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...

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arrrg 4 days ago | parent [-]

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.

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mistercheph 4 days ago | parent [-]

Who is inside and who is outside depends on your (subjective) spatial interpretation of the situation.

It could just as well be said that a bunch of scholars disconnected from the culture, history, and technique of fine arts (except as objects of scholarly interest) are wildly speculating from the outside about the nature of the objects, and people interested in these things are starting to ask "Why are these silly things being said about the topic I'm interested in? Are the people behind this pranksters?"

Anyways, if there is a misunderstanding here, which I don't doubt is the case for at least some of the people involved, why can't the discourse be had in public about it? The question has been asked as you suggest...publicly. Polychromic revivalists are free to respond in public, and we can all benefit from hearing the more nuanced perspectives get expressed.

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arrrg 3 days ago | parent [-]

How do you think public discourse spaces are created? By approaching and talking to people when you write about them! That doesn’t just magically happen …

I merely would have expected some humility when you characterize the work of other scholars from the outside without even talking to them. (Outside here is relative. Whenever you talk about scientific of scholarly work without talking to the people who do the work you are on the outside.)

If those scholars don’t want to talk to you, fair enough, probably no humility needed. If you don’t want to talk to them (which, fair enough, not everyone is cut out or wants to do journalistic work) you better be humble and maximally charitable, though.

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mistercheph 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Whenever you talk about scientific of scholarly work without talking to the people who do the work you are on the outside

You are ignoring what I said and just reasserting your hegemonic view of scholarly institutions / scientific work. On the contrary, if you zoom out it becomes obvious that our academic research in these matters is ephemeral heat and noise that gets rolled into the dustbins of time.

	▲	arrrg 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Your central claim is that scholarly academic (mainstream) work ist disconnected from fine arts and as such outside of it, no fit to give meaningful answers. That seems like a wild and weird take to me, contradiction everything I know about how the world works. But if that is your hypothesis then I don’t know how you can answer ist without actually engaging closely with those who you say are disconnected.