The Rediscovery of a Colorful Ancient World

When we think of temples, statues, and monuments, we envision a pristine white surface whether the sides of a building or the face of a statue. Museums show off their collections of these elegant artifacts, and governmental and financial buildings hark back to the assumed gravitas of the neo-classical monochrome white. But the ancient world was much more colorful than we were taught in art classes – the temples, statues, and monuments were embellished and emboldened in colors that to us, today, may seem garish! In celebration of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s special exhibit “Chroma: Ancient Sculptures in Color”, and in commemoration of the destruction of The Temple on Tisha B’av we will look at what it may well have looked like to see these artifacts in their original environments.