When most of us think of the sculptures of antiquity, images of tarnished classical, white marble statuary of mythological gods and ruins of great temples and necropolises dance in our heads. But after more than three decades of research and detective work by a consortium of scientists, art history scholars and archaeologists utilizing modern techniques such as ultraviolet florescence photography and spectroscopy, it's now believed that artworks traditionally associated with a monochrome palette were originally painted in brilliant colors. "Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World," a stimulating new exhibition at the Legion of Honor, delves into the discoveries with reconstructions of mostly Greek and Roman objects painted in authentic pigments that restore their rightful colorful past, before time, exposure to the elements and millennia of burial underground took their toll.
The recreations are displayed along with examples of magnificent carved reliefs and statues from ancient Greece, Rome and the Near East, some of which bear hints of their former glory. A remarkably well-preserved "Season Sarcophagus" (AD 260-280), a high-status Roman marble vessel with an ornate high relief "in the round" depicting Dionysian rituals celebrating the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth, has ghosts of red, green and Egyptian blue pigments on its surface barely visible to the naked eye. With a grace that transcends time, an exquisitely fluid terracotta figurine of a dancing woman (2nd century BC), whose upper body, arched back in a swoon, is counterbalanced by a lithe arm extended forward, has evidence of polychromy on the folds of her swirling skirt.
One's first encounter, however, is of a ruggedly masculine variety, with reconstructions of a pair of strapping, life-size Greek "Riace" warriors (ca. 440-480 BC) with eyes of inlaid stones. Positioned like sentries on a pedestal at the entrance to the exhibition, the alarmingly life-like, robustly-built bronzed opponents, one darker-skinned than the other, face-off naked and combat-ready with shields and weapons. The originals, which likely came from the Athenian Acropolis, were retrieved from an underwater lair in 1972 off the coast of southern Italy. Chemical processes have since identified preserved aspects of bronze polychromy. Their mouths, for instance, were cast separately in unadulterated red copper, and one figure landed a set of silver teeth.
The exhibition is a bit of a jolt, requiring an attitude adjustment and a relinquishing of preconceived notions held since the Renaissance and Neoclassical era. There are more than a few moments when it's difficult to believe one's eyes and embrace a radically different theory. That response is not a reflection on the validity of the research and its findings, but on the challenge of conveying the results.
The reconstructions, while communicating the panoply of color that existed, are in plaster and other synthetic materials that by their very nature don't possess the depth, texture and unique visual qualities of marble. Science and technological advances notwithstanding, educated guessing has played a part. The figure of Thalia, the muse of comedy and poetry, for example, is shown in the marble original (second century BC) with surviving traces of Egyptian blue and pink, while a recent construction, entirely based on the remnants of the polychromy, fleshed out and darkened the pigments left behind. An unusual contribution that helps illustrate the contradiction between current knowledge and received assumptions is a white plaster cast of a Greek frieze from the Parthenon, depicting a horseman and a servant boy, taking part in a procession honoring the goddess Athena. Through the magic of 3-D modeling and projection-mapping, the relief morphs from white to vivid color and back again.
One of the show's delights is its final section featuring objects from Mesopotamia and the ancient Mediterranean world. 5,000-year-old, small-scale, white abstract marble figures from the Cycladic Islands in the Aegean, devoid of color when first discovered in the early 20th century, were, at one time, heightened with blue that outlined the eyes and hair - one even has a blue ponytail - and red dots on the cheeks. The stark, simple forms are thought to have inspired the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti and Brancusi. Though damaged, "Torso of a God" (Egypt, New Kingdom, 1359-1349 BC) is a stunner. The nearly life-size divine statue, commissioned for the royal jubilee of the aging Pharaoh Amenhotep III, was carved from polished, mahogany brown-black granodiorite, a stone signifying fertility and rejuvenation. Miraculously looking much the way it did in 660 BC thanks to Egypt's dry climate, a pristine relief fragment retrieved from a subterranean chamber of a lavish tomb belonging to the prominent official Mentuemhat retains most of its original reddish-brown and yellow paint, providing a living color window onto Thebes' elaborate funerary cult, which thrived eons ago.
Through Jan. 7. famsf.org.
Two bronze cast reconstructions of Riace warriors, originals dating from ca. 440 BC, found underwater off the coast of southern Italy, are part of "Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World," now at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Photo: Rick Gerharter
Vinzenz Brinkmann from the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection in Frankfurt, Germany, shows an infrared image that helped conservators determine the colors of the shield in this reconstruction of the battle between Greeks and Persians from the Alexander Sarcophagus, as part of "Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World," now at the Legion of Honor. Photo: Rick Gerharter