Monday, October 15, 2007

Cool museum exhibit Stephanie D. at TPW posted a couple of links to the Arthur M. Sackler Museum's exhibit Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity that places original statuary alongside reconstructions painted to look like they had in antiquity. For example:



looks like this (can't link image directly).

That's fairly common. If one were to go back and look at Egyptian temples and statues, Greek, Roman, Aztec, etc., you would think it quite garish. We tend to think of Greek statuary as so very sublime and elegant because we just see them in white or perhaps green or dark black metal. People are often taken aback when they visit the tombs in the Valley of the Kings or, even more so, in the valley of the nobles and see the bright colors everywhere.

Wish they had some more photos up at the museum site, but I can't locate any.