04-19-2006, 10:00 PM
Quote:Matthew Amt:189o3wac Wrote:From what I've seen of ancient artwork, I'm beginning to wonder if blue was used as a "code" for bronze. Just a hunch and not a solid one! But a few things have cropped up in the last few months that really ought to have been made of bronze but were colored blue...
I think the explanation is that the blue was possibly a base coat for something metallic. I really don't know enough about ancient paints to say that they had metallic ones (though today as any modeller knows, you paint a dark color as base for metal). I *do* know that metal elements were used in friezes and other sculpture, for instance for spears and other weapons.
I have some pictures of decorated helmets around here somewhere, gimme a day or two...
If you're doing Peloponnesian War, you really can't go wrong with a Pilos helmet.
I was thinking about this the other day when I noticed that at least one Medieval manuscript illustration (on the front cover of the book linked below) made use of blue to depict steel / iron swords and armour, if it's any help:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0199251 ... eader-link
I think it was a fairly common practice, but noting the yellow helmets and blue mail hauberks, perhaps it's the case that these ancient depicted helmets are supposed to be iron? [i.e. blue being a code for iron, rather than bronze...]
It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one\'s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between.
Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), Tsurezure-Gusa (1340)
Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), Tsurezure-Gusa (1340)