608 POLYCHROMY IN GREEK STATUARY. 



order to perfect the sculptor's work, but one plain tint will be required, 

 and this tint is borrowed from one of the conventional colors, the red- 

 dish brown, which is going to be constantly used, even at a much later 

 date, by the painters of statues. In contrast with this quiet and solid 

 coloring, the flesh of the face is left as it is, and the tone of the marble 

 reappears, together with its transparency. On the other hand, the lips 

 are red; the eyebrows and lids are marked with a black line; the pupil 

 is black and surrounded by a red circle, to represent the iris. Poly- 

 chromy, heretofore total and complete, is now therefore limited to cer- 

 tain parts — to the same parts which in living nature contrast by their 

 natural coloring with the color of the skin. If we next examine the 

 costume, we notice here the same recoiling of solid colors which makes 

 room for the whiteness of the marble. Here, again, color takes refuge 

 in the decorations, large stripes embroidered with fretwork and wind- 

 ing lines which adorn the front of the chiton or the borders of the 

 peplos ; in the laces which border the neck of the chemisette, in the 

 flowery shapes, the foliage, and the crosses that form, as it were, a scat- 

 tering of seed on the drapery. Everywhere else the tone of the marble 

 recalls the warm whiteness of woolen or linen staffs, and if the painter 

 does not altogether forego the solid colors he reserves them for more 

 limited spaces, like the top of the chemisette, which shows from under 

 the drapery of the peplos. The colorist employs this polychromy, that 

 has now become but partial, with great caution. He takes pains to 

 engrave with a burin a kind of sketch of the ornamentation, and this 

 slight hint guides his brush so as to follow the complicated design of 

 the fretwork and winding outlines. This is, besides, a process by no 

 means peculiar to Athenians. The seated statue of Chares in the 

 British Museum, the statue of the Victory of Archermos in the Central 

 Museum at Athens, all preserve alike traces of this engraved sketch 

 which bears witness to the use of painting, even at a time when every 

 vestige of color has disappeared. 



Thus, we find the statue painted according to the rules of archaic 

 polychromy. Dull, solid colors, without transparency, stand out from 

 the marble which forms the ground. The tones that prevail in this 

 scale of colors, limited as it is, are always the same as those used in 

 monumental polychromy — that is to say, red and blue, at one place 

 freely spread over, as over the hair or the chiton, elsewhere knowingly 

 combined so as to form the attractive ornamentation of stripes and 

 seed-like adornments. A few fine black lines mark the details of the 

 eyes and the arch of the eyebrows; here and there, on the pendants 

 from the ears and upon the frontlet that crowns the coiffure, some gild- 

 ing adds a metallic sheen; the painter's brush has finished its work. 



Has a statue thus painted assumed the appearance of life? Is ifc a 

 realistic sentiment which has suggested the choice of colors and the 

 manner of applying them'? By no means! The whole ambition of the 

 painter lias been his desire to remain within strict conventionalities, 



