Even in the Alhambra, which was entirely covered with colour, and which
is so many centuries nearer our time than the Greek temples, colour is
but rarely found on the surface: it is only by what is found in the
depths and hollows, that we know how the whole was coloured.
On the terra-cottas of the Louvre there are figures where the white
ground with which the whole surface of the terra-cottas was covered,
remains perfect over the whole of the figures, at the same time that a
fragment of flesh tint still remains upon some portion of it. Were this
absent, it might equally well be argued, that the Greeks were in the
habit of painting the flesh white on their terra-cottas.
HORSES.
In seeking a colour for the horses, I felt the choice lay between red,
white, black, or grey; further, that whatever colour was employed, it
would be in such a way as best to define and distinguish the various
portions of the groups. I do not think that a single colour, or shades
of the same colour, would have fulfilled this condition. White horses
would have been too prominent, black too sombre. The red I have employed
appeared to be the best colour for the principal horses, as best
balancing by their masses the blue background, whilst the relief between
horse and horse could be harmoniously obtained by the employment of grey
for the back horses. Authority for this mode of treatment exists on the
Greek vases and in the Etruscan tombs, where, when one horse passes
before another, there is a change of colour. As the horses in this
frieze are in ranks of nine, it is most probable that there was still
more variety of colour than I have attempted, to keep the various groups
together.
THE DRAPERIES.
I was led to adopt this mode of treating the draperies from the
inspection of the Louvre collection of terra-cottas, where the draperies
are very well preserved. They are mostly pale blue and pale pink, the
pale blue with a pink border and the pink drapery with a blue border. I
have arranged the draperies in the way I felt most conducive to the
general effect, so as to bring the whole into harmony. The colours of
the other portions of the dresses are suggested by the materials which
they may be presumed to represent.
In placing this experiment before the public, I am quite aware how vain
would be the hope that I had produced a result worthy of the Greeks;
where there is so little to guide, success is well nigh impossible. The
most that I could hope to attain was to produce a result that might have
existed, and that would not have been discordant with the other portions
of a Greek monument. My failures even would answer a useful purpose, if
they served to direct other minds to work out this most interesting
problem, and to induce further researches on the monuments of Greece,
which have hardly yet been examined in this direction, because they have
not as yet been examined with faith, but rather with reluctance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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