It strains our sense of artistic nobility and reverence for classical tradition to think of Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ as having once been ‘decorated’ with a gilded wreath and a gilt-bronze belt, and leaning on a gilded tree stump. Can we imagine that the ‘Venus de Milo,’ that icon of classical purity of form, may have been embellished with color? Indeed, when we think of Greek and Roman sculpture, we automatically assume monochromatic forms to be the standard; the highest compliment. But most ancient sculpture was painted with vibrant colors that have faded over time. In the new exhibition ‘The Color of Life’ at the Getty Villa, curators have assembled 40 works of art spanning 4,000 years to highlight the power of color from the ancient world to modern times. The conventional assumption that classical sculpture must have been white has been reinforced in certain periods of art–particularly in the Renaissance and Neoclassic periods–as the paradigm of the ideal. ‘Color, no color, it goes in waves,’ says Eike Schmidt, associate curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Getty. He explains that, despite the evidence of color as discovered in remnants of pigment often found between fingers and toes or in nostrils of ancient statues, a philosophical preference for monochromatic purity persists. There is a widely held belief that color diminishes the essence of beauty in classical sculpture–the mastery of the chisel and the purity of material. In the 18th century, David d’Angers’ bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson was criticized for its dark patina, which gave the great statesman the skin tone of an African, Schmidt says. ‘In the 19th and 20th centuries, monochromatic art was used to reinforce political ends. The fascist governments favored white marble as a symbol of the supremacy of the white race.’ And yet, as we learn in this exhibition, color has been used as a powerful adjunct in sculpture throughout the history of art. Greek and Roman statues, carved in white marble or cast in bronze, were colored to achieve a heightened emotional response. Color also contributed a more beautiful, heroic or awe-inspiring likeness, Roberta Panzanelli writes in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition. Panzanelli, the senior research specialist at the Getty who conceived of the exhibition, says ‘Color inspires religious veneration, and, in relief sculpture, color can help make the figure or narrative legible to crowds of distant viewers.’ One of the most startling examples in the exhibition of polychromy is the partial reconstruction in plaster of Greek images, which have been painted as they might have looked in the 4th or 5th centuries B.C. Three different reconstructions are displayed of the Peplos Kore, a 530 B.C. marble statue of a young girl wearing a long, richly decorated garment. The vivid hues of the first painted cast suggested by R. M. Cook are not as scientifically based as are the other examples, Schmidt says. ‘Vinzenz Brinkmann looked at the ancient work using raked light and ultraviolet analysis of the surface of the piece and could identify signs of two or three lost colors, or paint ghosts.’ While the exact coloration of the work cannot be certain, these highly pigmented reconstructions shake us out of our belief that Greek sculpture was pure white. Many of the pigments used in antiquity continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Common minerals included malachite (green), azurite (blue) and hematite (red), which were ground into fine powder and mixed with a binding agent. ‘Different colors have a longer life than others,’ Schmidt says. ‘Mineral pigments remain longer than organics, and objects that have been buried have a better chance of keeping their coloration.’ Throughout the exhibition, we see color and tint used in a variety of media. While, in most cases, pigments were applied to the surface of the marble, sculptors, such as Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier, created coloration by skillfully using different materials. In ‘Goat Tender of the Colonies’ (1861), Cordier created a sumptuous bust combining the deep bronze for skin tones with the variegated Algerian onyx-marble for the cloak. In recent decades, artists have once again focused on color in traditional media–sculpture, painting–and new media. ‘Sculptors like Jean Arp and Henry Moore celebrate the intrinsic color of the material’the variety of bronze patinas, stone intrusions and wood grains,’ Schmidt says. Attitudes about color in sculpture have, once and for all, been liberated as the distinctions between painting and sculpture have blurred. For Pop artists, color was arbitrary, and today sculptors create work with either strong hues or neutral tones, depending on their conceptual idea. Superrealists, such as John De Andrea and Duane Hanson, create figurative sculptures made directly from human models with such painstaking realism as to unnerve viewers. In ‘Dying Gaul,’ De Andrea reproduces the pose of a Hellenistic sculpture, adapting the classical subject and pose. De Andrea cast his polyvinyl figure directly from human models, then sanded the piece and painted the cast in oil, reproducing every mole and wrinkle on the model’s body. Whereas Greek and Roman artists strived for an idealized form, De Andrea emphasizes literal realism. Far from representing the symbol of heroic defeat, De Andrea’s ‘Dying Gaul’ appears burdened with the psychological defeat of modern man. ‘The Color of Life’ exhibition teaches us that while we think about the image of sculpture as a relatively colorless shape in the post-modern age, we no longer apply strict rules as to the use of color. The exhibition continues at the Getty Villa through June 23. Roberta Panzanelli will lead a one-hour gallery talk at 3 p.m. on March 28 and June 6. Eike Schmidt will lead a talk at 3 p.m. on April 11 and 25. For tickets to the Villa, call (310) 440-7300 or visit www.getty.edu.
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