Impure stone and the threat to decency: marble tints and veins

According to the classical tradition, marble sculptures were to be made of ‘pure’ white material. This remained an aesthetic ideal even after archaeological findings had revealed evidence of ancient polychromy. This article argues that tinting as well as natural staining on marble figures in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not only aesthetically but also morally reprehensible, because they violated the ideal of homo clausus. This term, coined by the sociologist Norbert Elias, conceptualizes a subject that imposes ‘self-restraint’ to control its physical body and its emotions. Perfect control was seen embodied in the ancient images of the gods, which were assumed to have been made of immaculate white marble. Any colouring, whether of natural origin or deliberately produced, seemed to contaminate this concept. My investigation is focused on the historical justifications for John Gibson’s scandalous Tinted Venus, and figures of veined marble rejected in France on similar grounds in the late eighteenth century, such as Christoph-Gabriel Allegrain’s Venus and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Frileuse. I examine how the coloured veins and tints of the stone gained semantic qualities in female figures, where a blush or a vein seemed to reveal emotions and desires and thus infringe the ideal.

Olympian Jupiter. Winckelmann and Quatremère de Quincy on Ancient Polychromy

A number of Western museums may boast of their important collections of Classical Greek and Roman art. Marble statues of deities or heroes from Classical Antiquity, and important works in painting and architecture from different historical epochs, have traditionally made up the canon of Western art. In recent years, critics have claimed that this tradition represents an idealisation of the white, Caucasian body type which excludes other races from the concept of beauty. Although we today know that ancient statues in marble were often painted in vivid colours, they say that art theorists have either been ignorant of, or glossed over, this fact. While the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann has often been regarded as a proponent of our Western predilection for whiteness, the French archaeologist Antoine Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy is by many celebrated as the first to realise the extent and importance of ancient polychromy. In this paper, I will try to show that this is a distorted view, especially where Winckelmann’s theories are concerned. Far from being ignorant about ancient polychromy, Winckelmann was an important source for Quatremère de Quincy. In addition, Winckelmann’s appreciation of the white marble surface was not the result of racial prejudice, but the expression of an aesthetic opinion that he shared with Quatremère de Quincy.

Colour Experiments. The Harpy Monument: a Section of the West Side

Reconstructions of ancient polychromy on statuary are often the result of meticulous scientific research: pigments and barely visible remnants of decoration are identified. A pigment, however, does not provide evidence of the character of the paint layer, i.e. whether it was opaque or translucent, matte or glossy. As no intact, original paint layers remain, there are many uncertainties regarding paints and painting techniques. What can be seen on marble are faint traces of paint. In the present paper I will draw on my study of the so-called Harpy monument: the questions posed, the methods applied, the series of tests that were conducted and my suggestion of a possible polychromy. My starting point was the idea that monuments send messages to the viewer: the size of the object and the materials with which it was made indicate the commissioner’s social and economic status. Figures and myths illustrate the cultural context, and they reflect values cherished by the commissioner. Colours and shades also transmit messages. The reconstructive part of the project was limited to one of the west side segments, a relief showing a woman enthroned, but in order to understand the monument as a whole its four sides were considered more broadly, taking into account its Anatolian context.