Traditions of Monochrome and Polychrome Sculpture (2025)

White in Medieval Sculpture Polychromy – Iconography, Reception, Restoration

Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 2019

This paper investigates various aspects of the polychromy of the Landsberg Madonna by Hans Multscher. First, partially polychromed ivory and marble sculptures are taken into consideration as possible models for the Landsberg Madonna’s specific polychromy. This study demonstrates that the material of these sculptures is meaningful in terms of both iconography and medieval color theory. It argues that the Landsberg Madonna imitates these materials by transforming their different white hues into polychromy, and that by doing so, white receives qualities of color. Finally, it shows that the 1961 – 1967 restoration of this sculpture followed an idealistic concept of unpainted pure substrate material, which disguises more than reveals the special status of the work’s original polychromy.

‘Looking at Colour on post-Antique Sculpture’. Review of Vinzenz Brinkmann, Oliver Primavesi, Max Hollein, (eds), Circumlitio. The Polychromy of Antique and Medieval Sculpture. Liebighaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, 2010

Journal of Art Historiography, 2011

The polychromy of medieval sculpture in Northern Europe is addressed in five of the articles in Circumlitio, which together form an important part of the editors’ project to bring the study of the coloured surfaces of sculpture out of the realm of technical reports and into the mainstream of sculptural scholarship. The five articles comprise surveys of techniques and materials (Harald Theiss) and of the field in general (Stefan Roller), and case studies of a major monument, Sluter’s Well of Moses at the Chartreuse de Champmol (Susie Nash), the raw material of the dyestuff madder (Dieter Köcher) and the reconstruction of the polychromed surface of a fourteenth century St George at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum,in Nuremberg (Arnulf von Ulmann). In his review, the author discusses some of the historiography of polychromy, examining in particular the treatment of Italian sculpture, whose study is not the focus of Circumlitio, giving context to the essays at hand within the wider field.

White In Medieval Sculpture Polychromy

Author Accepted Manuscript, 2019

This work has been publishes as: Sobieczky, Elisabeth (2019). White in Medieval Sculpture Polychromy – Iconography, Reception, Conservation. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte. 2019, vol. 82, 299-320. DOI: 10.1515/ZKG-2019-3002 Note: Figures are only included in the published version of this paper.

Towards a 'Polychrome History' of Greek and Roman Sculpture

Ancient and medieval sculpture was normally painted and at times gilded. Today most of the original paint is lost, but scientific methods have made it possible to trace even slight remains of paint no longer visible to the naked eye. Hypothetical reconstructions of polychromy have been displayed at many recent exhibitions in Europe and the USA and documented in a growing number of publications. 1 While the proposed reconstructions obviously are open to discussion and revision, the colouristic 'revelation' invites further art historical considerations on perceptual and aesthetic aspects of sculptural polychromy. The history of ancient art therefore needs to be revised and rewritten in the light of new research. 2 In the ancient world, colour was an integral part of sculpture, and to combine sculpted and painted form was common practice throughout antiquity. In Egypt and the Near-East, sculpture in soft and hard stone and wood was normally painted. The Egyptian material still retains much colour, while Assyrian and Achaemenid reliefs tend to have suffered heavier losses. 3 This polychrome tradition was continued in the Greek and Roman world. Since marble is a fine and expensive material, it may surprise modern viewers that the antique artists chose to cover it wholly or partly with paint. But in Greece, the terms chros and chroma embrace the 1 Recent publications include: Vinzenz Brinkmann and Raimund Wünsche, eds, Bunte Götter.

Looking at Colour on post-Antique Sculpture

2011

As Alex Potts points out in his essay, ‘Colors of Sculpture’, ‘all sculpture is colored, in a literal sense’.1 Yet, despite the fact that the addition of colour to objects as well as its presence as an inescapable fact of sculptural media makes imperative its inclusion in any consideration of sculptors’ intentions and the meaning of their work, Amanda Claridge is right to note in her review,2 that polychromed sculpture has been given short shrift in the post-enlightenment settlement. The ideal of monochrome sculpture, often associated primarily with Winckelmann, was first articulated with real philosophical force by Johann Gottfried Herder and held such sway throughout the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, more importantly, throughout the formative years of art history as a discipline, that polychromy was largely removed from the discussion and the predominance in sculptural taste and scholarship of form over colour was seldom deemed worthy of comment. Although the colo...

"Coloring the Middle Ages: Textual and Graphical Sources that Reveal the Importance of Color in Medieval Sculpture"

Zwischen Kunsthandwerk und Kunst: die 'Schedula diversarum artium', 2014

Colour in Late Antique Art: an Aesthetic Exploration of Polychromy

2023

Liz James for inviting me to contribute to the Byzantium on Display panel at the 21st Byzantine Congress in London in 2006 and address the aesthetics of marble and coloured stone. The text was published in extended form in Arte medievale, 2012 Valentino Pace for providing me with the opportunity to speak about the polychromy of the stucco saints in the Tempietto Longobardo, at the L'VIII secolo, un secolo inquieto convegno at Cividale in 2008, published in 2010 Marina Righetti for accepting a longer article on the Tempietto stuccoes, 'Colour and Context', in Arte medievale 2008 [2011]

Circumlitio. The Polychromy of Antique and Medieval Sculpture

2011

Most renaissance artists were well aware that the ancient sculpture which appeared to them as bleached marble or blackened bronze was once painted, just as medieval sculpture was painted, and they often painted their own works; the evidence has always been available in quantity for those who wish to see it. But on the whole from the renaissance right down to the present day we have generally continued to prefer our classical antiquity in ruins, and in monochrome white, an abstraction on which our imagination is then free to build any reality we want in accordance with our own taste. Modern archaeologists and art-historians are no less prone to do this than anyone else, but the ground rules are now undergoing some radical changes as museum curators and conservators have begun to apply a slew of new technologies to the analysis of the residues on the surfaces of the ancient artefacts in their care. Much of the impetus has come from a hugely successful exhibition Bunte Götter

Circumlitio : the polychromy of antique and mediaeval sculpture : [proceedings of the Johann David Passavant Colloquium]

2010

Scholars around the world are researching the degree to which colour was employed in classical and medieval sculpture. Their numerous activities and projects were most recently presented and debated at an international colloquium held in the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt. The current contributions of 20 internationally known scholars are brought together in this richly illustrated book in English.

"Color & Space. Interfaces of Ancient Architecture and Sculpture" ; Program of the 10th International Roundtable on Polychromy in Ancient Sculpture and Architecture, November 10-13 2020, REMOTE CONFERENCE

Light, Shadow, and Brilliance: Manipulating Form and Perception Chair: Brigitte Bourgeois R. Posamentir (Tübingen) Painted or not painted -that is still the question A. Nunn (Würzburg) Mesopotamische Statuen -Farbe, Licht und Architektur P. Jockey (Paris Nanterre), M. Alfeld (Delft) The Polychromy of the Frieze of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi: an example case of a close interaction between color and space in a Panhellenic sanctuary E. Neri (Paris), N. Kopczinski (Paris), F. Béjaoui (Tunis), F. Baratte (Paris) Portraits romains dorés de l'odéon de Carthage P. Liverani (Florence) Σκιά and χρῶμα, the importance of preliminary drawing