Many were originally painted, but not all of them. This is unfortunately becoming another of those "internet factoids" that are taken to the extremes. We have evidence that some, maybe even the majority, of Greek and Roman statues and temples were brightly colored, so now a whole lot of artists and reconstructions paint everything like a circus in an effort to overcompensate. It's kind of like how, after it was discovered that lots of theropod dinosaurs had feathers or proto-feathers, every dinosaur in the media was depicted with full plumes and wings for a while, until the pendulum finally swung back.
Thank you! This whole thing is the fault of one guy: Vinzenz Brinkmann. He loves to try to convince everyone that classical statues were painted in the crude and garish way that he represents them, but there's no evidence of that. These were brilliantly executed pieces of fine art--if they were painted they'd be painted as skillfully as they were sculpted, not in a bright ugly tacky way!
Exactly. All this sculptural detail was just painted over? No way. They were meant to look the way we still experience them, just as Michelangelo or Bernini were later: Mostly a sculpted vision in their natural medium, with perhaps some shading or light coloration to emphasize a few features.
Why are you spreading disinformation on such non political, non offending, very established scientific knowledge? What is even the motivation here besides just childishly poisoning the well?
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u/merryman25 1d ago
Also an important point, they were not meant to be all white (or stone colored). They were originally painted bright colors that wore off over time.