WHITE OR COLORED?

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

BTW, here is the Herculaneum Amazon head Narukami mentioned:





And this is a Venus with a fantastically "contemporary" bikini, not like those "granny" ones of Piazza Armerina :wink:

Romans "aliens"

Incidentally: sure, we cannot completely understand them, anyway since we do all our efforts to understand a people like the Romans and their culture just by scientific research and archeological evidences we'll be like "handicapped" in finding the 360° truth. Don't misunderstand me, I give an enormous importance to the Science side of research, anyway the Romans (and all the pre-christian classical World), you like or not, were metaphysical and magical in being. Any aspect of their life was deeper than we can see from scientific research, but the most prefer to ignore it. And this is not a factoid.

If we don't convince ourselves that the roman typical and stringent rational way (that sometimes could look to us almost as "obtuse") was parallel to their Metaphysics, and that the two things are to be seen together, we will cannot understand more than one side of the Romans. And maybe not even that one.

To come back to the topic, and about the friends' previous posts, I agree about the colouring, but not for ANY statue at the same way:

a) the little statue of the Pompei fresco is not a high quality statue, but it looks like something of "family-home stuff"

b) some statues show just painted details, not the whole surface

c) Don't forget that we cannot be sure about the time when the statues were painted, maybe someone in the dark ages and with a ridiculing purpose, for example by the Christians towards the "pagan" Divii Imperatores like the Augustus of Prima Porta, that in the reconstructed colours looks like a joke.

d) colouring and shading could be obtained by fine glazing too, as any painter knows well. That is surely more appropriate and proportionate to the long time and work employed in the hard sculpting.

e) There is the problem of the lasting of such tempera colours on a polished marble surface: outdoor statues had to be very often re-painted and wax, oil or casein are not the final solution of the problem. Of course the Romans made such works of art for lasting centuries.

f) another problem is about the mixed marbles statues and busts: why using various kinds of (often rare and precious) marble if it is to be painted?

g) Flat/solid colouring looks more appropriate to stucco and terracotta statues and archaic styles marble statues, while glazing looks more appropriate to the glossy polished marble of more qualitatively important statues, where a well made glazing can show the quality of the fine work on the surface yet and also result more lasting outdoor.

So, I think we could consider both the possibilities: solid or glazed colours..., plus various and not painted marbles in the same statue, not painted porphry (hard to paint anyway), just in details painted polished marbles, solid/flat painted stone, gilded marble, bronze, wood and stucco and many others probably...

Valete,