[NSFW because of the linked image in the text below]

This was the first time I have encountered in person ancient statues with even tiny bits of colour left on them.

We are so used to seeing Greek (and Roman) statues in pure white that this has become an iconic aspect of classical art. But as they stood 2000 years ago, these statues were decked out in full and multi- colour. Greek temples must themselves have been a riot of colours. Which makes sense, given the gobsmacking sense of aesthetic the civilizations that formed around the Mediterranean, from the Mycenaeans, to the Greeks, to the Etruscans to the Romans, had.

As further evidence, this Roman copy of the original statue of a wounded Amazon by "Polykleitos of Argos" from around 430 BCE, caught my eye.

This was the blurb beneath the statue:

According to Pliny the Elder, there was a competition between the most famous sculptors of the classical age about who could best depict a wounded Amazon. Polykleitos' sculpture was decided to be the best and became one of the most famous masterpieces of the classical age. During the Roman period it was repeatedly copied and the Berlin sculpture figures amon the best replicas.

It was a bit confusing, because at first glance you don't really see where she is wounded, and you wonder why the hell it became a sort of Michelangelo's David/ Mona Lisa of the classical age, when she looks fit as a mule.

Until you take a closer look, and see a slash, and drops of blood dripping from it. This detail would not have been visible for the casual observer, unless it was actually painted in red.

The way I see it at the moment, for the ancient Greeks, sculpture by itself implied colour. Which is ironic because in the last 500 years or so, European art, in trying to emulate the aesthetics of the classical age, as they found them, has uniformly adopted the staid white style, devoid of any life or character, and without the slightest hint of the jubilance and joy that the Greeks actually appreciated.

Polykleitos should he visit modern (or post-Renaissance) Germany would have been quite disappointed.

Bonus pic of another coloured statue, The Lekythos Statuette: Aphrodite and Eros, Atalanti/Lokris, Greece, clay, 375 - 350 BCE.

(I'm not going to repeat it here, but there is plenty of material out there on this topic. A worthy rabbit hole, should you have the time)

Edwin Austin Abbey.

From a scene of Shakespeare's Richard III.

Hardcore AF outfits.

Edo Period (19^th Century), signed Kansai Saku (Koma Kansai)

via Christie’s

Mahmud al-Kurdi was a Kurdish master metalworker active in the late 15th-early 16th century, known for a remarkable group of finely decorated Islamic metalwork.

This brass bucket is richly engraved and inlaid with silver, combining intricate geometric and arabesque patterns with finely detailed figural decoration. It bears Mahmud al-Kurdi’s signature, making it a rare surviving work directly connected to its craftsman.

The term “Veneto-Saracenic” refers to a distinctive style of Islamic metalwork produced primarily in the eastern Mediterranean and often made for European markets.

https://www.christies.com.cn/en/lot/lot-6308163

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmud_the_Kurd