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Concept
Polychrome
Summary
Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors.
When looking at artworks and architecture from antiquity and the middle ages, people tend to believe that they were monochrome. In reality, the pre-Renaissance past was full of colour, and all the Greco-Roman sculptures and Gothic cathedrals, that are now white, beige or grey, were initially painted in bright colours. As André Malraux stated, "Athens was never white but her statues, bereft of color, have conditioned the artistic sensibilities of Europe... the whole past has reached us colorless." Polychrome was and is a practice not limited only to the Western world. Non-Western artworks, like Chinese temples, Oceanian Uli figures, or Maya ceramic vases, were also decorated with colours.
Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 048.jpg|Columns with clay mosaic cones from the [[Eanna]] precinct in [[Uruk]] (southern Mesopotamia), now in the [[Pergamon Museum]], [[Berlin]], [[Germany]], unknown architect, 3600-3200 BC{{cite book|last1=van Lemmen|first1=Hans|title=5000 Years of Tiles|date=2013|publisher=The British Museum Press|isbn=978-0-7141-5099-4|page=16|url=|language=en}}
Glazed Tile.jpg|Tile with a guilloche border from the North-West Palace at [[Nimrud]] (now in modern Iraq), 883-859 BC, glazed earthenware, [[British Museum]], London{{cite book|last1=van Lemmen|first1=Hans|title=5000 Years of Tiles|date=2013|publisher=The British Museum Press|isbn=978-0-7141-5099-4|page=17|url=|language=en}}
File:Ishtar gate in Pergamon museum in Berlin..jpg|[[Reconstruction (architecture)|Reconstruction]] of the [[Ishtar Gate]], {{c.}}605-539 BC, glazed bricks, [[Pergamon Museum]]{{sfn|Fortenberry|2017|p=6}}
The Monuments of Nineveh (BM 1849,0519.1-102).jpg|Reconstruction of a hall from an [[Assyria]]n palace, by Sir [[Austen Henry Layard]], 1849
Thanks to the dry climate of Egypt, the original colours of many ancient sculptures in round, reliefs, paintings and various objects were well preserved.
Official source
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