Transformations

Classical Sculpture in Colour

Today we celebrate classical sculpture, at least in part, for its elegant clarity and its translucent whiteness, a quality of the marble in which much of it was carved. In fact such sculptures would have been brightly painted. This exhibition pairs classical carvings with their polychromatic reconstructions, to demonstrate just how much of a difference this knowledge makes, and might have made to the generations of western artists who emulated classical sculpture believing it to be something quite different.

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