For more than fifteen years, the polychromy of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture has been captivating the public worldwide. Some three million visitors have experienced the 'Gods in Colour — Golden Edition' firsthand in the museums of cities such as Athens, Istanbul, Copenhagen, London, Malibu, Mexico City, Munich, Berlin, Rome, Vienna and, most recently, San Francisco—as well as those of renowned universities, among them Harvard and Oxford. The Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung is now presenting a major expanded exhibition allowing a nuanced look at the disconcerting phenomenon of statuary polychromy. 'Gods in Colour — Golden Edition: Polychromy in Antiquity' features more than 100 objects from international museum collections such as the British Museum in London, the Museo Archeologico in Naples, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, the Archaologisches Institut in Gottingen, and the Skulpturensammlung der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, as well as the holdings of the Liebieghaus, which encompass 60 recent reconstructions but also some dating from the nineteenth century, along with 22 prints.
Credit: Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung |
Under the direction of Vinzenz Brinkmann, the head of the Liebieghaus antiquity collection, an international team of scientists have been researching statuary polychromy for some forty years. Their work has inspired new research projects on the polychromy of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture at universities and museums in many countries. The primary focus of these projects is the scientific analysis of the original paints. Within this context, the history of how scholars responded to polychromy in the period from the mid-eighteenth century to World War I—and their extensive accompanying reconstruction activities—have been subjects of particular interest. Since the exhibition 'Gods in Colour' was first on view in Frankfurt in 2008, the number of reconstructions carried out by the research team has doubled, and new aspects have come under consideration, for example the polychromy of ancient bronzes. In 2016, Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann and Vinzenz Brinkmann donated the reconstructions in their possession to the Stadelstiftung.
Exhibition View [Credit: Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung/ Norbert Miguletz] |
Experimental reconstructions and the most recent findings on the polychromy of ancient sculpture
Originally, the painted decoration of an antique sculpture not only enhanced its appearance from the aesthetic point of view and increased its lifelike impression, but also provided the ancient viewer with important information about the identity of the figure depicted. Over the past decade, research has focused increasingly on this aspect. In the process, new interpretation proposals have been developed not only in the context of large-scale Greek bronzes, but also for numerous marble sculptures. In the ancient world of the eastern Mediterranean region, the use of colour was par for the course. For the Greeks and Romans, however, the painting of sculpture was far more than superficial decoration. Rather, polychromy had means of its own for expanding the formal and narrative structure of the artwork. It was only through the dimension of colour that artists achieved the desired vibrancy of expression.
Ancient written sources describe the wealth of colour and form characterizing the garments of the neighbors to the north and east, which fascinated the Greek artists. The splendidly colourful costume of the so-called Persian Rider from the Acropolis (original: Athens, 500/480 BC, Acropolis Museum, Athens) is especially well preserved. The diamond pattern of the trousers in the colour reconstruction of 2008/2019 exhibits sophisticated rhythmic alternations between the strongly contrasting shades of red, blue, yellow, green and brown; the tunic features an imaginative and complex tongue ornament. This clothing style of the peoples to the north and east was used around 480 BC on the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina to make a kneeling archer recognizable from a distance.
The decorative elements of the garments played a key role in helping ancient viewers understand the figures depicted, as is illustrated in the exhibition by three reconstructions of female figures from archaic-period Athens: the funerary statue of Phrasikleia (original: Greece, ca. 540 BC, marble, National Archaeological Museum, Athens), the so-called Chios Kore (original: Athens, ca. 520/500 BC, marble, Acropolis Museum, Athens) and the so-called Peplos Kore (original: Athens, ca. 520 BC, marble, Acropolis Museum, Athens).
The so-called Peplos Kore wears a tight-fitting outer garment without folds over an undergarment. The archaeologists equated the former with the so-called peplos (a women’s dress style in ancient Greece) and erroneously called the figure the Peplos Kore. In fact, however, the garments—and with them the figure’s true significance—only became clear with the aid of the polychromy. Recent research has enabled a complete understanding of the figure’s complex colour scheme. The exhibition presents a new, revised reconstruction of the socalled Peplos Kore. Indications of the steps preceding the painting process have now been discovered, as have weathering traces of the paint. The polychromy— in particular the animalfrieze garment (ependytes), a crown of feathers meanwhile lost (vestiges of its mounts are still visible on the head), the weapons and the immobile body—gives the figure its true identity. The statue mistakenly designated the Peplos Kore is actually a marble representation of a xoanon, an ancient wooden cult image of the goddess Artemis.
Gilding played an extremely important role, occupying ever larger areas of the surfaces and serving as a painting surface itself. The precious material was used again and again to represent jewelry on humans and animals alike. Gold and silver plating and coloured stone inlays enhanced the splendor and light reflection of the ancient works. Remnants of leaf gilding on garment hems of Greek sculptures give rise to speculations that the edges of ancient garment fabrics were piped with gold threads. The traces of gold on the marble figure of the so-called Small Herculaneum Woman are an example. The late classical original of this work no longer exists, but dozens of late Greek and Roman replicas have come down to us.
One section of the exhibition revolves around a three-year research project carried out in cooperation with scholars from Frankfurt’s Goethe University and concluded in January 2020. The aim was the development of physical models as well as an interactive digital publication for communicating the research and reconstruction of the polychromy of ancient Greek sculpture to specialists, students and a broader public. A statue from the Frankfurt Group of Muses was chosen as the object of this case study. This figure presumably comes from the sacred island of Delos dedicated to Artemis and Apollo (Standing Muse from the Thermal Baths of Agnano, originally from Delos, 2nd century BC). It bears a wealth of information—however difficult to see—about its original polychromy. The researchers compared it to a marble statue of the Small Herculaneum Woman type which was erected on Delos around the same time (ca. 120–100 BC) and whose polychromy has survived in better condition with a marble statue of the Small Herculaneum Woman type which was erected on Delos around the same time (ca. 120–100 BC), and whose polychromy has survived in better condition.
New examinations of the Treu Head—a depiction of a female deity—at the British Museum encompassed a large number of paint analyses that yielded precise information about the painting technique and the pigments used. For the representation of the skin, the ancient artist employed calcite mixed with not only red and yellow ferric oxides but also a small amount of Egyptian blue, which lends the skin a somewhat cooler touch. As is also the case with the Portrait of the Roman Emperor Caligula, pink madder lake was used for the space between the lips and the corners of the eyes. The Treu Head bears key significance in the current polychromy discussion. Evidently the light female skin was characterized with the aid of paint, while the precious marble served merely as the support material.
Exhibition View [Credit: Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung/ Norbert Miguletz] |
The extremely lifelike impression is brought about by the elaborately made stone inlays for the eyes, nipples inlaid in copper, and lips and teeth covered with silver sheeting. Within the framework of the scientific investigations and recasts of the originals as well as the making of the reconstructions in the years 2012–2016, Warrior A turned out to be a portrayal of Erechtheus, son of the goddess Athena, and Warrior B of the Thracian king Eumolpos, son of Poseidon, god of the sea. The examinations of the so-called Quirinal Bronzes in the same years (2012–2018) confirmed the conjecture that the two figures represent heroes from the Greek Argonaut saga: Amycus, king of the Bebryces, and Polyceuces, an Argonaut and son of Zeus, who encounter one another in a boxing match.
Research network and latest analysis techniques
Over the past decades, information about the original ancient marble sculptures has been obtained with the aid of scientific methods, and has in turn served as the basis for the production of experimental reconstructions. The participating scholars have also reevaluated ancient written sources on statuary polychromy. Apart from precisely made plaster casts, copies of ancient sculptures have been produced in marble and, most recently, as 3D prints. These copies have then received polychrome finishes using authentic historical painting materials. In 2020, the long series of three-dimensional physical reconstructions is entering its thirtieth year.
Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann and Vinzenz Brinkmann undertook their first experimental colour reconstructions on copies of originals back in 1989. This work was based on their own scientific investigations, but also and above all on the results of numerous research projects implemented on the international level. At important museums such as the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, archaeologists, conservators and scientists have worked together successfully to further the research into the polychromy of their own respective holdings. What is more, a large number of extensive independent research and dissertation projects have been realized.
Methods of scientific investigation have been developed further and refined. The visibleinduced infrared luminescence (VIL) imagining technique has been developed, for example, and thermographic imaging methods optimized. The researchers have also profited extensively from the new development of portable, non-invasive analysis techniques with whose aid myriad colour measurements have been carried out on the objects. Over the past years, this has led to a tremendous increase in knowledge about the pigments used in antiquity. X-ray fluorescence, a portable method for the nuanced ascertainment of a material’s metal content, has enabled the rapid identification of a large number of inorganic pigments without taking samples. UV-VIS absorption spectroscopy is capable of identifying both pigments and colourants such as plant dyes. It thus comes into play for the determination of nearly all inorganic, but also organic materials.
The measurement, which amounts to an optical fingerprint, also encompasses the physical ascertainment of the antique material’s hue. Particularly in the context of reconstructing ancient polychromy, this chromatic definition permits an extremely precise approximation of the original appearance. Based on these new technical means of making light visible, but also the scientific analysis of pigment traces, the team around Vinzenz Brinkmann have arrived at detailed results and more precise forms of communication over the course of many years of work. For their work they have received support from the German Research Foundation, the Stiftung Archaologie, and the Leibniz Prize project of Prof. Dr. Oliver Primavesi, from Salvatore Settis, the government of the Republic of Italy, the Stadelscher Museums-Verein and, most recently, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as well as the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main with Prof. Dr. Dirk Wicke.
'Gods in Colour — Golden Edition' will run until August 30, 2020]
Source: The Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung [November 30, 2020]
* This article was originally published here
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