographs of sculptures made in the 1880s to
"complete" Cologne Cathedral that look as if they have just emerged
from an acid bath. Most medieval statuary which retains its
polychromy, I would hazard, has been "kept up" over the centuries
fairly regularly. Another example that hasn't been mentioned is, I
believe, the portal of Berne Cathedral.
Although nobody doubts that sculpture was polychromed in the Middle
Ages, there may be grounds for speculating that the idea of
unpainted statuary did gain some ground in the Renaissance (e.g. Or
San Michele in Florence), but then, as has also been pointed out,
there is still lots of painted Baroque statuary - are we seeing in
this a Baroque "revival" of a medieval practice?
Lastly, medieval churches were indeed painted on the inside
as well. Many wall paintings are still emerging from beneath
post-medieval layers of whitewash. One of the most fascinating, and
mysterious, aspects of this, however, is not the religious imagery
that quite regularly appeared on medieval church walls. They were
often painted without imagery, as well: during a period in which the
quality of architectural stonework has seldom been excelled, church
walls were quite commonly whitewashed, and then painted over again
with a pattern of ashlar stonework. Why???
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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