Colors on Trajan Column

[Luca]

"... color traces were still visible in 1833..."<br>
<br>
Mortimer Wheeler - "Roman Art and Architecture" (Thames & Hudson - 1964)<br>
<br>
Anyone knows which is the source that Wheeler refers? <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Btw, there's an exhibition in the Glyptothek of Munich about the way Greek & Roman statues, reliefs and busts once looked when their color was still visible.<br>
<br>
<img src="http://www.nw-news.de/Bilder/NW/gross/20040110/1820430000-1.jpg" style="border:0;"/><br>
<p>---------------<br>
<br>
<img src="http://home.nexgo.de/berzelmayr/hadrian.gif"/> Est vita misero longa, felici brevis.<br>
<br>
</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

I have always felt that Romans and Greeks were much gaudier than usually depicted but !!!! Just checking- is this a spoof? <p></p><i></i>

[Robert Vermaat]

My eyes! I am blind! <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

they checked it by illuminating the surface with UV-light, which reveals the lost colors and patterns. It really works, I've seen it by myself in the exhibition.<br>
<br>
www.stmwfk.bayern.de/kuns...pto_a.html<br>
<p>---------------<br>
<br>
<img src="http://home.nexgo.de/berzelmayr/hadrian.gif"/> Est vita misero longa, felici brevis.<br>
<br>
</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

That's awesome. <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

That's lurid!<br>
<br>
Luca, I think you might find Wheeler's source if you go to the home page of Lacus Curtius:<br>
www.ku.edu/history/index/.../home.html<br>
<br>
On the homepage click on Samuel Ball Platner's "A Topographical Dictionary of Rome." Then in the General Topics Areas click on Forum Traiani.<br>
Here you will find a description of Trajan's column and a comment about the reliefs being coloured (though Platner in a footnote expresses some doubt about this) with the source-Bull.d.inst.1833,92;1836,39-41.<br>
It looks to be a bulletin of some institute (Italian?). Maybe you can figure it out. <p></p><i></i>

[Crispvs]

I can't help thinking that the green looks a lot like verdigree. Other colours are definitely in the minority here. Presumably the helmet depicted was made of copper alloy. Could they have found the oxidised colour attractive and encouraged it?<br>
Other colours could then be used sparingly to break up the solid green appearance.<br>
<br>
Just a thought. Btw, does anyone know how much a copper alloy helmet would be weakened by the encouragement of verdigree on the helmet?<br>
<br>
Crispvs <p></p><i></i>

[Daniel S Peterson]

I believe this is accurate, for unbeknownst to the researchers, a wooden crest box would have been glued to the sculpted helmet, just as it would a real helmet, and you can see a `blank' area where it was affixed. I doubt the helmet was intended to be green but the bronze powder in the paint, there to give it a metallic hue, (just as in some modern metallic paints of today), oxidized that color.<br>
<br>
Now tht it works, lets try it on Trajan's column and other imperial military sculptures!<br>
<br>
Dan <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

<br>
I love it, finely a good exhibition about the roman colors. A shame it is so fa away. Is there a cataloge.<br>
T vivid colouring has been known by archaeologists for decates. These very lively and horrible colors were used on all roman monuments, thriumphal arches, temples, pillars, etc, statuettes and even on the very tiny statuettes tat were found in graves. Last but not least, a lot of cloth was in these colours, can you image it.They must have had headaches all day just looking at it.<br>
<br>
Arpvar <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Quote:</em></strong><hr>I love it, finely a good exhibition about the roman colors. A shame it is so fa away. Is there a cataloge. <hr><br>
<br>
Yes, there is one, called "Bunte Götter. Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur", written by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Raimund Wünsche (272 pages, about 430 mostly colored pictures, 24 €, ISBN 3-933200-08-3)<br>
<br>
here's a pdf-file about it:<br>
www.stmwfk.bayern.de/kuns..._40-45.pdf<br>
<p>---------------<br>
<br>
<img src="http://home.nexgo.de/berzelmayr/hadrian.gif"/> Est vita misero longa, felici brevis.<br>
<br>
</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Are these the *actual* colors that they used, as they would have appeared back in Roman times? It seems to me that they are a bit overstated, and in actual fact the colors would be a bit more subtle. At least with age, the elements would have made the statues seem more worn and make the colors more lifelike. Then again, I could be wrong, and the Roman world was gaudy enough to make even Carson from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy shudder.. <p></p><i></i>