WHITE OR COLORED?

[Aetius Helvius Merula]

Good point...you're right

[Luca]

http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa47/Fichtenbrenner/

Laudes for Marcus


For the coloured Trajan Column this was a 20 years old reconstruction made by Bianchi Bandinelly for an exhibit. I don't know web resources for that, but I hope to get one pic of it. (after the vacations....)

[Paullus Scipio]

Grazzi, Luca !! I know I have seen it posted on a roman web-site earlier.
If it was twenty-odd years old, then I guess the colours will have been speculative - but I had the impression that it was this that persuaded some of the 'Batavians' to go from "Connolly Green" to Red shield design ?

[jonwr]

Coloured. By a long chalk.
Jon R.

[Luca]

Yes, I think too that many of the colours were speculative because I remember one detail: a lot of black everywhere. I don't think black was a commonly used tint.
I've heard about some old books that reported the traces of the remaining colours in the middle 1800, but I have never read them.

[Endre Fodstad]

I love to bring up Uta and her stout (ok, bovine) man Ekkehart when people start rambling about the lack of naturalism in high medieval art.

I saw the Istanbul exhibition last year. Great show. If there is one thing we should shoot down like a sick bird it is the "pure white classical" image of ancient statuary. COLORED!

It's the same thing with medieval statues (and parts of the exteriors and interiors of buildings for that matter). The grey/white/natural stone color should go, replaced by the colors that, to modern eyes, looks rather garish. Bugger classicism and neoclassicism and their hospital-white image of the past.

[Conan the Barbarian]

Does anyone have pictures of ancient statues of famous people that are colored in like of Hannibal or Scipio etc?

[Memmia]

Regarding skin colours, close inspection on many statues has shown that the skin surfaces seemed to have been polished smooth whereas the painted parts are much rougher. This would indicate that the skin was left uncoloured and just highly buffed, but the clothing/ hair was left rough, maybe an added benefit was to allow the paint to key to the surface.

(Edited- Info already on 1st page)

[Paullus Scipio]

.....hmmmmm, Luca, the illustration I saw didn't seem to be overly black - but I will just have to wait and see when you post your illustration, AFIK, traces of paint on the column were visible in the 1830's ( but infuriatingly no description of these) --and was this original, or a later re-paint?? :? ( ( ( (

[Casmin]

Oh god lol. I thought this was another tunic debate because of the title

[john m roberts]

When I saw the title, I thought it was about the public restrooms of my Southern youth.

[Tiberius Clodius Corvinus]

Here some of my interpretations of how sculptures might have been colored


Caesar



Augustus

[Robert Vermaat]

Great job Carsten! A laudes to you. I see the weather also improved considerably!

[jvrjenivs]

I only miss some parts of the original statues on the colered overworked images. Why did you remove the supporting parts? They're important to the statue as a whole.

[Tiberius Clodius Corvinus]

Robert wrote:

I see the weather also improved considerably!

lol. Just thought the old guys deserve a bright day

Jvrjenivs wrote:

Why did you remove the supporting parts?

@Jvrjenivs: Then I colored the sculptures, my intention was to "reconstruct" the human being as close as possible and less the statue with all its "propaganda" or just supporting elements ... I didn't know this thread (and even RAT in Augustus case :-D D ) before, but you are right and I'll do a second version in future ... (except the Tiberius-bust, which I "painted" before ;-) ) )

As details on the statue are concerned, some elements are missing or unclear due to the quality of the basic images or the statue itself (e.g. Caesars sword grip), I've to work with. Sometimes I don't even know what a detail represents (e.g. the "thing" in Caesars right hand) and can't color it properly.

But just let me know if you think that something is entirely out of place ;-) ) ... I'll try to be more accurate next time ...

greetings,

Carsten