The last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in sculptural polychromy. In the present book S. aims to see colour in a wider context. Combining empirical and theoretical approaches, S. discusses various aspects of colour in antiquity, including theory of colour, practical engagement with materials and changing attitudes to colour. According to the sleeve notes, ‘Stager harnesses ancient ideas of materiality, care, landscape, visual exchange, and artistic atomism to theorize color in the ancient Mediterranean and its afterlives’ – quite an ambitious project.
The book is divided into five chapters – ‘Material Color, Language, and Khrōma’; ‘Additive Colors, Kosmēsis, and Care’; ‘Khōra, Relief, and Landscape’; ‘Inlaid Eyes, Effluences, and Opsis’; ‘Atoms, Lithoi, and Animacy’ –, which are framed by an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction addresses the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games. While the performers impersonating Minoan and Hellenistic images were clad in colourful garb, impersonators of Archaic and classical sculpture were presented as deadly white, thus perpetuating the faulty idea of a white antiquity. The notion of whiteness is further explored with reference to Kant, Hegel and Winckelmann as well as the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century polychromy debates. With Newton's theory of colour and the ideas of Owen Jones also coming into play, the introduction contains plenty of material for a separate book.
In Chapter 1, ‘Material Color, Language, and Khrōma’, S. reviews ancient terminology, pigments and the use and signification of colour. S. pays special attention to blue, well preserved on the hair and the beards of the Archaic ‘Bluebeard’ from the Athenian Acropolis and the early classical Zeus and Ganymede terracotta group from Olympia. S. argues that blue was both a pigment and a simulacrum of sculpted lapis lazuli (p. 71). Depending on context, a colour may have several connotations: was the potential signification of blue the same for the triple-bodied monster and the god? Did kuanos convey the same meaning in the Archaic and the classical period? Another chromatic issue, still to be solved, regards how the Greeks perceived the difference between dark blue and black.
S. distinguishes between ‘material colour’, the inherent colour of the object, and ‘additive colour’, such as pigments. In Chapter 2, ‘Additive Colors, Kosmēsis, and Care’, S. considers parts added to a surface and parts fitted into a new whole, playing on the meaning of kosmos (‘order’, ‘world’) and kosmēsis (‘order’, ‘adornment’). One example given is Pandora, who was formed from the material clay with colour added in the form of textile, flowers, silver and gold. The adornments of the clay figure were kosmēsis. S. connects kosmēsis and care: since paint would have to be touched up, (re)colouring was a recurrent phenomenon. S. holds that ‘[t]hrough the maintenance that they demand, material colors engage a feminist ethics of care that centers care work as political work’ (p. 132). This bold proposition is unlikely to meet with general acceptance.
In the following chapter, ‘Khōra, Relief, and Landscape’, S. argues that the chromatic experience was shaped by the natural environment (khōra meaning ‘land’). She focuses on the sanctuary at Delphi, first discussing the legendary early temples of Apollo, allegedly fashioned from respectively laurels, beeswax and feathers, and bronze, before the fourth temple made from stone. While a temple was not constructed of multicoloured feathers, the poetic notion of these colourful and shimmering items suggests that the Greeks had a keen understanding of material variety. For the Siphnian Treasury, c. 530 bce, the foundation was made of local blue-grey limestone, the walls of Siphnian marble, the entablature of Naxian marble, while the finest Parian marble was confined to the sculpture (p. 164). S. maintains that the coloristic ensemble of the Treasury had to be experienced together with the colours of the Delphic landscape. We may take the conventional blue ground to reflect the sky, but it is difficult to accept that the white inscriptions on the frieze ‘evoke the white clouds in the blue sky of the landscape surrounding the building’ (p. 169). The Siphnian Treasury was one of many treasuries lining the sacred way. One can imagine that the Siphnians intended it to outdo nearby structures in material splendour. Since the sculptural styles of the individual reliefs differ, it is possible that their polychromy also differed. At least, the artists probably paid special attention to the east façade, with the two caryatids, and the south side, which faced visitors on the processional route. A significant aspect of the Siphnian sculpture is that the colour was not naturalistic; with horses painted red or green, colours may have been chosen for saliency.
Inasmuch as they were put together from sections to form the body, with various other materials for eyes and details, S. suggests that bronze statues should also be understood as assemblages. Examining the Riace bronzes, S. observes the intricate design of eyes assembled from white bone and pink, brown and black glass paste, further enhanced with metal eyelashes. Focusing on the inlaid eyes of the Piraeus Athena, S. demonstrates the visual difference between the same prototype in bronze and in marble (fig. 118). Unfortunately, since the colours of painted eyes have faded, it is difficult to compare across the media. Very few statues retain their eyes. The bronze herm of the Roman Doryphorus from the Villa dei Papyri originally had inlaid eyes, but the eighteenth-century conservators put bronze films there to cover the empty eye sockets, thus creating a false monochrome look (pp. 208–9). S. underlines the importance of eyes for animating the sculptures, arguing convincingly that artists strove to make the works lifelike (empsykon) rather than to create naturalistic likenesses. The chapter contains a short theoretical section on ancient theories of vision, with reference to, among others, Empedocles, Democritus and Plato (pp. 192–9). This well-illustrated chapter is one of the most interesting parts of the book.
Expanding S.'s leading concept of assemblage, the fitting together of little bits into larger entities, the final chapter unexpectedly turns from sculpture to floor mosaics, with examples ranging from the fourth century bce to the second century ce. Although the pavements fall outside the subject of classical sculptural polychromy, they do provide an idea of another area of ancient art where colour mattered: in the floors made mainly of natural stone the palette was restricted, and yet the artists succeeded in creating harmonious and colourful works. The inclusion of mosaics would, nevertheless, have been more relevant to the overall theme had S. used the colours of floors to propose potential hues for sculpture.
The epilogue closes the circle by readdressing the polychromy debate, now dealing with the reception of Phidias’ gigantic chryselephantine statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus at Olympia. Through replication in other materials and in reduced size, these originally multicoloured, multimaterial manifestations were perpetuated as monochromatic, colour being stripped through reproductions. However, there were exceptions such as the Varvakeion Athena, which still retains pigment traces. From Quatremère de Quincy's Jupiter Olympien to Alan LeQuire's full-size replica of the Athena Parthenos in the Nashville Parthenon, futile attempts have been made to visualise the statues in their original splendour.
The book is in large format, handsomely produced and lavishly illustrated with 164 colour photographs and four in black and white; most are full or half page. Bibliographic references and footnotes are plentiful. S. has assembled archaeological, art historical, philosophical, linguistic and environmental threads into a complex coloristic weave – at times almost too complex, the range of material competing for the reader's attention. That said the book is a stimulating addition to the many archaeologically based publications on polychromy.
