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Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

This is a textbook example of the trope reality is unrealistic [1]. Those sculptures look kitschy and childish when painted. Seeing them that way destroys my childhood image of the ancient Greeks. It's so strange!

It fits right in with my struggle to imagine the 19th century and early 20th century as being anything other than black and white, since almost (exceptions exist [2]) all of the photos from back then were monochrome.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnreali...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alim_Khan_(1880%E2%8...

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In addition, it's also hard to imagine how they looked to people then. By which I mean that people would not have seen so much other color in their everyday lives -- obviously trees & flowers were as now, but paint and dyes were expensive and nowhere near as bright & varied as today.

It would probably have had the same effect as cool computer animations have on us now "wow that's cool!"

> It fits right in with my struggle to imagine the 19th century and early 20th century as being anything other than black and white, since almost (exceptions exist [2]) all of the photos from back then were monochrome.

A fun fact to go with that: quite a lot of what people think of as "gloomy" Victorian-era clothing was actually brightly-colored and just didn't photograph well.

I'd love to read more about this if you have any handy links or books etc.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/hist...

This was a reference to an article on the discovery of coal tar dyes. I did test it just before citing it, but sadly it has now vanished.

  Those sculptures look kitschy and childish when painted.

Perhaps that's partly because painting techniques have advanced a lot since the ancient Greeks, while realistic figure sculpting hasn't changed that much?

I assume they went for that style of painting because it was historically authentic? Presumably they don't want to decorate a 50 BC statue with 1750 AD painting techniques.

It has to do with material wealth values as well. Those pigments were far more expensive then and possibly gathered from around the world. Apparently the same thing happened with fashion in the UK at very least - colorful men's fashion when it was expensive but after it became cheap and widespread it was considered gauche.

In the article one of the scholars posits that the restorers tend to go for the most vivid and saturated versions of whichever colors they detect.

We should also note that many of these statues were placed outdoors. Colors might seem bright and garish in gallery lighting against muted white backgrounds but wouldn't pop quite so much under bright sunlight in the middle of a public square, especially once they develop a patina of dust and the sun starts bleaching them out (which would take no time at all under the Greek sun).

"one of the scholars posits that the restorers tend to go for the most vivid and saturated versions of whichever colors they detect."

This makes a lot of sense, the artists who made the statue were likely more able at the coloring aspect than simply solid colors

Odd, going for saturated colors since these would be far more rare in the ancient world.

Also kind of goes without saying, but the statues wouldn't have had 800 watt New Yorker flashbulbs on them. Between natural shadow on the 3d sculpture, weathering from the various dirty light sources, it probably blended into a decent melange of colors.

I took a three week vacation to China in 2001. While I was there, I purchased a replica Terra Cotta Soldier, and I chose to have it painted in "authentic colors."

I was very disappointed in it's appearance when it arrived.I would be much happier if I had bought the plain one.

A story from several years ago was the restoration to their original colors of Renaissance and later artwork, such as Old Masters and in particular the Sistine Chapel. Many people were confused and disappointed that the artwork had vivid colors, rather than the yellowish patina which they had acquired with age and which viewers had grown up associating with the art - as if, until the impressionists, people lived in a sepia-toned world and had no experience of or interest in colors and their beauty (that was only in Oz, I suppose).

>It fits right in with my struggle to imagine the 19th century and early 20th century as being anything other than black and white, since almost (exceptions exist [2]) all of the photos from back then were monochrome.

Also classical paintings before photography reinforce this because of degradation caused by UV Rays has resulted in paintings to appear darker or washed out.

It's always fascinating because even watching videos i took half a decade ago look so inferior to modern day videos!

Wouldn't exposure to Western movies, comics or cartoons set in that period lessen that impact ?

I remember looking into the mentioned paper last year. The only childish thing is the reconstruction methods they used.

Yes, they where painted in skin tones, but not like in #ff3399 or something. The reconstructions are unrealistic.

Of course it's still possible that the statues were tacky, but not _that_ tacky. They weren't painted with damn crayons.

The original artists didn't have a whole palette of colors to choose from, just the paint colors that had been invented in their time. Lead white, cinnabar, Egyptian blue

This is true, but I'm sure the original painters were very skilled at working within these constraints. While quite a lot of reconstructions seem content to get the base colors only.

I also wonder how much of the time these statues spent freshly painted. It wasn't particularly durable & was often outdoors. So I presume that quite a lot of the time the paint was a bit patchy... and that this was part of why they bothered to use marble (or basalt) in the first place, not just whatever was convenient.

Oh they got a lot of abuse. There's a Greek play where a lady asks "Have you got a statue penis in your pocket? Or are you just glad to see me" or something on those lines. Apparently they got vandalized often enough to make it a thing!

> Those sculptures look kitschy and childish when painted

The be fair, we don't know how they precisely were painted. The reconstructions are extrapolations from trace pigments. We have preserved frescos and mosaics from roman times, and they are not garish or childish at all, thy use beautiful colors and lifelike tones and shading.

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