Since John Cage's pioneering approach to the study of colour in Western culture (Colour and Culture. Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction [1994]), a new research field focusing on the uses and functions of colour in the Classical world has been progressively established through the interaction of multidisciplinary teams consisting of archaeologists, classical scholars, art historians, artists, conservators and analytical scientists. Over the past two decades outstanding progress has been made in the investigation of colour as a painting material due to the development of sophisticated non-invasive visual and analytical techniques, allowing us to reveal pictorial elements that are invisible to the naked eye and to identify both the chemical composition of colours and the structure of paint layers. The determinant role of colour in Greek and Roman art and architecture has been publicised through international travelling exhibitions with didactic painted casts, while research has revealed the importance of colour as a component of the aesthetic, cultural and cognitive dynamics of antiquity.
This collection originated in a conference organised by Jockey in Athens (EFA) in 2009. The editor, best known for his work on Hellenistic sculpture from Delos, has already contributed significantly to the study of ancient polychromy, with several articles and a recent monograph (Le mythe de la Grèce blanche. Histoire d'un rêve occidental [2013]). The essays, from a broad range of disciplines, revisit questions about how antiquity valued colour in art and everyday life and how craftsmen and artists manipulated colour in their productions. Given the length of the volume and the number of essays, this review is of necessity selective.
After a brief introduction in which Jockey summarises the main themes of the papers, the first section, dedicated to the material aspects and value of colour in antiquity, begins with L. Cavassa's study of Egyptian blue production from the Hellenistic period to the Roman Empire. Cavassa provides an overview of the already known literature on the subject and discusses the new evidence provided by recent excavations at the Phlegraean Fields (Pozzuoli and Cuma) suggesting a local production of Egyptian blue, mainly due to the discovery of crucibles used for the production of the pigment. The next two papers turn to the production of Murex purple in antiquity and its use on archaeological artefacts (Z.C. Koren) and in textile dying (D. Cardon et al.). The paper by Cardon and others delivers entirely new information on the use of purple from marine molluscs in archaeological textiles from Roman Egypt through a systematic examination of ten samples of woollen garments from the rubbish dumps of Didymoi, with interesting insights into the diffusion of purple and the extra cost of its use in both male and female clothing. In the last, dense and stimulating article in this section, V. Chankowski explores the evidence of epigraphic texts, and especially the accounts of sanctuaries, in order to analyse the economic value of different types of materials used in the decoration and restoration of public architecture and statuary in the Classical Greek and Hellenistic worlds. Through the prices of painting materials and the wages of artists and craftsmen, Chankowski convincingly reconstructs a market of colours, stressing the frequent use of certain materials (miltos, lead white, pigment and binder mixtures consisting of miltos and beeswax, appropriate for encaustic application). Discussing the price of gold leaf sheets (petala) for the gilding of statues, Chankowski casts light on the specific handling of this precious material, procured for the craftsmen directly by the hieropοioi. Miltos (iron oxide based red) was also purchased directly by the sanctuary in large quantities, suggesting a wide range of applications for this material. In fact, I would add that miltos must have been used rather as an undercoat and not as a final surface layer – the same applies to lead white. It was often associated with the gilding technique, considering that it was an indispensable preparatory layer before the application of gold leaf.
The second and largest section comprises ten essays on various classes of materials, spanning from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. E. Walter-Karydi's overview on the progressive emergence of polychromy in Greek art in the seventh century bc opens the section. The next three papers deal with sculptural polychromy. G. Kokkorou-Alevras's re-examination of the engraved motifs of the garment of the Nikander statue allows her to reconstruct more accurately the painted decoration of the statue's dress. B. Schmaltz presents a new painted cast of the Acropolis Kore 682, excavated in 1880, relying on the original watercolours from the time and on a painted cast made in 1910. Although the reported colours at the time of excavation were red, blue and green, in the new reconstruction red and blue predominate, and the overall chromatic harmony, to my eyes, misses the subtlety of the original colouring (for example, the exact same red colour, in terms of hue and value, was used for the hair, the lips, the eyes and the decorative motifs of the kore's dress). B. Bourgeois and Jockey's systematic work tracking polychromy on Delian sculpture is already known from previous publications; however, in this paper they offer a more insightful account of the specific techniques employed by painters to generate light and shadow effects. They also address issues regarding the contexts in which such high-quality polychrome statues were originally exhibited.
The influence of late Classical and early Hellenistic painting from Greece on Etruscan and Southern Italian funerary painting is argued by S. Steingräber, together with Macedonia's crucial role in cultural transmissions, without providing, however, any new, more insightful ideas on this topic. A more theoretical and in-depth approach to colour in Greek and Etruscan painting of the fifth and fourth centuries bc is offered by A. Rouveret, in her thought-provoking essay on ‘Les couleurs du visible et de l'invisible’. Rouveret discusses colour's potential to represent what may not be perceptible by our own senses, through a refined analysis of selected textual sources and archaeological materials. The ways in which painters suggested, for example, atmospheric phenomena, allegorical forms of aretê or their conception of the afterlife, are presented through examples from Apulian vase iconography and Etruscan funerary wall-painting. Two papers dealing with colourless glass and glass decorated with colourful motifs provide the reader with new, useful information on the production, technology and historical use of colourless glass. M.-D. Nenna stresses its high material value during the Classical and Hellenistic periods, mainly due to its transparency that so resembled precious rock crystal. D. Ignatiadou offers a detailed presentation of the technological aspects of reverse painting on a unique lidded glass phialê from ancient Pydna in Macedonia, dated to the late fourth century bc. From the analysis of pink paint still preserved on the underside of the phialê’s rim it was possible to identify the use of Murex purple, a very significant addition to the history of glass polychromy in the ancient world. V. Adrymi et al., in an essay that would have best fitted in the first section, deal with the chemical composition of raw materials used as cosmetics, mainly lead white (psimythion), discovered during recent excavations in Thessaly. In the last essay of this section N. Tolis highlights the presence of traces of gold leaf on some tesserae surfaces from the mosaic floor of the ‘House of Fourni’ at Delos. However, despite the obvious interest of such an uncommon application, a more systematic technological investigation of the remaining traces of gold leaf should be undertaken, including elemental techniques.
In the third section eight essays deal with colour symbolism and the role of colour in the production of trompe l’œil effects in funerary and domestic architectural decoration. In the first paper A. Grand-Clément, based on her previous work on poikilia, further explores the relationship between gold and purple, the most highly prized colours in antiquity, through a comparative study of literary and epigraphic sources shedding light on the link between gold, purple, tryphê and eusebeia. The specific techniques using colour to achieve the impression of volume in architectural interiors by Greek and Roman painters are discussed in the contributions of A.-M. Guimier-Sorbets and M. Mulliez. The first essay discusses in detail the various illusionistic techniques assimilated by Macedonian craftsmen, their transfer to Alexandria and the coexistence of Greek and Egyptian systems of decoration in monumental tombs. Mulliez concentrates on late Roman republican interiors and tries to explore issues related to the pictorial representation of open space and landscape in the so-called second Pompeian style. Interesting points are made regarding the techniques by which painters imitated the volume of material elements through gradation of colour, the creation of different levels and the imitation of the texture of different materials, such as textile, wood, tortoiseshell, glass, precious stones and metals. While colour symbolism in Thracian tombs, as suggested by J. Valeva, seems to this reviewer highly unlikely due to the limitations imposed by a very restricted local palette, P. Liverani's reflections on colour coding in Roman art deserve more attention. (Liverani's ideas have already been published in the volume he recently edited on ancient polychromy [2014]: see my review at BMCR 2015.10.33.) The next essay, by F. Fauquet and Jockey, shows how colour reconstruction of five Hellenistic statues found at Delos with traces of colour and gilding is achieved by using novel 3D scanning and restoration techniques. Digitalised 3D models of the statues allow for an immediate visualisation of ancient polychromy using various lighting sources in order to reconstruct more accurately the shading of colours in their original outdoor environment. A very welcome, complementary and more flexible approach towards reconstructing sculptural polychromy, compared to the fixed character of painted casts. The use of polychrome marble (mostly of Greek origin) in antique architecture and its possible symbolic meaning are quite extensively discussed by P. Julien (surprisingly a major monograph on this topic, L. Lazzarini's Poikiloi lithoi, versiculores maculae: I marmi colorati della Grecia antica [2007], is not mentioned). An insightful paper by I. Manfrini reflecting on the role played by colours in body iconicity brings together a variety of documents from antiquity to the present era, stressing the importance of context in its cultural and social dimension in order to approach colour in ancient Greece from a historical perspective. The last essay by N. Farra-Haddad, ‘S'habiller aux couleurs des saints: démarches votives et culte des saints au Liban’, appears to be quite irrelevant compared to the rest of the papers.
This is a well-edited, abundantly illustrated volume (including summaries in English, French and Greek and a general index at the end). While many of the studies have been published separately since the 2009 conference, this volume is still a useful collection for those already versed in ancient polychromy studies.
