[marcellus23]

> Poorly painted reconstructions undermine that image, but it does not mean this was done intentionally

If I'm understanding you right, you're suggesting the author thinks that researchers are intentionally doing poor constructions to undermine public perception of classical art as part of some sort of culture war? I don't see anything in the article to suggest this

[sapphicsnail]

> The enormous public interest generated by garish reconstructions is surely because of and not in spite of their ugliness. It is hard to believe that this is entirely accidental. One possibility is that the reconstructors are engaged in a kind of trolling.

It's towards the end of the article. He doesn't directly mention culture war stuff but he does talk about it being "iconoclastic." I think it's a reasonable interpretation of what he was saying.

[marcellus23]

I don't think it's reasonable. If there's context I'm missing and this guy has written about culture war stuff before, fair enough, but based on this article alone, I'm not seeing any indication of that.

[simiones]

That phrase suggests more that the author believes this is done for spectacle, knowing that it will attract attention to the researcher far more than a nice-looking painted statue would. Basically he seems to be accusing these researchers of doing flame-bait for clicks, like those kitchen-top meal TikTok videos designed to get engagement by making people angry.

[efxhoy]

Maybe my brain is oversaturated with culture war nonsense from too much doomscrolling but that’s where my train of thought went too, even if it wasn’t directly implied.

By claiming our ancient predecessors had terrible taste you can make them look like primitive fools, and make our own modernity appear superior in comparison.

When boiled down to culture war brainrot the poor coloring in the reconstructions becomes a woke statement that the brutish patriarchal empires of antiquity have nothing to teach our sophisticated modern selves and that new is good and old is bad. A progressive hit-piece on muh heritage.

Anything you don’t like is a purple haired marxist if you squint hard enough.

Idk why my brain went there. I’m guessing the years of daily exposure to engagement-farming ragebait had something to do with it.