Bharat Ganrajya

if we know these statues were polychromatic, why do they remain lily white in our popular imagination?
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One influential purveyor of this falsehood was Johann Joachim Winckelmann (d. 1768). His two volumes on the history of ancient art, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, were hugely popular in Europe and helped define art history as we know it today. They also perpetuated and further entrenched the idea that white marble statues like the famed Apollo of the Belvedere were the epitome of beauty.
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While many Greek sculptors used bronze for their statuary work, Romans preferred the more durable marble.
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Yet ancient persons did not engage in the construct of biological racism. As emeritus Howard University classicist Frank Snowden has pointed out, “nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern times existed in the ancient world.”
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Intentional or not, museums present viewers with a false color binary of the ancient world. One that, in its curation, perpetuates this skewed representation of antiquity.
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However, classical archaeology, science and new digital technologies now allow us the ability to go back and more accurately depict the ancient Mediterranean.
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gods, heroes, and nymphs displayed in museums look that way, as do neoclassical monuments and statuary, from the Jefferson Memorial to the Caesar perched outside his palace in Las Vegas.
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several decades later, he started poking around the depots and was astonished to find that many statues had flecks of color: red pigment on lips, black pigment on coils of hair, mirrorlike gilding on limbs. For centuries, archeologists and museum curators had been scrubbing away these traces of color before presenting statues and architectural reliefs to the public.
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devised a special lamp that shines obliquely on an object, highlighting its surface relief. When he began scrutinizing sculptures with the lamp, he told me, he “quite immediately understood” that, while there was little sign of tool marks on the statues, there was significant evidence of polychromy—all-over color
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began re-creating Greek and Roman sculptures in plaster, painted with an approximation of their original colors. Palettes were determined by identifying specks of remaining pigment, and by studying “shadows”—minute surface variations that betray the type of paint applied to the stone. The result of this effort was a touring exhibition called “Gods in Color.”
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But some of the disorientation among viewers comes from seeing polychromy at all. Østergaard, who put on two exhibitions at the Glyptotek which featured painted reconstructions, said that, to many visitors, the objects “look tasteless.”
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Bond told me that she’d been moved to write her essays when a racist group, Identity Evropa, started putting up posters on college campuses, including Iowa’s, that presented classical white marble statues as emblems of white nationalism. After the publication of her essays, she received a stream of hate messages online
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writes that the Greeks “would have been staggered” by the suggestion that they were “white.”
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In the Odyssey, Whitmarsh points out, the goddess Athena is said to have restored Odysseus to godlike good looks in this way: “He became black-skinned again and the hairs became blue around his chin.” .. the ancient Greeks considered darker skin” for men to be “more beautiful and a sign of physical and moral superiority..
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vishvak wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 24, 2018 2:19 pm

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In the Odyssey, Whitmarsh points out, the goddess Athena is said to have restored Odysseus to godlike good looks in this way: “He became black-skinned again and the hairs became blue around his chin.” .. the ancient Greeks considered darker skin” for men to be “more beautiful and a sign of physical and moral superiority..
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Primus wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:07 pm

vishvak wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 24, 2018 2:19 pm

.......................
In the Odyssey, Whitmarsh points out, the goddess Athena is said to have restored Odysseus to godlike good looks in this way: “He became black-skinned again and the hairs became blue around his chin.” .. the ancient Greeks considered darker skin” for men to be “more beautiful and a sign of physical and moral superiority..
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I have Greek and British/German relatives by marriage and in family gatherings the difference in skin color is very obvious. The Greeks are much more like our Kashmiris or even Sindhis (though slightly lighter) while the other Europeans are definitely much more 'reddish' and paler skinned. When the two are seated together (as it happens all the time), and you pay attention to it, the difference is clearly evident. Of course over the years we've all become completely immune to this. What is also very interesting is the children - the ones with the Indian/ British parents are darker in complexion than the Indian/Greek offspring. In fact the latter are almost exactly the same skin tone as the Greek parent. This then maybe due to the fact that the Indian parent in the other couple is darker than the one in the Indian/Greek combination. In general though, in my extended family the children are invariably almost the same skin tone as the white parent.

I predict that over the next 50 yrs or so, at least in the US, there will be so many mixed race couples that the skin tones will become more uniform - among the Indians that is. Currently the number of Indians marrying non-Indians (of any national or ethnic origin) in my circle of friends and family is over 70%, with an overwhelming majority of them being white.

Colour stereotyping is an old way of cultural subversion. In my growing years I always used to think Christ was a white man (may be from England) the way they used to portray his image. And you can always find Mongloid versions of Shri Ram and Hanuman in South East Asia

ArjunPandit wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 31, 2018 5:39 pm

It's been almost an year, I am still wondering what led to the closure of BRF GDF.
I was not very regular at GDF, as I was with Mil, but it was a good thread to spice up office time once a week or so.....On a serious note, this attack by BIF forces demonstrates how just a change in hyperlink can demolish an established order

-It was in the 90s--In BBC? Panel discussion with couples married for long( >30yrs)--a Hindu wife was asked--in this long married life u nvr wanted to divorce him say even once? She replied --murder many times but divorce nvr-- that is how Hindu marriages last long:)))))))RT

8:33 PM - 6 Nov 2018