The Color of Antiquity

The Parthenon, the Colosseum, the Venus de Milo – we now see them as dazzlingly white buildings and works of art, but in antiquity, they were not. As early as the 18th century, archaeologists discovered clear traces of paint on ancient statues during the excavations of Pompeii. In the course of the 19th century, it subsequently became increasingly clear that ancient marble was actually brightly painted. Alma Tadema (1836-1912) painted the sculptor of the Parthenon, Phidias, displaying his brightly painted friezes to his friends.

Yet nearly two hundred years later, the multi-colored nature of antiquity is still not common knowledge. The title of a recent exhibition in Tongeren, Antiquity in Color, brings to mind the boastful marketing of 1950s films: ‘in color’ by ‘Technicolor’! Apparently, the expectation remains that antiquity was colorless. How is that possible? How did the multicolored vision of Alma Tadema and his contemporaries fall into oblivion? And perhaps a more important question: why is there renewed attention for the color of antiquity today?

White Hollywood Films

We can identify a clear culprit for the suppression of color in our collective memory: the classic Hollywood epics of the 1940s through the 1960s. Iconic films such as Quo Vadis (1951), Ben-Hur (1959), and Spartacus (1960) – ironically, films that were touted as ‘in Technicolor!’ – fill wide shots of spectacular reconstructions of Rome with staunchly white columns, pediments, and statues.

This was not because the filmmakers did not know that ancient marble was often painted over. Most producers did indeed consult archaeological experts, but practical considerations and cinematic effects outweighed realism. Sets reused from the era of black-and-white film - especially in the Italian film studio Cinecittà, where a permanent reconstruction of ancient Rome could be found - were simply colorless. The stark aesthetic also left open the possibility of shooting scenes on location in ancient ruins, such as the temple in Paestum seen in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

White = totalitarian

Moreover, the white marble served the films well for their message. In most Hollywood epics, the heroes are democratically minded and/or (proto-)Christian (Ben-Hur, Spartacus), whereas the Romans are portrayed as totalitarian villains, emperors like Nero and Commodus being popular archetypes. In the post-war American context of these films, this echoes the opposition between Americans and fascists. It is no coincidence that in the films (non-historical) ‘Roman’ salutes with the raised right arm are constantly given to the emperors, that we see eagles everywhere (a Roman symbol that the fascists had adopted), and that the standard colors attributed to the Romans are black, white, and red (whereas emperors and senators actually wore purple). The stark white architecture and sculpture align seamlessly with this: the same white marble had also become characteristic of the modernist art of the Nazis and Fascists, which was clearly inspired by Greco-Roman art. 

In short, the persistent prejudice of a colorless antiquity is a side effect of the practical, artistic, and ideological choices made by filmmakers in the 1950s, which later filmmakers happily continued. Consider Gladiator (2000), in which Rome is completely white, despite the inspiration that director Scott claimed to have drawn from Gérôme's painting of a gladiator in a clearly painted Colosseum. The dominant frame of reference for makers of ancient films was likely increasingly shaped by earlier ancient films themselves.

Rome: realism as a marketing strategy

Why, then, has the moment arrived precisely now (or only now) to break that tradition? The science-based exhibition in Tongeren does not stand alone. Over the last twenty years, we have also seen a shift towards more colorful classics in popular series (Rome), video games (Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey), and comics (Ody-C). At least three causes can be identified for this trend.

The 2005 series Rome is a crucial turning point. In it, Rome is a strikingly colorful, vibrant, and realistically grim city. This choice suited the platform for which the series was produced, HBO (in collaboration with the BBC and Rai 2). As a paid cable channel, not bound by the censorship and conventions of traditional television, the platform single-handedly ushered in the so-called ‘golden age of television’ in the early 2000s: auteur-directors were given creative freedom as well as the financial means to produce quality series such as The Sopranos (1999), The West Wing (2001), and The Wire (2002) according to their own vision. Freed from prevailing Hollywood norms, the creators deliberately went against those norms.

This was also the case with the creators of Rome (John Milius, William J. MacDonald, and Bruno Heller). In an interview, Heller explains that he consciously chose characters of lower social standing (main character Titus Pullo) alongside figures like Caesar. He modeled Rome itself after the chaotic streets of contemporary Mumbai, not the stately ancient Forum. In doing so, he also explicitly opted for color, on temples and other buildings, but also in the graffiti visible everywhere in the streetscape.

This choice was entirely in line with the academic consensus (on which they also received advice), but also stemmed from the desire to go against the polished white Rome of Hollywood as much as possible. The ‘realism’ of the series Rome caught on and has since been embraced by countless popular depictions of antiquity. The website of the video game Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, which also features realistically painted temples and statues, proudly claims that ‘historians, professors, and experts’ contributed to its interpretation of antiquity. Teachers are encouraged by the game producer’s writers to use the game in their lessons. Thus, a realistically colored antiquity can also function as part of an authenticity-based marketing strategy that consciously seeks collaboration with science and education.

Fantasy Antiquities

A second wave of modern receptions of antiquity opts for a colorful interpretation of antiquity for entirely different reasons. The immense popularity of the fantasy genre in popular culture — from Game of Thrones to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — has also brought about a renewed interest in antiquity. New and existing franchises gratefully draw upon classical mythology as a source of inspiration for new stories: think of Wonder Woman (2017), the webcomic Lore: Olympus, and the Percy Jackson series.

Due to this development, we are also seeing increasingly more depictions of antiquity through a fantasy filter. And because of the genre's general child-friendliness and computer-animated aesthetic (at least in its mainstream form à la Avengers), that filter has a strong preference for color. The mythological game Immortals Fenyx Rising paints classical temples and statues in cheerful colors that would not look out of place in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game that was clearly a major inspiration. In the upcoming Percy Jackson series, brightly painted temples form part of a general aesthetic of bright, primary colors — and which is used in just about every modern fantasy series. (Examples include The Umbrella Academy, Lock & Key, and Sweet Tooth.)

Paradoxically, the ‘realism’ of painted temples and statues thus fits perfectly with the ‘unrealistic’ fantasy aesthetic. Or put another way: because we are so influenced by the classicist glorification of the white, the simple, and the austere, we cannot help but associate the ‘real,’ painted classical art — lions with blue manes, sphinxes with blue-red-gold wings, every statue with extremely brightly colored clothes — with ‘kitsch,’ ‘carnival,’ or indeed, ‘fantasy’.

(Skin) color

The final and most fundamental reason for the increasing attention to the color of art from antiquity has to do with societal discussions about antiquity in general. In her popular 2018 book Not All Dead White Men, Donna Zuckerberg drew attention to the appropriation of antiquity by racist and far-right groups. Classical authors such as Seneca and Cicero are frequently cited by them as authorities to justify misogynistic and fascist ideas, while the Spartans are cited as role models of racially pure masculinity.

Interestingly enough, many of their ideas appear to be influenced by well-known films about antiquity, from Zack Snyder's 300 (about the Spartans' battle against the ‘barbarian’ Persians at Thermopylae) to the traditional Hollywood epics. Ironically, the deliberate, critical portrayal of the Romans as fascists in these films is thus turned into a positive example. 

A crucial element of these radical right-wing appropriations of antiquity is the whiteness of ancient sculpture. Not only is this used as proof of the racial purity of the ancient Greeks and Romans, but also for the idea that modern white Westerners are their cultural and genetic heirs — and are therefore superior to other peoples.

Tarnished by the radical right 

These extreme-right views are, of course, at odds with science. Science has not only demonstrated that ancient statues were in fact not white, but also that modern ideas about race, let alone racial superiority, were essentially alien to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Sarah Bond, a professor at the University of Iowa, has recently argued that the very loss of the original paint layers has reinforced the misconception that all Greeks and Romans were ‘white’. If the paint were still present, we would likely see that many Greeks and Romans were also ‘of color’ in the modern sense of the word as well — as is still clearly visible, for example, on the surprisingly well-preserved Fayoum portraits, depicting the faces of people who were placed on mummies in Roman Egypt.

Following her argument, Bond was threatened online and the Iowa campus was plastered with right-wing nationalist posters by the ‘Identity Evropa’ movement. It is just one example of the intense societal conflicts surrounding the classical heritage and the role of color within it. Precisely because of these conflicts, and because the color of art and discussions about race have become inextricably intertwined within them, popular media can no longer simply show a ‘classic white’ Rome without question. The unpainted whiteness of ancient marble has in a sense become irreversibly tainted by the radical right. And so, as representing Rome as either colorful or white has become an inherently politicized choice, many pop culture creators , if only to avoid the association with the far right, opt for a more colorful portrayal of antiquity, which is also increasingly accompanied by more diverse casts (such as a black Achilles in Troy: Fall of a City and a black Cleopatra in a recent Netflix documentary).

Multicolored Delight

Thus the representation of antiquity in popular culture explains both why a white antiquity has remained the norm for so long and why the multicolored nature of antiquity is receiving increasing attention today (even if this knowledge is, of course, the outcome of years of scientific research). The practical and ideologically charged choice for a white (proto-fascist) Rome in the classical Hollywood epics has, in recent years, given way to grimly realistic visions such as that of Rome and brightly colored fantasy imaginings like we see in Immortals Fenyx Rising. At the same time, the politicization of color in public debate has made representing a white antiquity increasingly problematic. A result of this cultural shift is that today, in various museums and popular representations, we can once again enjoy classical sculpture as it was originally intended: in all its color.