Restituer les couleurs/Reconstruction of Polychromy

Over the past 20 years, the technological progress and the interest in the lost colours of ancient works of art and buildings have opened the way to offering the public the opportunity to discover 2 or 3 dimensional reconstitutions of their original polychromy. While history is gradually reappropriating the glorious colours of the past, the results of research that have emerged in the process sometimes present us with interesting surprises when compared to modern standards of beauty. The goal of this book is to assess the different potential procedures of restoration, reconstitution and recreation. What are the criteria for the experiments? What protocol analysis was set for processing the vestiges of surviving colours on surfaces? To what extend can we interpret freely? What are the advantages and disadvantages of digital tools for actual physical reconstitutions? How can we reconcile the need to make the work available to a broad audience and yet maintain a high level of scientific precision? These were the questions we looked at in the symposium “Reconstruction of Polychromy // Restituer les Couleurs” which formed part of the ‘Virtual Retrospect Encounters’. This work brings together the results of the discussions that took place, exchanges about the relevant approaches to physico-chemical analysis, archaeology, history and sociology, as well as digital and physical aids, experimental archaeological processes, questions associated with museography and mediation.