Feature Article:
Coloring of Marble Sculpture in Antiquity
by Colette Czapski Hemingway
Praised for its noble simplicity and purity, classical sculpture has been touted by artists and writers since the Renaissance as “ideal beauty.” The exaggerated musculature of Michelangelo’s David and the sheer elegance of Canova’s Three Graces bear testimony to the influence of antiquity; however, their now unpainted, unadorned surfaces actually speak to our own predilection for the natural pallor of marble and its translucency. The creamy complexion of Classical sculpture so acclaimed by Neoclassicists in the early nineteenth century is, in fact, a misconception of Greek and Roman art, most of which was colored with pigment and gilding. |
