Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked [Amazing Tech!]

Gizmodo ^ | 20 August, 2010 | Gizmodo

[Logic n' Reason]

Hideous!!

Haloween V!!

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, as Vergil tells them in the Aeneid, the Romans' job is to rule...they tended to outsource things like art and philosophy to the Greeks. They did like having some Greek statues around their villas--a lot of the famous examples of Greek art were found in Italy.

[DManA]

True. I believe when we go hog wild at Christmas time with lights and decorations that is how most of us secretly would like to decorate all year long but are too shy.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

To modern eyes, natural stone looks impressive; while painted stone is hard to distinguish from a tacky fiberglass lawn ornament. Natural stone was everywhere in the ancient world; colour and ornamentation were a probably a welcome break from the norm.

In more recent times, fine wooden furniture was usually painted. Now, we want the natural wood exposed — in part to distinguish the pieces from cheap utilitarian objects made from plywood, Formica, or plastic. We also appreciate the wood grain, and the visible joinery. When the common man had natural wood furniture, with visible joinery — fine furniture was painted or enameled & joinery hidden, as a mark of quality.

[Yardstick]

Makes classical sculpture seem distinctly less classical.

[Little Bill]

People, at least in my experience, love color and texture, gives depth and contrast.

[NewMexLurker]

The ancient world was painted gaudy colors ...

The jokers over at Cracked.com talked about this recently, and I liked how they put it: "Ancient Greece looked more like someone crashed their LGBT pride parade into a Mardi Gras Festival."

[CrazyIvan]

I found, like, back in the 60’s that blacklight brought
out more color in my Steppenwolf posters too.

[bonnieblue4me]

So, all of the nude statues had clothes painted on them? Sounds very Victorian.

[DTogo]

[Red Badger]

http://www.haunted.org/html/fright_gauge.html

[AggieSteph]

But one is forced to consider how much of our taste for what is and isn’t tacky is dictated by centuries of what we thought Greek/Roman art looked like.

I’m pretty sure that a brightly colored clown shooting an arrow would be tacky no matter your background.

[AggieSteph]

Oh man, that’s great! I can’t stop laughing

[TheThirdRuffian]

” We also appreciate the wood grain, and the visible joinery. When the common man had natural wood furniture, with visible joinery — fine furniture was painted or enameled & joinery hidden, as a mark of quality.”

I just spent serious bucks at the behest of Mrs. TTR covering brick with stucco/sanded material (in part, bricks going through), putting rough rock or rough-hewn bricks in place of brick, wooden “board & batten” shutters in place of refined shutters, and gas lamps in place of electric lamps —— all in a rather successful attempt to make our nice suburban house (with a slate roof, though) look like a house an old English cottage circa 1500.

It’s very pretty, but funny.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Oh and paid some Apache kid to hammer at the bricks that show with a hammer on the sharp edges to make them look very, very old.

[usurper]

The painted statues have an “It a Small World after all” quality to them. Shudder

[Ed Condon]

Hey, there is a use for an art history degree. OH, wait they used ultra-violet light, you mean like maybe Physics, huh?

[PzLdr]

This pic raises an interesting question. Who would have turned to stone first? Helen Thomas, or her sister, Medusa?

[giotto]

LOL. This shoots my idea of classical Greece. We now know that all those noble warriors were really harlequin clowns, and the alabaster maidens in diaphanous drapes were just painted floozies in floral frocks.

[RnMomof7]

Me too...