Flesh and the Ideal: Rethinking Roman Polychrome Statuary

Gareth Beale supervised by Dr Graeme Earl

The image of the Roman statue in white marble has become iconic. This is so much the case that is easy to forget that these objects, that have come to be seen as strikingly white, would often originally have been richly and carefully coloured and adorned. The fact that a great many Roman statues were coloured has never been a secret, the most cursory examination of a Roman statue collection will reveal visible traces of paint. However, despite the obvious presence of colour and the fact that a series of authors have referred to the phenomenon of sculptural polychromy it has rarely been the subject of focused study. There are almost certainly many reasons for this historical neglect. Disinterest on the part of scholars probably stems partly from the weight that has traditionally been placed upon form and style in the study and interpretation of Roman statuary. Equally powerful have been the technical and practical challenges of studying something, which has been subject to rapid and uneven alteration, and decay since its creation. This talk will seek to discuss the way in which cutting edge remote sensing and computational technologies, which have only recently become available to archaeologists, enable the analysis, recording and ultimately virtual reconstruction of polychrome statuary in context. It will also seek to explore some of the ways in which these processes encourage us to reconsider and develop new ways of viewing, interpreting and interacting with Roman statuary.