Transparent forms: tinting, whiteness and John Gibson's
            <i>Venus</i>

Hatt, Michael

doi:10.3828/sj.2014.18

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…13 Hatt 2014, 185. 14 Hatt 2014 From a lecture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in the 1870s; Hatt 2014, 186. 16 Hatt 2014 colouring white marble, ever considered the possibility of fully-covering layers of paint.…”

Section: Why Paint On White Marble?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Skovmøller¹

2020

Classical Art and Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Why Paint On White Marble?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Skovmøller¹

2020

Classical Art and Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These double-portrait cameos were used by the Queen thereafter as badges for prizes and given as gifts. 114 As discussed above with the Parian statuettes, Saulini exhibited cameos taken from Gibson's designs at the 1851 Great Exhibition. In the jury report on Saulini's contribution, it was noted: 'The greater part of these are copied from the most attractive works of the celebrated English sculptor Gibson'.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Sleeping Shepherds Dream of 3D-Printed Sheep: John Gibson, Oliver Laric, and Digital Neoclassicism

Gustin¹

2023

British Art Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Welsh-born sculptor John Gibson (1790-1866) was one of the most popular British artists in Rome during the nineteenth century. 2 His studio on Via della Fontanella near the Piazza del Popolo was a mandatory stop for visitors on the Grand Tour. 3 Ever the classicist, Gibson praised the sculptural achievements of the Greeks, declaring 'Whatever the Greeks did was right', and 'In the art of sculpture the Greeks were gods'. 4 Best known today for his Tinted Venus, 1851-53, in which he reintroduced the ancient aesthetic of polychrome sculpture through wax-based pigments on marble, Gibson came to be derided by critics who considered this sculpture and his other coloured figures to be failed experiments. 5 As a result, for 1 The ideas presented in this article developed during research award periods at the Henry Moore Institute and the Yale Center for British Art, evolved into part of a paper presented at the College Art Association conference in 2012 on the rethinking of sculpture production, and became the basis of a chapter in my doctoral dissertation. I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of colleagues and friends for their feedback on these ideas over the years, but special thanks go out to Martina Droth, Greg Sullivan, and Richard Woodfield. 2 The primary sources on Gibson's life and career are:

show abstract

Transparent forms: tinting, whiteness and John Gibson's Venus

Cited by 2 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

Do Sleeping Shepherds Dream of 3D-Printed Sheep: John Gibson, Oliver Laric, and Digital Neoclassicism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About