Colour !

13 January 2009

Enlèvement d’Europe Pompéi (Italie) Epoque antique © Photo RMN - Bulloz





Urban life developed in the 1st millennium BC. Capital cities were born (Athens and Rome). Prestigious monuments were built: temples, palaces, lavish mansions… All these buildings were decorated and coloured with frescoes, mosaics and hangings. The statues which decorated them were set off with colours. Painting in Antiquity used numerous pigments : black, white, red, yellow, blue and green. Antiquity should be imagined in technicolor !


Temple T à Sélinonte (Sicile) Restitution de Jacques Hittorf 1870, Musée d’Orsay © Photo RMN - René-Gabriel Ojéda




Pavage de mosaïque représentant un calendrier rustique Epoque gallo-romaine Musée d’archéologie de Saint-Germain-en-Laye © Photo RMN - Jean Schormans


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