The Painted Metopes at Lefkadia and the Problem of Color in Doric Sculptured Metopes

Abstract

The scenes of Lapiths battling Centaurs in the metopes of the Great Tomb at Lefkadia were painted in a technique intended to simulate metopes with sculptured reliefs like those of the Parthenon. The paintings at Lefkadia are well enough preserved to provide evidence for the coloring used in ancient sculptured metopes. The palette that the ancient artist has employed in the reliefs and in the treatment of cast shadows is subtle and restrained but clear enough to record distinctions of color in the flesh tones of the figures and other details. The contrast between the muted palette employed in the metopes and the brighter chromatic scale used elsewhere in the facade could neither have been unintentional nor due to the accidents of preservation. One explanation of the more restricted palette in the metopes is that it may reflect an intention on the part of the ancient painter to remind the viewer of the older Parthenon metopes, which might, by the end of the fourth century B. C., have looked weathered. Given the precision of the Lefkadia quotations of centauromachy motifs from the Parthenon, the artist of the tomb may perhaps also be relied upon for a precise idea of the actual appearance of the coloring of the Parthenon metopes in antiquity. The colors recorded in the Lefkadia paintings show metopes with white backgrounds and softly modulated earth colors in the figures. This evidence contradicts the reports of many nineteenth century archaeologists who claim to have seen traces of bright red or blue on the backgrounds of the Parthenon metopes; but it agrees with W. B. Dinsmoor, who maintained that the backgrounds of classical metopes were always white with colors added only in the figures and weapons.