I'm glad we've realized the statues were painted, I just wonder why no one talks about the theories (and they must exist out there) that the Greeks and Romans also used paint to exaggerate and create light, shadow, dimension, and depth. Basically; I doubt they just flatly painted on some colors and called it a day. That feels like a great underestimatation of their skills. Especially considering the skill with it that the images or the portrait, fresco, and bedroom show in this article.
Just feels... Like of course a beautiful statute flattened with paint looks garish and like too much to us today. I doubt the sculpter would just flatten all their work like that.
‘In circa 490 B.C., when [the statue of the archer above] was sculpted, statues were decorated in flat colors, which were applied in a paint-by-numbers fashion. But as time passed, artists taught themselves to enhance effects of light and shadow, much as Koch-Brinkmann was doing with Caligula, created some five centuries after the archer. The Brinkmanns had also discovered evidence of shading and hatching on the “Alexander Sarcophagus” (created c. 320 B.C.)—a cause for considerable excitement. "It's a revolution in painting comparable to Giotto's in the frescoes of Padua," says Brinkmann.’
Unfortunately we'll never know those statues' true colours and artistry, but at least now we have a more nuanced (pun intended hehe) understanding.
I'm glad we've realized the statues were painted, I just wonder why no one talks about the theories (and they must exist out there) that the Greeks and Romans also used paint to exaggerate and create light, shadow, dimension, and depth. Basically; I doubt they just flatly painted on some colors and called it a day. That feels like a great underestimatation of their skills. Especially considering the skill with it that the images or the portrait, fresco, and bedroom show in this article.
Just feels... Like of course a beautiful statute flattened with paint looks garish and like too much to us today. I doubt the sculpter would just flatten all their work like that.
You are spot on! Some later statues apparently have traces of shading. According to this article (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors-17888/):
‘In circa 490 B.C., when [the statue of the archer above] was sculpted, statues were decorated in flat colors, which were applied in a paint-by-numbers fashion. But as time passed, artists taught themselves to enhance effects of light and shadow, much as Koch-Brinkmann was doing with Caligula, created some five centuries after the archer. The Brinkmanns had also discovered evidence of shading and hatching on the “Alexander Sarcophagus” (created c. 320 B.C.)—a cause for considerable excitement. "It's a revolution in painting comparable to Giotto's in the frescoes of Padua," says Brinkmann.’
Unfortunately we'll never know those statues' true colours and artistry, but at least now we have a more nuanced (pun intended hehe) understanding.