BY JIM FARBER >STAFF WRITER

Stand before the columns of the Parthenon in Athens, the Elgin Marbles in London or the magnificence of the "Venus de Milo" in Paris, and you would have to assume the classical world of Greece and Rome was pristine white. Right? Wrong!

"It's amazing how endemic the idea of a white, colorless antiquity is," says Roberta Panzanelli, co-curator of "The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present," a myth-debunking exhibition on display at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades.

"People think of white togas, white temples with white columns, and white sculptures all made of white marble," says Panzanelli. "People would be shocked if they could go back in time and see what a lack of whiteness there actually was. What people have trouble with is overcoming preconceptions. We can't believe that the pristine whiteness of antiquity could have been painted over."

"The Color of Life" demonstrates how color has been a part of sculpture and architecture for nearly 5,000 years, and how our contemporary taste for the monochromatic "purity" of bronze and marble only represents a small portion of the history of sculpture.

A perfect example, adds associate curator of sculpture and decorative arts Eike Schmidt, is the Parthenon itself.

"Based on written descriptions, we know that almost everything was colored in some way - not only sculpture. The architecture was colorful, too," says Schmidt. "We know the Parthenon was not white at all. There was gilding. There was blue and red, all different colors, which gave the sculptures higher visibility. This was true of the Greek world, the Roman world, even the Renaissance world.

Michelangelo's "David," for example, says Panzanelli.

"The `David,' which is often described as an all-white figure, originally had a lot of gilding: the hair was gilded, along with the sling and the tree trunk," explains Panzanelli, who is Florentine by birth.

"Around his waist he had a bronze loincloth. And documentation tells us that he also had a garland on his head which was made of some ephemeral material - flowers and laurel leaves. We think of the `David' as white. But if you add the gold and bronze and flowers, white is no longer white."

"There is no point at which we can trace the beginning of polychromy," says Schmidt. "But it is our belief that sculpture and color were created together from the very beginning. We know that sculpture was polychromed. What we don't know are the details: how much color was used and what techniques were used to apply it. These objects are thousands of years old. But the study of how they were created is still in its beginning phase."

Curated over a period of seven years, "The Color of Life" features 43 objects from 22 lenders from around the world. And, Panzanelli points out, a number of these pieces have never traveled before and may never be seen here again.

The exhibition begins with a gallery devoted to hypothetical re-creations of what the highly colored architecture and sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome might have looked like.

The centerpiece is a re-creation of the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia (on the Greek island of Aegina). The figures represent combatants in the Trojan War watched over by the goddess Athena. The painting of the figures and the patterning of their costumes is vibrant.

"These sculptures were a form of storytelling, a readable narrative for a society that was, to a great extent, illiterate," explains Panzanelli.

"The characters were gloriously decorated so their images would become indelibly recorded. It's the same principle that was applied by the Christian church in the Middle Ages. But," Panzanelli adds cautiously, "none of these re-creations are presented as the absolute way things looked. We're far from arriving at a consensus about that."

As a vivid means of illustration, hypothetical re-creations are displayed next to actual artifacts, which can be seen to retain remnants of original decoration. The exhibits, says Panzanelli, also makes the distinction between an artist's use of mimetic coloring (to represent real life) and symbolic coloring, which was used as a coded message to imply status, such as gilded faces for the gods, cardinal red and papal purple for masters of the church.

The galleries, which are arranged chronologically, contain a fascinating array of sculpture. One of the most unusual is Clemente Susini's 1782 anatomically correct female nude made from wood and wax, whose chest can be removed to reveal the details of her inner organs.

There are a pair of polychrome wood figures from around 1600 by El Greco representing Epimetheus and Pandora.

The 19th-century French sculptor Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier is represented by two spectacular marble, bronze and enamel figures: "The Goat Tender of the Colonies" and "The Jewish Woman of Algiers." They share the room with John Gibson's supple life-size marble, "The Tinted Venus," carved and gilded between 1851 and 1856.

Contemporary sculpture is represented by the hyperrealism of John Andrea's "Dying Gaul," whose crouching pose exactly mimics the Greek original. And be sure to look out for Duane Hanson's "Old Couple on a Bench." You can't miss them. The only problem is you may not realize they're part of the exhibition.

"The Color of Life," says Schmidt, represents a new direction for the Getty Villa.

"The idea is to draw relationships between the Getty Villa's antiquity collection and the modern art scene - since so much of what's modern actually goes back to ancient roots."

Jim Farber, (310) 540-5511, Ext. 416

jim.farber@dailybreeze.com

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THE COLOR OF LIFE: POLYCHROMY IN SCULPTURE FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE PRESENT

>Where: Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades.

>When: On view 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday; through June 23.

>Cost: Free with timed ticket reservation.

>Info: (310) 440-7300 or www.getty.edu