Ancient colors made visible

[megroot]

Found this on the WWW.
Trough UV light the ancient colors are made visible. And yes, the romans wear red.
http://io9.com/5616498/ultraviolet-light-reveals-how-ancient-greek-statues-really-looked

Marc

 

[faust18]

I read this one through v interesting , it makes sense looking at ancient statues with the blind lifless eyes that they would have been painted ive always thought this when looking at ancient sculpture as thats the first thing I seem to focus on being it a figure or statue, ive heard simular said about ancient egypt as well imagine the pyramids being perfectly smooth and brightly painted now that would have been a sight to see in those days, wow!

 

[housecarl]

Interesting Marc.
Carl.

 

[Helm]

Bit more on it here http://mandarb.net/virtual_gallery/sculptures.shtml

Steve

 

[Colin_Fraser]

Those ancient artists could have used some pointers from this site....how about a little shading?

Colin

 

[faust18]

Had a look at the site steve posted again v intersting it does stand to reason to paint in the eyes on the statues thats what gives them "life" as well as clothing and hair colour , looking at them though its right what colin said they could do with a bit of shading I wonder how they would have thought about using a catchlight verus gloss varnish, hmm?

 

[Mike S.]

All of the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman statues and facades were originally painted. Archeologists long ago found trace amounts of pigment on the majority extant examples.

 

[Mirofsoft]

Shading ?
In "real life", shading is natural . Those statues were usualy human sized of far bigger .
On the picture we see on mandarb, it's a virtual reconstruction, they could have introduced the "position of source light effect" or...
make a full size copy, paint it and expose outside . For the moment it look more like a comic strip picture of the 40ies 50ies

In making a diorama, it will be a challenge to shade both the figures and the " statue" in a way you can make the real difference between "life" and sculpture . Using plaster reproduction, painting with gouache and let the plaster drink the colors ? On the other side for the figures painting with oils to enhance the difference ?