Color in sculpture:
Scandal and Revival:
by Ellen B. Cutler
The creamy white figure carved in marble was the archetypal image of Classical sculpture as late as 1929. Reinventing the beauty of the antique world, Renaissance sculptors abjured the use of color.2 In the Neoclassical revolution three centuries later, a great whiteout for figural sculpture became dogma. This misunderstanding of the plastic arts of ancient Greece was so pervasive that when disproved by new archaeology, the introduction of applied color affronted the educated eye, caused scandal, and met continuing resistance. Despite ensuing experiments with polychromy, it was more than half a century before the revival of color for two- and three-dimensional sculpture was underway. |
