7. The Medieval Era Was Actually a Riot of Colors
Hollywood’s depiction of medieval castles and churches as unadorned plain stone is untrue to reality. People in the Middle Ages went for vibrant – even garish – colors when it came to buildings. New cathedrals, for example, were riots of color when they were inaugurated. Walls, saints, and even gargoyles were coated in the brightest paints available. Over the years, however, the paint faded. Then, as tastes evolved – and budgets diminished – repainting in the original vibrant colors was done less and less often.
Eventually, such repainting was abandoned all together. Because of that, what we see of surviving medieval churches is that they are usually plain and unadorned. We are mistaken, however, when we assume that how those buildings look today is how they looked back in the Middle Ages. For example, the first photo, above, is of the façade of Notre Dame Cathedral of Reims today. The second photo is a laser projection on that façade, of how it would have looked like in the 1400s, based on paint remnants in the stone’s pores.
