The Goddess’ New Clothes: the Carving and Polychromy of the Parthenon Sculptures

Описание: Giovanni Verri (a), Hero Granger-Taylor (b), Ian Jenkins (c), Tracey Sweek (c), Katarzyna Węgłowska (c), William T. Wootton (d)

a) The Art Institute of Chicago, USA
b) Independent Scholar, London, UK
c) The British Museum, London, UK
d) King’s College London, UK

White marble sculpture is a cornerstone of Western art history. Archaeological inquiry, however, has demonstrated that Classical sculpture and its associated architecture were once coloured. The authors examine the Parthenon Sculptures at the British Museum to identify traces of colour and carving on their surfaces. Using close examination and archaeometric techniques, the study shows that the sculptors finished surfaces with textures that reflected specific elements (e.g. skin, wool, linen) and these were then enhanced through the application of colour, including a purple colourant and Egyptian blue. The latter was used extensively to paint elaborate figurative designs on the carved textiles. Despite the complexity of the carved drapery, elaborate ornament was applied to the finish. The findings encourage a reconsideration of the appearance of the Parthenon in the fifth century BCE.

This video is a visual summary of the following publication:


Verri, G., Granger-Taylor, H., Jenkins, I., Sweek, T., Weglowska, K. and Wootton, W. T., ‘The goddess’ new clothes: the carving and polychromy of the Parthenon Sculptures’, Antiquity, 2023, Vol. 97 (395): 1173-1192

https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.130

Credits

All images, unless otherwise indicated, are copyright of the Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Dinos representing athletes training © Catherine Page Perkins Fund, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
https://collections.mfa.org/download/...
The original image was cropped for this video

Kylix representing Hera, München, Staatliche Antikensammlungen © Egisto Sani (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
https://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/...
The original image was cropped for this video

Architectural fragment representing a gigantomachy, 1982.4 © Katherine K. Adler Memorial Fund, Art Institute of Chicago
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111030...
The original image was cropped for this video
Verri, G.; Raff, K.; Granzotto, C.; Sabino, R.; Dressed for Battle: Investigations of an Etruscan Architectural Gigantomachy, in: S. Zink – F. Grosser (eds.), Color & Space. Interfaces of Ancient Architecture and Sculpture. Proceedings of the 10th Round Table on Polychromy in Ancient Sculpture and Architecture (forthcoming)

Cast of West Pediment B and C, ‘Kekrops and Pandrosos’, Pushkin Museum, © 2019. Shakko (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
The original image was cropped for this video

Tomb of the Philosophers, West Wall, © Ephorate of Antiquities of Pella, Ministry of Culture and Sports
The original image was cropped for this video
Brecoulaki, H.; Verri, G.; Kalaitzi, M.; Maniatis, Y.; Lilimpaki-Akamati, M. Investigating Colors and Techniques on the Wall Paintings of the ‘Tomb of the Philosophers’, an Early Hellenistic Macedonian Monumental Cist Tomb in Pella (Macedonia, Greece). Heritage 2023, 6, 5619-5647. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage6080296

The Ambient Ukulele by Lee Rosevere, Time-Lapse Volume 2: Meditations, by Huppy Puppy Records, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
https://archive.org/details/hpr069_Le...