Subject:
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Re: White vs Gray?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:03:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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4189 times
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Hendo (John P. Henderson) wrote:
> One fact I found particularly interesting was in their description of
> construction techniques during the middle ages. They pointed out that a rough
> mortar was often used to fill in gaps between the stones of castle walls, and
> then that would be whitewashed with paint. The result, according to the show,
> was that most European castles were in fact WHITE when finished, as opposed to
> the GRAY we think of from films and books (and Lego®).
And it gets even worse :-) Take it from a European who has about a
dozend real castles and ruins within walking distance, and has a bit of
interest in castles and history: Most mediaevel castles in the Rhine
area where not simply white, they were painted in strong, flashy colours
back then. The colours were used to make the castle stand out, to show
that the area was protected by this castle, that the lord had the money
and could afford the paint, and of course to display the colours of the
corresponding lords' coat-of-arms to the onlooker.
It is hard to imagine, but those castles really were blue, red, yellow
and green, plain, striped, checkered! A guy in a white castle could
propably not afford the paint, and if it lacked even the whitewash, it
might even be abandoned.
Look at a typical german castle:
<http://www.marksburg.de/images/marksburg_3.jpg> - And now imagine this
castle being striped diagonally in red and white like in this
coat-of-arms: <http://www.marksburg.de/images/eppstein02.jpg>. Looks
horrible? Well, thats the way it was. The Japanese, who copied the
Marksburg 1:1 for a fair, found remains of the original colours while
they were measuring and documenting the original...
But don't throw away the gray and tan pieces yet, because:
a) all these painting jobs were primarily done to the main buildings and
of course the tower of the castle.
b) this colourful painting mania was only a temporary fashion (Although
"temporary" stands for a period that lasted longer than the USofA did so
far ;-) )
c) There are so many civil buildings to build, and the peasants were not
allowed to paint their buildings (sometimes, they were even not allowed
to whitewash!)
HTH, Christian Treczoks
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: White vs Gray?
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| Interesting thread. I had heard of castles being "whitewashed" before but never the multicolor thing. Perhaps the KK2 are more historically accurate than many of us would like to think? I know for sure that there was a trend for a while to paint (...) (19 years ago, 14-Jun-05, to lugnet.castle)
| | | Re: White vs Gray?
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| Now that is interesting. I also knew about the whitewashing, but had no idea about the heraldric colors. Might make for an interesting MOC...hmmm. Josh (19 years ago, 17-Jun-05, to lugnet.castle)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | White vs Gray?
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| [Exit Real-Life-Imposed Dim Age] Hey all. Been a long time since I posted in .castle. Back in the day, a few of you might recall, we had a series of discussions on facts and history that might influence our building. A few days ago I saw a program (...) (19 years ago, 14-Jun-05, to lugnet.castle)
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