Seeing in Color

Brinkmann's traveling exhibition Gods in Color has displayed polychrome reconstructions worldwide since 2003. The reactions are often uncomfortable. Painted versions of the Augustus of Prima Porta or the Peplos Kore look garish to modern eyes — almost like painted carnival figures rather than high art.

But that discomfort reveals our own bias. The Greeks would have found unpainted marble unfinished — like seeing a building's raw concrete without plaster. Color was integral to the sculpture's meaning: different pigments indicated social status, divine attributes, and ethnic identity.