[Images: Trojan Archer from the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina; Torso of a Warrior; reconstructions by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann; Stiftung Archäologie, Munich, via thephoenix.com/ Artwork: designslinger]


It seems that the ancient Greeks, and Romans, were a lot more colorful than we thought. In the July, 2008 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, I came across an interesting article about a husband and wife team of German archaeologists. Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann have recreated some classical statuary, and architectural fragments, in their original painted form. Yes, you read that correctly - all that white marble covered in paint.

[Images: Grave Stele of Aristion; “Peplos” Kore; reconstructions by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann; Stiftung Archäologie, Munich, via thephoenix.com/ Artwork: designslinger]

The Brinkmann's have taken pieces of artifacts that are thousands of years old, studied them intently, and come up with the colors that once decorated their now clean stone surfaces. That the ancient Greeks and Romans decorated their statues and buildings with paint is nothing new. What the Brinkmann's have done, is presented over a dozen classical artworks in, what they firmly believe, are their original Technicolor glory.

[Image: Short Side of the “Alexander” Sarcophagus; reconstructions by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann; Stiftung Archäologie, Munich, via thephoenix.com/ Artwork: designslinger]

Apparently, the reason we're accustomed to seeing classically inspired art and architecture in an unpainted state, has to do with the first revival of interest in the art of antiquity. About 1000 years after the fall of Rome, and Western cultures emergence from the Dark and Middle Ages, the artists of the new age we've come to call the Renaissance, looked to ancients for inspiration. Most of the statuary and architectural remnants of the Roman empire in Italy were buried ruins, or fragments that had been pillaged for reuse, and not in great condition. Lets face it, after a millennium of exposure to the elements, any trace of paint would have long disappeared, or would have been so bleached-out as to be considered inconsequential. So, thinking they were following the masters of antiquity, stone, in it's natural form became the standard of the era.

[Image: Pediment Group from the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina; reconstructions by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann; Stiftung Archäologie, Munich, via the phoenix.com/ Artwork: designslinger]

In the great advances in the study of art and archaeology in the 18th and 19th centuries,
discoveries were made that revealed that color had been used in more places that just on wall frescos. In reconstructions of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill adjacent to the Roman Forum, the building explodes with bright, vibrant hues. But, scholarship is not always immune to personal opinion or bias. During this period, even if fragments of paint were detected on some of the original Greek and Roman statuary, they were often "cleaned." As the author of the Smithsonian article, Matthew Gurewitsch points out, one of the most noted archaeologists and art historians of that period, Johann Joachim Winckelmann wrote, 

                                            "The whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is as well.
                                             Color contributes to beauty, but it is not beauty.
                                             Color should have a minor part in the consideration
                                             of beauty, because it is not [color] but structure that
                                             constitutes its essence."

Enter the Brinkmann's. To begin the process, they study the original surfaces intently, using the most
sophisticated technology, to uncover potentially previously painted stone. Modern technology is then used to scan the surface of the object via a laser beam, which feeds information into a computer that allows them to create an exact three dimensional replica out of marble or plaster. The model is painted to match the original color, using the same organic material to replicate the paint, from the data they have collected from the original object.

[Images: Head of a Youth; Warrior’s Head from the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina; reconstructions by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann; copy and color reconstruction by Vinzenz Brinkmann, Sylvia Kellner, and Gabriela Tobin. Stiftung Archäologie, Munich, via thephoenix.com/ Artwork: designslinger]

I have to admit that these recreations are jarring to look at. They look like someone has taken the kind of Tempra paint we used in grammar school, and applied thick coats of pigment to previously, pristine stone surfaces. I think they're weird to look at simply because this is not the decorative tradition that was passed down to us. We've been trained to see certain objects a certain way, and to deviate from that is disconcerting. Though, I have to admit, that growing up Catholic, I was certainly familiar with painted statuary in churches and gift shops.

[Image: Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., 2006 & Artwork: desginslinger]

Harvard University sponsored an exhibit recently of the Brinkmann's work at the
Arthur M. Sackler Museum. It featured their reconstructions alongside the original ancient statues and reliefs so the viewer would have side by side comparisons. We've taken an American icon, the face of Lincoln from his Washington, D.C. Memorial statue and painted him up a bit, for us to contemplate.