Summary Cultural Heritage & Free Expression Advocates
This art history essay examines whether poorly executed reconstructions, rather than differing ancient taste, explain modern negative responses to colored classical sculptures. The content positively engages with Article 19 (free expression) through sustained scholarly argument challenging expert consensus with evidence, Article 27 (cultural participation) through detailed heritage analysis and comparative cultural study, and Article 12 (privacy) through structural policy disclosure.
I've literally never heard anyone say that classical statues were painted "horribly", and unless I missed it, there's no sources in this article that say that, either (just several links to the same New Yorker article talking about whiteness).
What I've always heard is that classical statues were painted "brightly".
So, is this something that's so well known in the study of antiquities that no source was required, or has the author just got a personal bugbear here?
Good read! The idea that these marvels of artistry were painted like my 10th birthday at the local paint-your-own-pottery store always seemed incongruous, at best.
> Why, then, are the reconstructions so ugly?
> ...may be that they are hampered by conservation doctrines that forbid including any feature in a reconstruction for which there is no direct archaeological evidence. Since underlayers are generally the only element of which traces survive, such doctrines lead to all-underlayer reconstructions, with the overlayers that were obviously originally present excluded for lack of evidence.
That seems plausible -- and somewhat reasonable! To the credit of academics, they seems aware of this (according to the article):
> ‘reconstructions can be difficult to explain to the public – that these are not exact copies, that we can never know exactly how they looked’.
It seems a shame that there is a gap between the limits of what is possible to deduce from direct evidence, and what is likely possible given human ability. And further that the public viewing the reconstructions doesn't take away the subtleties of the difference. To me it's unlikely that some of these works weren't vastly better works of art created by what were likely master artists and craftsfolk of the day.
One way to close that gap would be to offer interpretations to be painted by modern artists to show what was possible and a viewing public could view a range of the conservative evidence based looks, and maybe a celebration of what human artistic ability can offer.
His final conclusion is terrible and spoils an otherwise excellent article. Unless he has really strong evidence of it, the specialists are very unlikely to be "trolling" the public. They are scientists and conservators doing their best, working away in museum backrooms.
I think the best explanation is that classicists are not makeup artists. I am reminded of reading some classicists' attempt to create garum in the kitchen by making some unpleasant horror of mashed fish or something back in the eighties or nineties. No one ever mentioned in those kinds of write-ups back then that they still make fish sauce in Italy. (I looked for the source I'm thinking of and it's drowned out by more credible modern attempts). There's a tendency the further north you go to think of the classical world as completely lost, discontinuous, and opaque to us, too, which adds to it.
One issue: the paints/pigments available in times past were not the full range we have today. Sometimes they had to make things somewhat ugly to both our and their taste because that is all they have available. They would still have done their best, but there are limits.
We are hampered even more today because blues and greens tend to be sourced from organic materials that decay quick, while reds and browns are from minerals that don't decay (but flake off). Even in the best preserved art that we have there is still likely significant differences between what we see and what they saw because of this color change.
Loved the article, the author is a smart person to doubt the changing taste hypothesis, I think everything based on "we are smarter and have better taste that the ancients" have to be extremely doubted, knowing we, the west, are the same society since the romans is so humbling
I will die on this hill, because I'm right. Painters put on the first layer in saturated colors like this, then add detail, highlight and shadow. The base layer stuck to the statues, and the rest was washed away.
This whole thing just won't go away because many people are operating outside their area of expertise on this subject.
Painters layer paint, starting with a saturated base color. These archaeologists are simply looking at the paint that was left in the crevices.
> But they fail to correct the belief that people naturally form given what is placed before them: that the proffered reconstruction of ancient sculpture is roughly what ancient sculpture actually looked like.
I'm pretty sure many museums with reconstructions of classical statues have a note on this topic somewhere on a plaque beside the statues - but who reads those?
Did he talk to people who make those reconstructions?
Why speculate from that outside perspective when you could talk to people who worked on them and the decisions they made. I think that would be very interesting. As is that‘s completely missing and it feels a bit like aimless speculation and stuff that could be answered by just talking to the people making those reconstructions. My experience is that people doing scientific work love talking about it and all the difficult nuances and trade offs there are.
You know what's crazy too is that in colonial America all the brick buildings you see in Boston, etc were also all painted? Well, limewashed technically. You never would have left a bare brick facade. You would put 10-20 coats of thin whitewash on it, or if you wanted it to look like raw brick you would tint the limewash red, and then go in and touch up the mortar lines trompe l'oeil style with white.
Bare brick as an aesthetic choice did not emerge until the late 19th century.
This reminds me of efforts to reproduce Ancient Greek music. [1] It's very similar in that there's a lot of hints, but still enough missing parts that there seem to be two schools of thought, that can even present within the same project. That linked audio is unpleasant, but perhaps they just liked it? Yet, this solo [2], comes from the exact same project - and is amazing.
I do not think tastes can change to such a degree that that first link would ever be pleasant to listen to, though that itself could be intentional for theatrical, theological, or other such purposes. Music seems innate to humanity - children generally start 'dancing' of sorts to music, 100% on their own, before their first birthday, long before they can speak or usually even walk!
The thing is that even if we do not personally like some form of music, I think we can still appreciate it. The Chinese guqin [3] is my favorite example - it goes back at least 3000 years, is played in a fashion completely outside the character of modern music - to say nothing of Western musical tradition as a whole, and yet nonetheless sounds amazing and relaxing even to a completely foreign ear.
Culture and tastes may change, but I think our ability to appreciate (or be repelled) by things is fairly consistent.
All the garish colours were prob heavily muted or diluted with varnish/oil. You don’t pant an artwork like a house, it is a layered technique and fairly similar to historic painting techniques used today:
Just as classicists might not be the best painters, metaphysics should stay out of criticizing methodology. Ralph seems completely clueless of the research literature, and is basing his whole argument on vibes from looking at some pictures. Ridiculous.
A thought I had halfway through reading this article: if, hypothetically, early Medieval European art had been lost, how would it be reconstructed by modern scholars?
Would they accurately capture the lack of 'naturalism' (i.e. that flat, almost cartoonish quality) that often strikes modern viewers of Medieval art, or would they make it 'better', interpolating the gap between Roman and Renaissance styles?
This article hints at the idea that classical sculpture can't have been painted like that, because _it looks bad_ and Romans couldn't possibly have thought it looked good, yet early Medieval art was — presumably — perfectly acceptable to the tastemakers of Medieval Europe.
"Why, then, are the reconstructions so ugly? One factor may be that the specialists who execute them lack the skill of classical artists, who had many years of training in a great tradition."
Has he ever met people doing this stuff?.. Why write about something you know so little about? Why do people think that they can talk about things without experience, based on abstract reasoning?
I think this is just one of those instances where historians go for “most justifiable” vs. “most likely”. E.g. all dinosaurs were stretched skin, fatless, featherless because that’s the minimum thing that fits the evidence.
Likewise, where there is paint these guys have recreated it so. But over time we will find that there were more layers more likely to fail over time and so on.
I saw the traveling _Gods in Color_ exhibit when it came to San Francisco, which is where some or all of the images in this article come from. I don't think the exhibit glossed over the fact that these reconstructions are speculative, and that we can't know for sure what the originals looked like.
One quote I remember from the exhibit, which I looked up to make sure I got the wording right, was an anecdote about one of the most famous Greek sculptors, as recorded by Pliny: "When asked which of his works in marble he liked the most, Praxiteles used to say: ‘Those to which Nikias has set his hand’—so highly did he esteem his coloring of the surface."
One takeaway from that quote is the obvious: one reason we know that ancient statues were painted is that ancient authors said so. Another takeaway is that the painters, not just the sculptors, were famous, and the ancients recognized that some were better than others.
> It is often suggested that modern viewers dislike painted reconstructions of Greek and Roman statues because our taste differs from that of the ancients.
Yeah. I cannot thank enough those other ancients who dug up all statues and assumed they were all white.
I'm thinking about Michelangelo's The Pieta and oh so many others. Call it a lucky accident or "differing taste" or "mastering new techniques" or whatever you want, I take Michelangelo's The Pieta vs these "correctly re-colored" statues from early Rome any time.
Even once it's been fully known they used to be flashy, hardly anyone started sculpting masterpiece then asking kids to color them: I'm thinking about late 19th Rodin's The Kiss for example.
Just like our usage of the toilets, our taste evolved, not differed.
I believe the argument isn't that ancient statues were ugly, but rather that reconstructions are ugly (unfortunately this has been used to argue against the now ascertained fact that ancient statues were indeed painted). Purely subjective judgement from someone not trained in the arts: that photo of the Augusto di Prima Porta doesn't look like a great paint-job. The idea that, like the statue itself, the painting must instead have been a great work of art lost to time seems solid to me.
It made immediate sense to me, since the painted statues do, in fact, look gaudy and horrible. I think he was evoking a widely held feeling that is bot in common knowledge.
"trolling" in this instance seems to be a nicer way of saying "misleading to create attention". It's hard to deny that "look at how garish these beautiful statures originally looked" created a lot more attention than a theoretical "Roman statues looked pretty nice, but with paint"
It's an unsubstantiated theory, but the author does go out of their way to say that this might not even be objectionable, if it happened at all
Another thing is they may have wanted to use newly available colors to show they had new colors -the novelty aspect. Kind of like when people learned to make aluminum it was sought as a luxury item —whereas now no one would think of aluminum as a luxury item.
> They are scientists and conservators doing their best
Perhaps they're simply the wrong people for this problem? I'd very much prefer to see how artists would approach painting the figures, instead of scientists and conservators. Give them the tools that were available at the time and let them do their best.
Even if tastes have indeed changed, something that matches our current taste will reproduce the impact of the statues better than a scientifically meticulous and factually accurate depiction that misses the emotional truth.
"many people are operating outside their area of expertise on this subject."
Exactly. I takes years of really hard work to get good at this stuff. Decades.
I do realize research budgets are not that awesome, but when claims are of aesthetic in nature (explicitly and implicitly) and deal with human craftmanship there should definetly be collaboration with also craftsmen subject experts.
A good example where this was executed really well was the Notre Dame reconstruction (I _guess_). Craftsmen and academic diligence hand in hand.
Not everyones archeological reproduction has such a budget unfortunately.
Yeah, I've likewise always figured the reason these reconstructions ended up looking so awful is because paint is generally applied in layers (even to this day), so what they're likely reconstructing is the primer layer.
Like we know from Roman frescoes[1] and mosaics[2] that they were pretty skilled painters and solving the problem of how to paint something to have more hues than a King's Quest 3 sprite is unlikely to be an unsolvable aesthetic problem.
[edit] Changed from Secret of Monkey Island since that game has too many versions and remakes.
Even worse so: Why does he not simply ask these people? What is it with this trend of sneering at expert decisions without even doing the bare minimum of engaging with them?
Fish sauce is also really popular in southeast Asia and Worcestershire sauce is often made with fermented fish so can also be considered garum adjacent.
It's the same problem with trying to reconstruct dinosaurs, with probably the same solution in terms of public communication -- producing a _range_ of possible reconstructions based on the available evidence.
That said -- I think we actually do have more indirect evidence than what the reconstructions used -- in fact 3 separate lines of evidence A) paintings of statues B) contemporary descriptions of statues and C) contemporary paintings in general. All of which suggest that the coloring would have been more subtle and realistic.
I think if we had contemporary paintings of dinosaurs with feathers and contemporary accounts in writing that dinosaurs had feathers, but no feathers in the fossil record, you would still be fairly justified in saying that dinosaurs probably had feathers.
> I am reminded of reading some classicists' attempt to create garum in the kitchen by making some unpleasant horror of mashed fish or something back in the eighties or nineties. No one ever mentioned in those kinds of write-ups back then that they still make fish sauce in Italy.
A more modern example might be that recently discovered Babylonian Lamb Stew [0]. Most of the scholarly reconstructions of the stew follow the recipe very literally, and the result is, frankly, awful, because ancient readers would probably have made cultural assumptions about certain steps in the recipe. Meanwhile, some internet cooks who take a stab at the same recipe come up with something arguably much better, because they're applying their knowledge as cooks to guess what might have been stated or unstated by the recipe. [1]
Makes you wonder why no one thought to just take a copy of one of the statues to a modern artist and say, "Hey! How would you paint this?" I'm willing to bet that, even now, it would be reasonably close to how an artist 2000 years ago might have approached it.
Yes, this is what tfa says, and it's a good point. But tfa also points out that the archaeologists/reconstructionists know that what they're producing differs from the original. The thing is the discipline of reconstruction means that they only use pigments that they have direct evidence of, and this is just the saturated underlayers. The problem is this is seldom explained when the reconstructions are presented to the public
This is true, but it wouldn't produce the sort of flat coloring in the reproductions. It would limit the color space but artists could still blend and fade those colors to create intermediate tones. This is demonstrated in some of the beautiful ancient murals which the article uses for comparison.
I still don't understand is why they don't even make an attempt to apply overlayers, when (as the author notes) there is ample secondary evidence that it would be present. It's not like there isn't already some element of inference and "filling in the blanks" when reconstructing how something was painted from the scant traces of paint that survived.
The archaeologists know that and say as much in TFA:
"The paints used in the reconstructions are chemically similar to the trace pigments found on parts of the surface of the originals. However, those pigments formed the underlayer of a finished work to which they bear a very conjectural relationship. Imagine a modern historian trying to reconstruct the Mona Lisa on the basis of a few residual pigments here and there on a largely featureless canvas.
How confident could we be that the result accurately reproduces the original?
This point is not actually disputed by supporters of the reconstructions. For example, Cecilie Brøns, who leads a project on ancient polychromy at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, praises the reconstructions but notes that ‘reconstructions can be difficult to explain to the public – that these are not exact copies, that we can never know exactly how they looked’."
> The idea that these marvels of artistry were painted like my 10th birthday at the local paint-your-own-pottery store always seemed incongruous, at best.
Is there a changing taste hypothesis? It's honestly the first time I've heard that suggested as the explanation, versus the more plausible to me idea of reconstruction from incomplete evidence.
This is absolutely not true at all. In physical painting you do not have a colour wheel were you pick colours to slap on. You can create a wash of colours and hues just with Zorn palette. We are taught to use fairly limited palette in oil painting even today, although you can in principle buy every known hue and slap it on - but that is not painting and that won’t produce anything worth the canvas it is painted on.
You don’t need to believe me. Look at Egyptian sculptures that have survived fairly well in the tombs. Or Greek and Roman paintings, some of which have survived quite well and shown in the original article. I spent 3,5h cgoing through the collections of The Archeological Museum of Napoli, and there’s plenty of them. They used muted earth tones like most skilled modern painters would.
Huh. That's exactly how you make garum - an unpleasant horror of mashed fish. Refer to Max Miller and his spectacularly successful effort to reproduce Garum in his back yard.
For what it's worth, the "fact" Greco-Roman statues were painted garishly was taught in a packed auditorium to me in an art history gen-ed by a PhD. The specific judgement of painted "horribly" wasn't used but it was obviously incredibly ugly.
I fail to understand what's the point in even having those reconstructions there if we are fairly certainly they looked nothing alike the originals. Making them pure white seems less dishonest.
The ending of the article left me feeling he had more of an axe to grind here. The mostly unspoken ideological background is that classical art is often appropriated by proponents of Western chauvinism to demonstrate their supposed innate cultural superiority. Poorly painted reconstructions undermine that image, but it does not mean this was done intentionally. I agree that a more neutral observer would have been interested in learning the thought process of those researchers.
Editorial Channel
What the content says
+0.60
Article 19Freedom of Expression
High Advocacy Framing
Editorial
+0.60
SETL
+0.24
The article exercises free expression by presenting a well-argued critique of mainstream scholarly interpretation, supported by detailed evidence from ancient sources. The author respectfully challenges expert authority while acknowledging uncertainty and limitations of knowledge.
Observable Facts
The article presents a sustained argument challenging the mainstream interpretation that ancient taste differed radically from modern taste.
The author provides extensive evidence from ancient depictions, museum collections, and comparative cultural analysis to support an alternative explanation.
The author is identified by name and institutional affiliation: Ralph S Weir, philosopher at University of Lincoln.
The website includes social sharing buttons and subscription infrastructure enabling content distribution to readers.
Inferences
The article's argumentative structure and citation of evidence demonstrate exercise of free expression through scholarly critique and opinion.
The author's identification and institutional context support transparency in expression of ideas.
The platform's publishing and sharing infrastructure supports the dissemination of written ideas and perspectives consistent with Article 19 values.
+0.60
Article 27Cultural Participation
High Advocacy Framing
Editorial
+0.60
SETL
+0.24
The article advocates for careful, evidence-based interpretation of cultural heritage and champions appreciation for classical artistic traditions. The author discusses aesthetic values and cultural participation in understanding ancient cultures.
Observable Facts
The article provides in-depth analysis of classical Greek and Roman sculptures and their aesthetic qualities.
The author compares classical artistic traditions with other cultures' approaches to color and sculpture (Egyptian, Nepalese, medieval European traditions).
The article examines how ancient cultures used color in multiple mediums (sculpture, painting, interior design).
The author emphasizes the importance of evidence-based interpretation of cultural artifacts and heritage.
Inferences
The article advocates for respectful, nuanced engagement with cultural heritage and classical artistic traditions.
The comparative cultural analysis supports participation in and understanding of human cultural diversity consistent with Article 27 values.
The emphasis on careful interpretation of cultural evidence promotes cultural literacy and heritage appreciation.
+0.30
Article 26Education
Medium Advocacy
Editorial
+0.30
SETL
+0.17
The article provides educational content through historical analysis and explicit teaching of evidence evaluation methods, promoting critical thinking about interpretation and sources.
Observable Facts
The article presents historical evidence from archaeological museums and ancient artifacts.
The author explains reasoning about evidence types and explains why certain interpretations differ from others.
The article teaches readers how to evaluate expert claims by comparing them against multiple sources of evidence.
Inferences
The article's educational structure, presenting evidence methodology and interpretive reasoning, promotes critical thinking about historical sources.
The comparative approach to evidence supports educational engagement with historical understanding.
0.00
PreamblePreamble
Medium
Editorial
0.00
SETL
ND
The article discusses classical sculpture aesthetics without explicit engagement with UDHR dignity or universal human rights principles.
Observable Facts
The article discusses classical Greek and Roman sculpture without referencing UDHR principles or human dignity concepts.
Inferences
The absence of human rights or dignity framing indicates the content does not intentionally engage with UDHR foundational values.
ND
Article 1Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
No observable engagement with dignity and equality principles.
ND
Article 2Non-Discrimination
No observable engagement with non-discrimination principles.
ND
Article 3Life, Liberty, Security
No observable engagement with life and security principles.
ND
Article 4No Slavery
No observable engagement with slavery and servitude principles.
ND
Article 5No Torture
No observable engagement with torture and cruel treatment principles.
ND
Article 6Legal Personhood
No observable engagement with legal personhood principles.
ND
Article 7Equality Before Law
No observable engagement with equal protection principles.
ND
Article 8Right to Remedy
No observable engagement with remedy for rights principles.
ND
Article 9No Arbitrary Detention
No observable engagement with arbitrary detention principles.
ND
Article 10Fair Hearing
No observable engagement with fair trial principles.
ND
Article 11Presumption of Innocence
No observable engagement with presumption of innocence principles.
ND
Article 12Privacy
High Practice
No explicit editorial engagement with privacy rights.
Observable Facts
Website footer contains links to 'Our privacy policy' and 'Our cookie policy'.
Site uses Plausible analytics, a privacy-respecting analytics tool that does not track individuals across sites.
Inferences
The disclosure of privacy policies indicates structural awareness and transparency regarding user privacy rights.
The choice of privacy-respecting analytics demonstrates consideration for user privacy in technical infrastructure.
ND
Article 13Freedom of Movement
No observable engagement with freedom of movement principles.
ND
Article 14Asylum
No observable engagement with asylum principles.
ND
Article 15Nationality
No observable engagement with nationality principles.
ND
Article 16Marriage & Family
No observable engagement with marriage and family principles.
ND
Article 17Property
No observable engagement with property rights principles.
ND
Article 18Freedom of Thought
No observable engagement with conscience and religion principles.
ND
Article 20Assembly & Association
No observable engagement with peaceful assembly principles.
ND
Article 21Political Participation
No observable engagement with political participation principles.
ND
Article 22Social Security
No observable engagement with social security principles.
ND
Article 23Work & Equal Pay
No observable engagement with work and fair conditions principles.
ND
Article 24Rest & Leisure
No observable engagement with rest and leisure principles.
ND
Article 25Standard of Living
No observable engagement with health and adequate standard principles.
ND
Article 28Social & International Order
No observable engagement with social and international order principles.
ND
Article 29Duties to Community
No observable engagement with community duties principles.
ND
Article 30No Destruction of Rights
No observable engagement with interpretation limitations principles.
Structural Channel
What the site does
+0.50
Article 19Freedom of Expression
High Advocacy Framing
Structural
+0.50
Context Modifier
0.00
SETL
+0.24
The publishing platform provides infrastructure for expression and dissemination of ideas; includes sharing buttons and subscription mechanisms that distribute authored content.
+0.50
Article 27Cultural Participation
High Advocacy Framing
Structural
+0.50
Context Modifier
0.00
SETL
+0.24
The publication platform disseminates cultural analysis and supports engagement with cultural knowledge and interpretation.
+0.30
Article 12Privacy
High Practice
Structural
+0.30
Context Modifier
0.00
SETL
ND
The website discloses privacy policy and cookie policy; uses privacy-respecting Plausible analytics rather than invasive tracking.
+0.20
Article 26Education
Medium Advocacy
Structural
+0.20
Context Modifier
+0.10
SETL
+0.17
The platform structures content in accessible format with images and clear argumentation supporting reader comprehension.
ND
PreamblePreamble
Medium
No structural signal related to Preamble dignity concepts.
ND
Article 1Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
No observable engagement with dignity and equality principles.
ND
Article 2Non-Discrimination
No observable engagement with non-discrimination principles.
ND
Article 3Life, Liberty, Security
No observable engagement with life and security principles.
ND
Article 4No Slavery
No observable engagement with slavery and servitude principles.
ND
Article 5No Torture
No observable engagement with torture and cruel treatment principles.
ND
Article 6Legal Personhood
No observable engagement with legal personhood principles.
ND
Article 7Equality Before Law
No observable engagement with equal protection principles.
ND
Article 8Right to Remedy
No observable engagement with remedy for rights principles.
ND
Article 9No Arbitrary Detention
No observable engagement with arbitrary detention principles.
ND
Article 10Fair Hearing
No observable engagement with fair trial principles.
ND
Article 11Presumption of Innocence
No observable engagement with presumption of innocence principles.
ND
Article 13Freedom of Movement
No observable engagement with freedom of movement principles.
ND
Article 14Asylum
No observable engagement with asylum principles.
ND
Article 15Nationality
No observable engagement with nationality principles.
ND
Article 16Marriage & Family
No observable engagement with marriage and family principles.
ND
Article 17Property
No observable engagement with property rights principles.
ND
Article 18Freedom of Thought
No observable engagement with conscience and religion principles.
ND
Article 20Assembly & Association
No observable engagement with peaceful assembly principles.
ND
Article 21Political Participation
No observable engagement with political participation principles.
ND
Article 22Social Security
No observable engagement with social security principles.
ND
Article 23Work & Equal Pay
No observable engagement with work and fair conditions principles.
ND
Article 24Rest & Leisure
No observable engagement with rest and leisure principles.
ND
Article 25Standard of Living
No observable engagement with health and adequate standard principles.
ND
Article 28Social & International Order
No observable engagement with social and international order principles.
ND
Article 29Duties to Community
No observable engagement with community duties principles.
ND
Article 30No Destruction of Rights
No observable engagement with interpretation limitations principles.
Supplementary Signals
Epistemic Quality
0.72
Propaganda Flags
1techniques detected
doubt
The article systematically challenges expert reconstructions: 'Nobody...seriously claims that the methods used...guarantee a high degree of accuracy.' It encourages skepticism about scholarly authority, though framed as evidence-based analysis rather than manipulative doubt-sowing.
Solution Orientation
No data
Emotional Tone
No data
Stakeholder Voice
No data
Temporal Framing
No data
Geographic Scope
No data
Complexity
No data
Transparency
No data
Event Timeline
6 events
2026-02-26 12:19
dlq
Dead-lettered after 1 attempts: Classical statues were not painted horribly
--
2026-02-26 12:17
rate_limit
OpenRouter rate limited (429) model=llama-3.3-70b
--
2026-02-26 12:16
rate_limit
OpenRouter rate limited (429) model=llama-3.3-70b
--
2026-02-26 12:15
rate_limit
OpenRouter rate limited (429) model=llama-3.3-70b
--
2026-02-26 09:31
dlq
Dead-lettered after 1 attempts: Classical statues were not painted horribly
.jpg){kind=link}
