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by thefalcon 3151 days ago
"Van Gogh used a type of red pigment that gradually faded over time. That suggests the painting looks slightly different today than when it was completed."

There's something kind of cool about older art changing over time and the process of trying to determine what it might have originally looked like. Reminds me of Philip Mould's work removing a yellowed varnish to uncover a painting (more) as it would have looked 500 years ago: https://twitter.com/philipmould
2 comments
MCompeau 3151 days ago
The way art transforms over time is fascinating and can completely alter our perception of entire classes of art and culture. Check out ancient Roman and Greek statuary and architecture:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors-1788...

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Camillo 3150 days ago
The Greeks and the Romans prized realism in art above all else. We know this from literature (e.g. the story of Zeuxis and Parrhasius), from surviving paintings (frescoes, portraits, etc.) which show skillful and realistic use of color, and from the shape of the sculptures themselves. They painted their statues because reality is colorful, yes. But they painted them realistically.

The notion that they painted statues with flat, unrealistic colors, without using all the realistic painting skills we know they had, is absurd. It goes against everything we know (from primary sources, not as modern opinions) about classical art, and it is simply not reasonable to believe.

Brinkmann paints reconstructions in the most garish and unrealistic way possible because controversy draws attention, and magazines repeat his claims uncritically for the same reason.

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ThinkingGuy 3150 days ago
If you haven't seen it already, check out the NHK documentary: "The Lost Hokusai." A masterpiece by Hokusai (the guy who did the famous woodblock print of the ocean wave) was destroyed in a fire, but a single black-and-white photo of it remained. Analysts worked with artists and other specialists to try to recreate what the original colors might have looked like.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/special/episode/201705271...

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