The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present

Ever since antiquity, sculptors have used colored materials and tints to give a lifelike quality to three-dimensional portraits and statues, yet the term “sculpture” tends to evoke images of white marble. This is the first comprehensive study to examine a broad historical range of sculptors’ use of polychromy to enliven figural works. This important volume presents five essays on polychromy in Classical Greek through contemporary sculpture, along with individual discussions of over forty extraordinary works, from Old Kingdom Egypt to the present day, including sculptures whose polychromy has only been recently discovered, analyzed, or reconstructed through advanced technical evaluation. 

Published to coincide with an exhibition on view in the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa from March 6 to June 23, 2008, this catalogue introduces the art lover and specialist alike to many unfamiliar concepts and masterpieces of an alternative history of sculpture. The works are presented not chronologically but in pairings and sequences that inspire insightful connections, tracing aspects of the impulse that through the ages has inspired sculptors to endow otherwise monochrome figures with the color of life.