[ffgjgf1]

I refuse to believe that the people who made some of the best ancient statues had an artistic sense of a 5-year old when it came to color...

Obviously ancient status were colored but probably in a much nicer way. No way something like:

https://static.frieze.com/files/inline-images/web-cg-h-102-a...

could be even close to the original ( considering that the Romans generally managed to somehow get skin tones more or less right in the few paintings that survived)

[mcpackieh]

The problem is they do careful analysis of statues and find evidence of pigmentation, but obviously they're only looking at the remnants of the base coat and don't see any of the careful detailing that almost certainly went towards making these statues look very lifelike (judging by the realistic quality of the sculpture itself.) And so the recreations look flat and uncanny because they're essentially unfinished.

[mymythisisthis]

I wonder if another problem might be fashion trends. Sometimes bright, contrasting, colours are in style and feel normal. https://www.apparelsearch.com/terms/images/cher-aerobics-leg...

[mcpackieh]

I don't think the bright colors are the problem, just the opposite actually.

Particularly in this example: https://static.frieze.com/files/inline-images/web-cg-h-102-a...

The bright clothes are fine, but his skin is awful. It's flat and lifeless, like a cold corpse drained of blood. It looks like they put the primer coat on then left it unfinished; I think that's literally what they did. Maybe this look is what they were originally going for, but I don't think so. Look at the detail on that guy's knees, they look just like real knees. I don't believe the original artists went through so much trouble to sculpt hyper-realistic knees then let some intern half-ass the paint job.

[schuyler2d]

I think it's also current museum aesthetics where they do enough to give you the idea but don't want to take any artistic license beyond what's provable. So the painting could have been more subtle especially for those close to the viewer

[schuyler2d]

Maybe you should reevaluate where your own aesthetic comes from https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/04/27/whitewas...

I think the reproductions suffer a bit because the distance these statues were from a viewer varied -- but just like murals

[ffgjgf1]

> Maybe you should reevaluate where your own

No, I don’t think so.

The way some of these “reconstructions” look is just plain awful. And based on the surviving examples of frescoes and paintings they would look as just awful the the Romans.

> I think the reproductions suffer a bit because

They suffer because there is no shading for one thing. The skin and hair especially just look awful. It has nothing to do with the bright colors (I get that part).