Gods in color : polychromy in the ancient world

by Vinzenz Brinkmann

Paper Book, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

730.93

Collection

Publication

San Francisco, CA : Munich, Germany : Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco ; DelMonico Books, Prestel, 2017.

Description

"This stunning book uses 21st-century technology to reveal the original colors of ancient sculpture. When Renaissance artists sought to imitate ancient sculpture, their medium of choice was pure, white marble, but little did they know that the works they emulated were originally painted in dazzling and powerful hues-from red ocher and cinnabar to azurite and malachite. By illustrating painted reconstructions of well-known sculptures in relation to original examples, this volume reveals how ancient artists in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aegean, Greece, and Rome brought unexpected and breathtaking color to their artworks. Accompanying these reproductions are watercolors of Greece's landscapes dating from different years, which show how our perception of ancient art has changed over time. Generously illustrated, this book testifies that the study of ancient sculpture is incomplete without an understanding of the many ways that color was employed to bring such art to life"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Shrike58
On the whole a very neat work, as the contributors work through how the image of the classical world as being a radiant white came to be, with some consideration of all the racist baggage that became attached to that notion. This is before moving on to how our understanding has change about what
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(mostly) Greek and Roman sculpture actually looked like, with some very impressive reconstructions. Any downsides? Not really. Maybe that this has almost instantly become an expensive collector's item; at least it does seem to have a fairly wide availability as a library item.
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Language

Original publication date

2017

ISBN

9783791357072
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