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Comment by kmeisthax

2 days ago

Isn't all that art faded out, though? I wouldn't be surprised if Baroque period art was originally painted with riotous color first and then faded over time to where it now looks merely like an "opinionated use of color".

In a similar vein, all those old grey marble statues the Greeks and Romans made used to be bathed in riotous color before the paint flaked off.

I just searched for some colorised Roman statues and they don't seem to be overusing color. Even complex designs might be basically three colors (e.g. red, blue and white, plus with brown hair and eyes), and the colors themselves are a bit muted. I guess the have been painted based on modern interpretations of the original colors based on whatever limited evidence remains, so maybe those aren't the original colors, but it doesn't seem like a 1990s era website or a garish collection of first gen iMacs and iBooks.