[arrrg]

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.

[jtr1]

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.

[marcellus23]

> Poorly painted reconstructions undermine that image, but it does not mean this was done intentionally

If I'm understanding you right, you're suggesting the author thinks that researchers are intentionally doing poor constructions to undermine public perception of classical art as part of some sort of culture war? I don't see anything in the article to suggest this

[nyeah]

I liked the article but this is a very good point.

[mistercheph]

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, these researchers have cultivated a public perception that the classical statues we admire looked totally ridiculous and were actually hideous. It is difficult to interpret it as unintentional, when the more absurd your reconstruction, the likelier you are to get press attention and get invited to special events at international galleries.

https://journals.openedition.org/techne/2656?lang=en

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-colors-1788...

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1109995973/we-know-greek-stat...

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/greek-statues-painted/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-wh...

https://steemit.com/news/@beowulfoflegend/greek-statues-were...

[arrrg]

To get closer to an answer to this you should still talk to the people doing the actual work?

I know that many scholars have an uncomfortable relationship to the PR work their research institutions are doing, but they themselves don’t strike me as unapproachable or closed to nuanced discussion. Seems weird to ignore that perspective and wildly speculate from the outside.