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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.

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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!

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