§ 03; 



COLOURED STATUES. 281 



glaring contrast to walls, and other parts of a building, richly 

 ornamented with colour. And if the Theseus and the other 

 figures in the tympanum of the Parthenon were coloured, as 

 we know they were, few statues would feel themselves de- 

 graded by such a condition. Indeed, these were in reality 

 statues, and detached figures, like many others; and affixed to 

 the ground behind them, when placed in their proper position 

 on the temple. 



In the old wooden colossal acroliths, even to the time of 

 Phidias, the face, hands, and feet were of marble, while the 

 body was of wood, covered with real drapery ; and there can 

 be little doubt that this was in order to have the advantage 

 of a smooth surface, well suited for fresh colours ; and as the 

 eyes were inlaid with coloured stone in many of the most 

 celebrated statues, and the various accessories were richly 

 painted, the flesh could scarcely have been left of a cold 

 white, or even of any simple monochrome hue. 



The Greeks even attempted to carry out the same effect in 

 some bronze statues ; and the account of the figure by Scopas, of 

 a Bacchante holding a disembowelled fawn, shows how the 

 contrast of colours usually given by painting was welcomed 

 in the hue of the metal accidentally afforded by fusion. 

 Pliny also tells us that they attempted to give to bronze a 

 variety of hues, by mixing it with iron, " that the blush of 

 shame might thereby be expressed ; " and they imitated pur- 

 ple draperies in these statues, by combining the bronze with 

 lead (xxxiv. 9, 14, Pint, Op. Mor. 18 C 674 A). 



What were the busts of Poman time, made of different 

 coloured marbles, but a substitution in stone of the hues com- 

 monlv applied to the sculptmed surface? And what can look 

 worse than those now bleached faces, contrasted with the colours 

 of the marble drapery ? No one will doubt that the face was 

 painted ; and the reason of its not being also of a coloured 

 material like the dress is, that no natural colour of a stone 



