Ultraviolet Light Reveals How Ancient Greek/Roman Statues Were Painted

[Witta]

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be all that's required to see them as they were thousands of years ago.

http://io9.com/5616498/ultraviolet-l...-really-looked

[Wulfram]

These are the kind of costumes one would see at a Carnaval!.
I have studied the wall paintings at Pompeii as well as other similar examples.
The impression that I got was that the Romans were equally skillful with color schemes as they were with sculpture.
I imagine that they would have found these interpretations to be incredibly garish.
Besides, there is no definite proof that ultraviolet light can accurately enhance residual colors so vividly.
One of the comments sums this up quite well:

I am left wondering if there aren't some subtleties being missed.
I'd like to think that there is some delicate shading that was there that researchers can't reproduce.

I mean, it reminds me of Mexican art a bit.

[Stimme]

I sincerely hope that this is NOT what they looked like! I always loved the simple grey-white look of those statues.

[Anselm]

I agree. It's gaudy like Mexican art.