Polychrome

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 European Middle Ages, people tend to believe that they were monochrome. In reality, the pre-Renaissance past was full of colour, and Greco-Roman sculptures and Gothic cathedrals, that are now white, beige, or grey, were initially painted in a variety of 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, such as Chinese temples, Oceanian Uli figures, or Maya ceramic vases, were also decorated with multiple colours.