Arts/Crafts Ancient Roman statue now vs how it would’ve looked originally when it was fully painted
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u/kaktussen 13h ago edited 4h ago
It's so off-putting. And funny that we've built this whole aesthectic on clean lines and white marble statues, while they actually looked like some insane colour show.
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u/spektre 13h ago
It's easy to forget that things like certain dyes and nice fabric was a real luxury before industrialization. So what we see as clown paint was probably a super flex for the artists at the time.
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u/LeFaune 13h ago
And even that is partly a misconception.
No – red and blue were not only affordable for the rich.
The very bright colours were expensive.
The colours worn by the general population were just a little duller.153
u/spektre 13h ago
Absolutely, I'm not saying people looked like the peasants in Monthy Python's Holy Grail, that's why I specified "certain" dyes. And people who knew art would know that these dyes are the good shit.
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u/Synizs 13h ago edited 2h ago
Everything was black-and-white before color television
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u/Ok-Sandwich-6381 11h ago
Yeah and even after that it took a few years till we had colored rainbows.
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u/HereIGoAgain_1x10 12h ago
Purple was still crazy expensive https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231122-tyrian-purple-the-lost-ancient-pigment-that-was-more-valuable-than-gold
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u/hgrunt 10h ago
ToldInStone on youtube did a great video about the cost of tyrian purple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FMoWxQWHUE
tl;dr: it was hideously expensive and if you had it when you weren't supposed to, you could get in trouble
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u/zbertoli 9h ago edited 9h ago
Truth. That royal purple was super expensive though. It came from pierced snail sacks..
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u/CaterpillarReal7583 12h ago
Also it may have looked a bit better than this here with actual skin tone variation like a little red in the cheeks
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u/jecowa 11h ago
Yeah, with how amazing their statues were, I imagine the paint jobs would have been just as amazing.
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u/yiliu 10h ago
Yeah, I find it strange how people assume (and paint restorations) as if the originals would only have used bright primary colors with no shading.
Contemporaries commented on the coloring of statues, talking about how they seemed like they were about to start moving. In some cases they talked more about the coloring than the statues themselves. I have to believe they weren't kitchen-sink white with glossy bright unshaded clothing.
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u/MontyDysquith 9h ago
We know full well (from Pompeii, etc.) that the the ancient Romans were fully capable of painting expertly. This is just a reproduction based On The Facts with no intentional artistry. Of course it looks bad.
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u/um--no 12h ago
I beg to differ. Some dyes were expensive, but it doesn't mean they couldn't mix them with other things to obtain different shades and make more nuanced colorings. Nevertheless, these are the pigment traces that survived on the surface of the statues after millennia. The pigments that could make fine details and shades might be lost.
These statues have amazing detail, it's not too farfetched to believe they would be painted with the same level of skill.
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u/mrpoopsocks 12h ago
The lack of tyrian purple, lead red, and cobalt blue is appalling. Bring back my heavy metal poisoning vibrant hues.
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u/Exist50 12h ago edited 8h ago
Might be dating myself a tad, but back in middle school the feds came into my art class and confiscated all the good pottery glazes. Cobalt blue, cadmium green, etc. And lead in everything, of course. But I still have one or two projects with me in all their heavy-metal glory.
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u/realcanadianbeaver 11h ago
That’s how feel with these - that they always look like they’re coloured with RoseArt “watercolor” pan paints by a disinterested 5th grader.
Show me one done by a restoration artist with access to the same pigments the Roman’s would have had- the people who had skill to carve like this and make beautiful shaded and nuanced frescos probably weren’t choking out this.
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u/rkiive 10h ago
Yea lol - oh yea these sculptures have survived thousands of years and were hand crafted by master sculptors with decades of experience but they couldn’t find someone who could paint so they phoned it in and got their children to do it.
How does that pass the sniff test for anyone lol
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u/Scaevus 11h ago
A can of purple dye cost more than your house.
Because it was extremely tedious to make, Tyrian purple was expensive: the 4th century BC historian Theopompus reported, "Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon" in Asia Minor.[8] The expense meant that purple-dyed textiles became status symbols, whose use was restricted by sumptuary laws. The most senior Roman magistrates wore a toga praetexta, a white toga edged in Tyrian purple. The even more sumptuous toga picta, solid Tyrian purple with gold thread edging, was worn by generals celebrating a Roman triumph.[4]
By the fourth century AD, sumptuary laws in Rome had been tightened so much that only the Roman emperor was permitted to wear Tyrian purple.[4] As a result, 'purple' is sometimes used as a metonym for the office (e.g. the phrase 'donned the purple' means 'became emperor').
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u/Moldy_slug 9h ago
Yeah, but that’s far from the only dye available… it’s not even the only purple they had. You literally picked the one dye so precious it was reserved for royalty.
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u/CitronMamon 10h ago
This is true but it applies only to specific colours, like yeah purple was a no go, red and blue were expensive.
But nothings stopping the artist from doing some basic shading and applying other painting tecniques, this is just badly painted.
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u/Erlyn3 13h ago
The same is true of “colonial” style in New England in the US. It’s all muted colors and pastels, but originally it was bright and garish (by modern standards). It wasn’t actually pastels, it just faded over time.
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u/gesocks 11h ago
And medival castles. They did not live in empty stone walls too
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u/MrdnBrd19 10h ago
Also the misconception that they were drafty and damp, they are now that they don't have tapestries covering 80% of the walls not back then.
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u/Darryl_Lict 12h ago
I went to an art show at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco that showed quite a few sculptures in what they thought were the original colors. As others have said, they were rather garish and paint by numbers in appearance. I would have thought they might have found some with mostly original paint, but I guess the pigments would fade after 2000 years even out of direct sunlight.
Sometimes artists put down a base layer of brighter hued colors and then layer on more subtle transitions. In any case I looked under the toga and I could see the twig and berries.
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u/jumpedropeonce 9h ago
This is something I heard someone say years ago. While scientists can figure out which colors were used, they can't determine exactly how they were applied. So the originals may have had much more nuance than the recreations. It's possible these highly detailed marble sculptures looked almost lifelike in their day.
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u/godspareme 13h ago
Whats off putting about the nipples vividly displayed through a white breastplate?
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u/thatjoachim 12h ago
Thankfully they revived the tradition of visible armor nipples with the batnipple armor. Too bad they kept it dull black tho
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u/APiousCultist 11h ago
I'm still not sure I believe these kinds of images. They put in some much detail in the sculpting, but they're just going to settle on a single base colour?
I have to imagine there's a good chance that the only pigment fragments scientists could find were of a base coat that would then be refined with extra shading. Even if the romans/greeks wanted their statues to look bright and colourful, it still seems absurd to have such intricate pieces of arts just painted single shades like some Andy Warhol popart piece.
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u/BarbarianMind 10h ago
From what I have heard and read, most of the painted reproductions are painted using only the paint residue found on them. That residue is mostly likely just the base layer as finer details and top layers would ware away first. I have seen other reproductions that are painted in realistic detail like paintings from the time and they look great. It is also possible that statues were painted differently depending on the context of how they were to be viewed. You wouldn't paint a statue or painting meant to be placed on top of a building and viewed from a distance the same as one that is meant to be viewed up close or to be viewed in a dimly lit interior. So like how stage makeup is garish in comparison to everyday makeup, statues placed on top of buildings and in dimly lit interiors may have been painted more garishly than those place at ground level in well lit spaces.
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u/boodabomb 11h ago
I watched a Roman Historian on History Hit, basically say the same thing. I think there’s credence to your point.
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u/notredditbot 12h ago
With color they look like statues from a carousal but kind of terrifying looking lol. Maybe it's just the one in the post but I feel they look better without color
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u/Nulleparttousjours 13h ago
I’m sure it was utterly breathtaking to behold their vast, colorful architecture and decor in its full splendor but this still blew my mind as the clean white aesthetic had become so synonymous with that style in my mind’s eye!
The actuality is so surprisingly gaudy! It’s reminiscent of a cheap plastic mascot type statue at a fairground, arcade or diner! Perhaps the photo is undersaturated or overexposed but the relatively simple paint job actually dramatically flattens the statue and takes away from that gorgeous, hyperrealistic detail! I think once I get used to it I’ll be able to admire it again with a different perspective!
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u/APiousCultist 11h ago
This is why I kind of assume they might just be basing this solely on only the base coats having survived. It seems a bit absurd to sculpt in all the veins on an arm but not to paint on proper skin tones or shading.
If they really did look this bad when the Romans found the ancient Greek statues, I can understand why they stripped off the paint though.
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u/Nulleparttousjours 10h ago
Definitely, those sculptures captured every vein and wrinkle, I can’t imagine the paint jobs would be that flat!
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u/gsfgf 12h ago
Remember, their paint wasn't as good, and they were limited to specific colors that could be made naturally (and affordably).
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u/zoobrix 12h ago
limited to specific colors that could be made naturally (and affordably).
The more expensive to produce colors were used as status symbols. For instance purple was only available by extracting it from particular types of sea snails and so only the very wealthy could afford it use it.
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u/punchheribthetit 13h ago
Imagine people 2,000 years from now looking back at us and thinking that untouched paint-by-numbers sheets were the epitome of classical art.
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u/slasherman 13h ago
But who added the nipple?
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u/manfredmahon 13h ago
They did paint their statues but they were better painters than this. They understood shading and light and shadow. Would love to see a good artist have a go at one of these statues rather than someone who coloured in the blocks
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u/Mountain_-_king 8h ago
This was a scientific illustration of what pigments were found on the stature that the press ran with. The people making it were trying to make a historically accurate outline of what colors were used and where and weren't trying to make it look good.
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u/BeardBellsMcGee 7h ago
The most accurate place to see this would probably be in the miniature painting community. Folks there are doing this, just at a smaller scale
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u/salizarn 5h ago
Yeah. They spent so long making “photorealistic” statues carved out of stone, i refuse to believe they let someone mess it up by painting them badly like in this pic. I’d be more inclined to think that they painted them in a much more natural way
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u/FerrusDeMortem 8h ago
Shading is used to imply depth and lighting. If the object is already 3 dimensional with true depth and lighting... Does it need to be "shaded"?
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u/tzomby1 7h ago
yeah, but it's more important for the textures, a red scarf and a ruby won't look the same in real life cause they are different materials, but here they are all the same, that's why you need to paint all those extra details.
you can notice it even more in videos where people paint figurines, they paint in a "light source" and the "shadows" cause the real shadow just doesn't look as good.
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u/Azerious 7h ago
Yes, people who paint sculptures, figurines, and minis all paint the shadows and lighting onto the object to enhance the effect
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u/slothbuddy 8h ago
This seems like a dead art. Can't imagine anyone knows how they did it and if they do, how exactly to reproduce it
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u/Double-decker_trams 13h ago edited 13h ago
With these colored statues I always think - why do we think that the Roman's were sort of shit in painting compared to making statues? Wouldn't it make more sense that they also painted it to be more realistic? Like when you look at the walls in Pompeii - even just a regular house - Romans absolutely knew that people don't just have uniform skin color all over their face and body..
Or maybe just the people who colored the statue weren't very good.
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u/Zombie_Axolotl 12h ago
They most likely painted them more realistically, these are just the base colors. I think the way they found those colors were that they found remnants of them (not sure) on the statue, so it would make sense that the only colors they could find were the Base Layers. Paint layered upon Paint isn't going to be present on the statue if the upper layers never touched it.
Edit to add: So we'd never truly know how realistically they did Paint them because those colors weren't found/preserved
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u/Ijustdontknowalot 9h ago
So weren't there any paintings of statues that might give a more detailed view of how they looked?
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u/LoganNolag 12h ago
Yeah I always think the same thing. There is no chance that the paint actually looked like this. I think it’s just that these reconstructions are done by archeologists and not by artists.
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u/turtley_different 10h ago
Exactly. We've seen murals and mosaics with real understanding of colour and light.
I personally think the "reconstruction" from microscopic traces of pigments still on the statue misses the subtlety and tones that were originally present.
It feels profoundly unlikely that an exquisitely carved statue gets a single-tone dogshit paintjob like this.
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u/ParmesanB 11h ago
100% there’s no way it actually looked this bad, clearly ancient peoples didn’t just have zero sense of aesthetics. A low tier Warhammer painter could beat this, their artists could too
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u/yiliu 10h ago
Or maybe just the people who colored the statue weren't very good.
I read some ancient commentary by a traveler to (I think) the Mausoleum, where the writer talked at length about the statues, especially the painting. How they looked so lifelike they seemed ready to start moving at any moment.
Given how amazing the actual statuary is (which the author mentioned only in passing), it's pretty hard for me to believe they were painted with the color scheme of Crayola's "Baby's First Crayon" set.
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u/daredaki-sama 13h ago
This blows my mind. I never even considered that they would paint the statues.
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u/THEpottedplant 13h ago
Not just the statues, virtually all of their marble structures were painted
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u/Ronald_Ulysses_Swans 13h ago
Well until you hear the pyramids were originally covered in smooth limestone and possibly also painted to some extent
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u/gsfgf 12h ago
One of the pyramids still has some of its original facade at the top.
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u/Thumbfury 12h ago
Pretty much everyone painted their statues in ancient times. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Chinese all painted their statues. Like the Terracotta Army in the Tomb of the First Emperor, all painted. The Great Sphinx of Giza, painted.
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u/anxiousrunner13 10h ago
This is worth the read. Really opened up my mind when I found it. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture
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u/eltictac 13h ago
This is like when someone gets a tacky concrete garden ornament, and attempts to give it a paint job.
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u/coralchoral 12h ago
Every time I see this, I have to wonder why the lighting is completely different between the two.
On the bare statue, the strong, warm, overhead lighting brings out angles and shadows, making relief details visible on an otherwise white-on-white marble. On the painted one, the lower angle and the white light makes everything extremely flat, like baby's first art project with acrylic slop paint straight from the package.
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u/Aramis444 11h ago
I think the left photo is the real statue, and the one on the right is a copy which was painted. They’re likely not in the same studio.
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u/ask-me-about-my-cats 10h ago
As the other person said, they're two completely different statues in different locations. The painted one is a copy.
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u/Wolfbible 13h ago
Dude, needs a wash or at least some edge highlights if it's gonna win a Golden Daemon.
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u/werdnayam 9h ago
This is my favorite discussion of the statue painting crisis.
“Kingsley! It looks—it looks Mexican!”
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u/FuckingColdInCanada 13h ago
I think we can give tje artist more credit than that flat paint job.
The highlights would have faded first, leaving chipped low lights if anything at all.
Give that statue to a Warhammer player and it will come to life.
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u/frunko1 11h ago
The Met does this cool thing where they project art on the Temple of Dendur so you can see what it looked like. It would be awesome if museums did this with some of the statues. Maybe give 4 or 5 different representations. Like this is based on the pigments found this is based on assumptions made by how they painted other arts.
Also the glass eyes are creepy. I remember seeing those at the Vatican. Eek. Changes the statues so much.glass eyes youtube
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u/NlCKSATAN 13h ago
i doubt the cheesy paint work done on the mock up… i would imagine one of the best artists of all time did a better job than that with making them painted more realistically.
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u/KietTheBun 13h ago
This was based on the microscopic bits of paint found on the statue.
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u/WaltKerman 13h ago
Yeah we know, I'm just doubting they got it right in the mockup. Some parts of the pigment would fade more than others so what you have left may not be realistic. Plus you might just be looking at a base layer.
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u/ABrandNewCarl 13h ago
Went to pompeii 3 years ago.
This is the painting two owner of a bakery can afford:
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii-couple.jpg
Note the air of the lady, now check with the work the forst emperor, son of divinized Caesar, Augustus gets.
I think someone would be whipped if that is the final result
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u/notmoleliza 13h ago
Your cheesy may have beem their classy
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u/zaccus 13h ago
Nah existing roman paintings aren't flat color by numbers bs like this. They knew what they were doing.
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u/Satryghen 13h ago
I’m going to guess the scientists and historians studying this know better than you what it would look like. It’s also important to remember that the colors they were working with were less expansive than the modern day.
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u/GuitarGeezer 12h ago
You can tell by the way he use his walk he’s a woman’s man, no time to talk. It’s allright, it’s ok, allrighty I’ll quit now.
Need another Rome Assassins Creed to see more of this!!
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u/djordi 8h ago
Every time I see this I feel like the researchers never to a good job trying to actually restore the statues to the level of quality they would have to be.
Are you telling me the civilization that developed sculpture of this quality and spent a massive amount of resources on sculpting from marble couldn't paint better than your average Warhammer player paints their miniatures?
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u/orbit_l 13h ago
I’m no historian, but isn’t it more likely the breastplate was simply embossed iron or bronze or whatever metal they used, and not painted on top of that? Or is this based on chemical analysis that showed paint residue of specific colours?
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u/A_typical_native 13h ago
They were generally painted. The armor of some soldiers and most higher officer were painted in decoration. The rank and file soldiers were likely only painted to protect the metal and show their allegiance.
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u/LeftHandofNope 12h ago
It’s been almost thirty years since I took Roman history but weren’t most Ancient Roman buildings painted? It’s usually depicted as marble in tv and movies.
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u/chibinoi 12h ago
Yeah, a good majority of them are believed to have been. Archeologists have found evidence of paint flakes which lead to the theory.
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u/heimdal77 12h ago
It would be funny if a lot of these ancient statues found were the ancient equivalent of pink flamingoes and gnome lawn ornaments.
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u/w0lfdrag0n 12h ago
Important to remember that while we today might look at these statues up close in museums and photos, in reality sometimes these statues would have been way up high on tall pillars or other display platforms, so the “cheesy” colours would have been intentional for visibility. Other times it’s certainly possible that they would have been more realistically painted, and that the bright colours in the recreation could indeed be just the base layers.
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u/Bliucifer 11h ago
Picture on left the paint is yellow/gold in places like the arm frills and the bird? In the middle of the breastplate, while in the right image they are blue. How come?
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u/Mando_Brando 11h ago
looks ridiculous tbh like where's all the gold and the red has no depth at all, look childish frankly
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u/ashrocklynn 11h ago
Are you telling me that people in the 1800s had colorful clothes and didn't wear grayscale and sepia outfits too?
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u/CitronMamon 10h ago
I hate this kind of thing because, you got an expertly sculpted statue, yet you paint it with just a single shade per area, no painting tecnique used at all, makes it look like a kids drawing or a cheap toy.
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u/GearedCam 10h ago
I did not wake up this morning thinking this would be the day I saw Zuckerberg's nipples.
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u/starrpamph 10h ago
You can't sneak up on Zuck, I don't even fucking blink. I'm the CEO of knowing what you think, INC
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u/Thomisawesome 10h ago
Crazy how it goes from looking like a regal Roman emperor to a douchey frat boy.
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u/BarbarianMind 10h ago
For me seeing them painted brings them more to life. Though the quality of painted reproductions very greatly as can be seen through the differences between the reproduction in the first image and the one in the second.
Most painted reproductions are painted using only pigments for which residue was found on the originals. The surviving residue is most likely only from the base layer as it was the thickest. Top layers and details would have been painted in much thinner layers if they were painted at all. I have seen other painted reproductions more like the first that are painted realistically like the paintings of the time, but to do so the painters had to make many educated guesses on the pigments and methods used. So though the more realistically painted reproductions look great and may actually be more accurate, most reproductions stick to only what has been confirmed.
Also it is possible that statues were painted differently depending on the context of how they were to be viewed. You wouldn't paint a statue or painting meant to be placed on top of a building and viewed from a distance the same as one that is meant to be viewed up close or to be viewed in a dimly lit interior. So like how stage makeup is garish in comparison to everyday makeup, statues placed on top of buildings and in dimly lit interiors may have been painted more garishly than those place at ground level in well lit spaces.
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u/BankshotMcG 10h ago
Every time I see these recreations, I think, "It must have just been the base coat. They HAD to have done detailing above the layers we can prove were there."
On the other hand, then I see how many tacky Mary statues Italian grandparents in my neighborhood love and I think "Yeah, okay, maybe this was it."
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u/BadHombreSinNombre 10h ago
The fact that these were painted makes me feel so much better about my miniature painting hobby
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u/Coldspark824 9h ago
I somehow suspect, given their sculpting ability, that they weren’t so shitty at painting.
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u/Raichu7 8h ago
While we can detect trace residues of pigment, these are only the best guesses as to what the original paint looked like. We can't know for sure what's missing completely, especially if paint was layered heavily the outer layers won't have any residue remaining that we can detect with current technology.
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u/joestaff 14h ago
Mark Zuckerberg has been around for a while.