Lost Surfaces: Canova and Colour

Bindman, David

doi:10.1093/oxartj/kcw008

Oxford Art J

2016

DOI: 10.1093/oxartj/kcw008

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Lost Surfaces: Canova and Colour

David Bindman¹

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Cited by 3 publications

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“…On the washes of Canova, see in generalNorman and Cook 1997and Bindman 2016. 22 Campbell, Silvetti, Podany and Wood 2008 In general, seePodany 2015. …”

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confidence: 99%

Between the Ideal and Artistic Practice. On Research into Ancient Sculptural Polychromy

Skovmøller¹

2020

Classical Art and Archaeology

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Antiquity is often synonymous with white marble. Such are the general expectations when visitors enter 21st century museum galleries hosting ancient sculpture. Yet, ancient marble sculptures have never been actually white. They were originally fully painted or otherwise coloured, and today they pose as controlled ruins build by decades of restorations, de-restorations and preservation manifested as encrusted layers and patina. As such they express the modern ideal, meaning ideas of aesthetics developed by 19th and 20th century museums. They do not reflect the ancient artistic practice or the ideas of aesthetics that once guided the ancient craftspeople. The experimental reconstructions -meaning painted copies of authentic sculptures- are therefore often met with suspicion and sometimes frustration, because they explore the artistic practice above the ideal. Unlike the ancient originals, the painted copies are not in any way visually authentic, but fully polychrome, and layers of paint are often applied in thick, opaque layers, thus failing to meet the ideas of aesthetics on behalf of the modern viewer. While the reconstructions serve as seminal research tools in the academic exploration and experimentation with colours on white marble sculptures, they have no precedents in the history of art. This article will therefore explore how reviews of these experimental reconstructions echoes ideas of aesthetics originating from the 19th century, and how a lack of confronting these ideas ultimately empowers the reconstructions with the potential to impose a much-needed material diversity to 21st century classical sculpture galleries.

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“…On the washes of Canova, see in generalNorman and Cook 1997and Bindman 2016. 22 Campbell, Silvetti, Podany and Wood 2008 In general, seePodany 2015. …”

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confidence: 99%

Between the Ideal and Artistic Practice. On Research into Ancient Sculptural Polychromy

Skovmøller¹

2020

Classical Art and Archaeology

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The Primacy of Form over Color: On the Discussion of Primary and Secondary Qualities in Herder’s Pygmalion

Hodne

2022

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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A key question in the art debate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was whether color should be used for sculpture. Recent archaeological research had shown that the sculpture in ancient Greece was polychrome, but skepticism about applying paint to one’s own work was widespread among modern sculptors. Some scholars explain this reluctance as a consequence of racial prejudice: the Greek athlete was an image of white Europeans. This article will try to show that a re-reading of Johann Gottfried Herder’s book on sculpture can give us a different and more probable explanation. Herder shared Roger de Piles’s view that the essence of sculpture was form, while color was most characteristic of painting. What set Herder apart from his predecessor, however, was his attempt to give the theory a scientific rationale. He found this in contemporary accounts of visually impaired persons’ relationship to the sensory world and not least in empiricist philosophy’s distinction between primary and secondary sensory properties.

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Recent Articles on French History

Hérubel¹

2017

French Historical Studies

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Lost Surfaces: Canova and Colour

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Between the Ideal and Artistic Practice. On Research into Ancient Sculptural Polychromy

Between the Ideal and Artistic Practice. On Research into Ancient Sculptural Polychromy

The Primacy of Form over Color: On the Discussion of Primary and Secondary Qualities in Herder’s Pygmalion

Recent Articles on French History

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