Learning Resources
Downloadable lesson plans; tutorial on painting 3D models; glossary for specialty words used within the text panels on the site; links to resources to explore further.
Learning more about the casts
This page will contain lesson plans and classroom resources to help instructors incorporate the Battle Casts into their classes, model-painting instructions to help students engage with the casts, and links to learn more about current debates regarding polychromy and Classical reception.
Lesson plans
Coming soon! Lesson plans for classrooms and Blanton Museum visits
Background presentation for the casts (PDF)Coloring on the casts
Make your own polychrome sculpture!
The models we made are available for download from the 3D viewing pages. Use the "download" icon 
on each page to download a low-poly, untextured model you can manipulate easily in 3D viewing and editing software on most computers (we recommend the free, open-source Meshlab). You can also get access to higher-resolution models with textures by clicking on the "share" icon 
, but these are larger and might require more computer power. Once you've downloaded a model, you can use the "vertex painter" tool in Meshlab to add color directly to a model. It's worth thinking about how you look at these sculptures differently when they're brightly colored or wear modern clothes or tattoos. One of our team members has made a handy tutorial video that can help you get started creating your own polychrome sculptures using Meshlab. If you're very tech-savvy, you should also be able to make these models water-tight and create 3D prints, insert them into 3D scenes in Virtual Reality platforms like Unity, or even place them in your own space with a phone and an Augmented Reality app like AR Viewer.
Glossary
- Aegis: in mythology, a shield, breastplate, or garment worn by Zeus or Athena; in Classical representations it frequently includes the head of Medusa as both an apotropaic emblem and to strike fear in viewers
- Archaic: an early and formative period of Greek culture and artistic style that flourished c. 650-480 BCE and is characterized by early attempts at naturalism that are only moderately successful
- Archaic smile: figures in Archaic art were given smiles as an early way of depicting a life-like or human quality
- Atrium: a central space in a public building that is usually skylit, ascends several stories, and is surrounded by galleries or shops on each story
- Attribute: a characteristic, quality, or material object considered appropriate to, and thus symbolic of, an office, actor, or character
- Canon: broadly, the ideal standard by which things are measured; in art history, this means bodies of work that are defined by a like quality within a culture and have been deemed valuable or appropriate for study as exempla of that culture
- Classical: a mid or “high” period of Greek culture and artistic style that flourished c. 480-323 BCE and is characterized by the conveyance of lively vitality alongside a sense of permanence, clarity, and harmony
- Contrapposto: in visual arts, the twisting of a figure on axis so that the arrangement of of the shoulders contrasts with that of the hips; visually forms an s-shape along the spine and is most readily identified in postures where one leg bears the figure's weight and the other is relaxed
- Dye: pigment dissolved in a liquid solution which is then used for coloring matter
- Ethnocentric whiteness: the myth of a global monoculture in European terms; a xenophobic concept championed by separatist groups supporting racism and ethnic discrimination against those perceived as “non-white”
- Etruscan: the indigenous civilization of central Italy (Etruria) who achieved their greatest height c. 500 BCE and exerted significant influence on the development of Roman civilization
- Fillet: a headband
- Hellenistic: a late ancient period of Greek culture and artistic style that flourished c. 323-31 BCE and is characterized by an expanding range of subject matter and human emotion that had little precedent in earlier Greek art
- In the round: a sculpture that is fully carved in 360 degrees, or all the way around
- Kore: a freestanding statue of a female youth whose body is concealed by a long, draped garment that can be smooth or pleated; this type appeared frequently in the Archaic period and is characterized by a stiff, frontal, and upright posture
- Kouros: a freestanding statue of a nude male youth; this type appeared frequently in the Archaic period and is characterized by a stiff, frontal, and upright posture
- Lost wax casting: a technique of metal casting in which molten metal is poured into a mold created by means of a wax model. Once the metal cast is made the wax is melted away.
- Naturalism/naturalistic: a style closely adhering to the appearance of nature or reality; bearing the appearance of nature or reality
- Patina: a thin surface layer or coating often adding a gloss or sheen
- Pediment: in architecture, a wide triangular structure placed above the entry to a classical building
- Peplos: an outer robe or dress-like garment worn by Greek women
- Pigment: a dry, colored substance, usually powdered, that is prepared from minerals, stones, or other natural resources and used to color matter; when mixed with oil, water, or another liquid substance constitutes paint
- Polychromy: the art of painting or decorating in multiple colors, especially as related to ancient art
- Repatriation: the process of returning or restoring an historical artifact to its country of origin
- Rotunda: a circular space or building
- Scagliola: an ancient Roman technique for making imitation marble out of gypsum plaster, marble, and pigment
- Stele/stelae: an upright slab bearing sculpted relief and/or inscriptions; plural form
- Votive offering: an object voluntarily dedicated to a deity by individuals or communities on an as-needed basis, usually in times of achievement, anxiety, or transition
- Xenophobia: dislike towards or fear of people, cultures, or customs that are foreign, or are perceived as foreign
Some further sources for polychromy and modern reception:
Sarah Bond, “Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color,” Hyperallergic, June 7, 2017. https://hyperallergic.com/383776/why-we-need-to-start-seeing-the- classical-world-in-color/Sarah Bond, “White at the Museum,” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, April 3, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkwUCUwt3Rs
“Coloring the Past: An Interview with Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann,” Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, December 4, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjDccOpwGys
Vinzenz Brinkmann, Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World, DelMonico Books: 2017. See also the website of the Polychromy Research Project at http://www.stiftung-archaeologie.de/reconstructionsen.html and the companion website at the Liebieghaus Sculpture collection at https://www.liebieghaus.de/en/polychromy-research
"The white lie we've been told about Roman statues," Vox, 2019. https://youtu.be/4jmMWohs1XM
“Why Ancient Marble Statues aren’t Meant to be Seen as ‘White,’” HBO, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86PD8o6xe_4>
"Chroma" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, 2022. https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/chroma
Colleen Flaherty, "Threats for what she didn't say", Inside Higher Ed, June 19, 2017. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/19/classicist-finds-herself-target-online-threats-after-article-ancient-statues
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, "Ancient Color" exhibit, 2019. https://exhibitions.kelsey.lsa.umich.edu/ancient-color/index.php
Elizabeth Macaulay and Beth Harris, "In Full Color, Ancient Sculpture Reimagined," Smarthistory, November 18, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/in-full-color-ancient-sculpture-reimagined/
Jan Stubbe Østergaard, "polychromy, sculptural, Greek and Roman", Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.8118
Margaret Talbot, “The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture.” The New Yorker, October 22, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture