Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1886 — The Antiquity of Color. [ARTICLE]

The Antiquity of Color.

Man’s first canvas was the bough rock, and the second the hewn stone. Traces of color are still foifind on the sculptures of Nineveh and bas-reliefs of Egypt; and after an interval of thousands of years Karnac and Luxor retain hues which might have been laid on a generation ago. Modern art has revived the use of color in architecture, and we have a few examples of its revival in sculpture, though this has not produced the same impression. Color was doubtless used by Da*dalus, whose statues were of wood, and it would appear to hate been not discarded by Dypunus and Seyllus, the first sculptors in marble, for the famous emerald statue of Minerva was from their hand. The aid of color is even sought by such ft.master as Phidias, and his Jupiter Olympus, on which he rested his fame, is said to have been adorned with golden hair, eyes of gems, and emblazoned drapery. The exhibition of 1862 presented the English public with the noblest achievement of modern tinted sculpture in Gibson’s “Venus,” which blends color with a h gh style of art; but there was a general impression that the statue would have been more effective in pure marble.