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PickledSpace56 OP t1_je42gs8 wrote

Reply to comment by phiwong in eli5 why ancient historical buildings haven’t been kept up? Why are buildings like the Parthenon and the Colosseum in such disrepair? Greece and Rome/Italy have existed the entire time? by PickledSpace56

That all makes sense. It is quite the stinker that places like Parthenon will never again have its beauty as depicted in so many stories and drawings.

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MadMelvin t1_je4kz8t wrote

If they restored the Parthenon, it wouldn't be the old Parthenon brought back to its original glory; it would just be a new Parthenon like the one in Tennessee. We live in a one-way universe.

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RuinLoes t1_je4o45j wrote

The parthenon in tennesse is a projection of our current aesthetic standards onto the greeks. It would not actually have looked like that, it would have been fully painted bright colors.

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HappyGoPink t1_je5givz wrote

And so would any aggressive "restoration" of the original Parthenon. If you want to see what it looked like when it was new, build a replica, like they did in Tennessee. The original bears the marks of history, and if you erase those marks, you erase that history.

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RuinLoes t1_je5iveq wrote

....? Respond to the wrong comment?

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atomfullerene t1_je5oa10 wrote

No, that was a direct response to your comment. A restoration of the parthenon with bright colors would still be a projection of our current ideas onto the past. It might be a more accurate projection, but it's still just a projection not the actual historical thing.

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RuinLoes t1_je669pv wrote

What, no.

Thats doesn't make any sense. If we restored it to how it actually was, how is that a projection?

Also, nobody is suggesting we should do a full restoration, so again, what are you talking about?

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atomfullerene t1_je6grpq wrote

>If we restored it to how it actually was, how is that a projection?

Because we do not, and can not, ever really know how it actually was. When the older reconstructions were done in all white marble, that's how people at the time thought it was...just like if we did it today, we may do it how we think it was. But even though we know more, we don't know everything. Constant decisions large and small will have to be made, and those will reflect modern ideas. It's just inescapable.

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aitherion t1_je4niwj wrote

I'd argue it's just as, if not more, beautiful now than it was then. The age shows its history; the history gives it meaning beyond "cool building".

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Muroid t1_je50suh wrote

Also, the white stone looks gorgeous. The way things were painted in bright colors in antiquity was gaudy as hell.

A lot of the classic Greek and Roman architecture and statuary would look kind of stupid to modern eyes that are used to seeing it with the color stripped away.

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Dudesan t1_je6d9oy wrote

To be fair, a lot of the "gaudy primary colours" reconstructions are based on traces of surviving paint, all of which would have been from the base coat. There would presumably have been more layers of paint on top of that. For a better idea of what could have been achieved if they put even 5% as much effort into colouring their statues as they did into carving them (and why wouldn't they?), look at any modern minature painter.

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frakc t1_je4grek wrote

Have you seen what happened with many olimpic sites? They were not needed and a lot of them abandoned

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RuinLoes t1_je4o0ji wrote

Although, if the parthenon was ever fully restored to it 100% authentic peak athenian spendor.... it probably wouldn't look how you think it would. Grekko-roman statuary and architecture tended to be entirely coated in paint, and not always in ways that we today would consider appealing.

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loverlyone t1_je5qodc wrote

You should check out the valley of the temples in Agrigento Sicily. There is a Parthenon-like structure there that’s in better shape along with seven other Greek structures from around 450bc.

valley of the temples

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