This paper outlines the polychrome controversy on ancient Greek architecture and sculpture in the 19SUPth/SUP century, focusing on the reconstruction model of the Parthenon frieze in the Crystal Palace, which opened at Sydenham in 1854. This model produced by Owen Jones, the director of the Fine Art department containing the Greek Court, provoked a wide criticism with its whole coloring. There rose active debates on the coloring of ancient Greek art n the early 19SUPth/SUP century archaeology, which were leaded by German and French scholars. Attic sculpture and architecture of the Periclean period became a crucial factor on these debates, as they were considered the highest achievement of Greek art. Until then, British archaeological circles were holding conservative opinion on this matter, based on the deep rooted classicism. However, they were compelled to respond on the movements of the continent, and the Royal Institute of British Architects investigated the Elgin Marbles of the British Museum. Their conclusion after the observation and chemical analysis of the specimens from the Parthenon and other recent discoveries from the Acropolis excavations was that, even though it is true that Greek architectures of the archaic and classical period were decorated in color, there is no evidence of coloring in the frieze, metope, and pediment sculptures of the Parthenon.BR Jones objected to this conclusion, and presented a wholly colored – including the skins of the human figures - reconstruction model of the Parthenon frieze at the Greek Court of the Crystal Palace. Exhibited on the upper part of the narrow gallery, much higher than the viewpoints of the visitors, Jones’s colored models were intended for the visitors to feel what was the original state and architectural environment of the Parthenon frieze. He also published An Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace (1854), where he explained his theoretical grounds for the experiments of colors. What should be considered for the reconstruction model of Jones is that his trial was an extension of the contemporary polychrome debates, where the art of the classical period represented by the Parthenon was the center of the acute conflict. Several scholars like Francis C. Penrose, who were considered as the highest authority on Classical Greek architecture in England, and other scholars on Greek literature and history, as well as artists like George Scharf, who participated in the Crystal Palace exhibition. Also leading theories of the scholars in the Continent like Franz Kugler, Gottfried Semper, Karl Otfried Müller were rapidly introduced and inspected by the British archaeological world.BR Their ultimate interest was the condition of the ‘best period of ancient Greek art,’ that is, the architecture and sculpture of the Periclean Athens, and how their ideal image became conformed to the polychrome method of decoration. There arose detailed questions if the main body of the architecture and skin of the human figures in statues were wholly colored, or they were tinted, in order not the spoil the texture of the white marble, or the ancients applied coating on the surfaces of the marble and colored on top of them. There were various attempts to find answers for them, and drew several experimental movements on this subject by the contemporary artists as well. These debates and experiments show us how the British archaeology developed from the artifacts-collecting antiquarian dilettantism to a scientific field of investigation, and how the idealistic aesthetics of classicism conflicted to the positive data of archaeology during this development, and how much significance the ideal image of the architectural sculptures of the Parthenon has for the study of Greek art in the 19th century.
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Jul 1, 2024
Lauren Cooper 
Open Access