Why White Won

The myth of white marble suited Enlightenment aesthetics perfectly. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the father of art history, declared in the 1760s that the beauty of Greek art lay in its "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur." He was looking at paint-stripped ruins and mistaking damage for design philosophy.

Using ultraviolet light, X-ray fluorescence, and microscopic paint analysis, researchers have identified traces of Egyptian blue, red ochre, and gold leaf on dozens of classical statues. The colors were vivid and sometimes garish by modern standards.