The association between the prevalence of the white marble in the depiction of ancient sculptures and a notion of white racial superiority presented in the article is strenuous at best and lacks any substantial historical backing. The popularity of white marble can be easily explained by the popularity of the medium in the area where the Rennaissance and the rebirth of interest in Ancient Greek and Roman art is assumed to begin, i.e. Apeninian Peninsula. As the article mentioned several times, many of the most popular Greek sculptures are actually Roman copies of Greek originals with the latter often being made of bronze, and thus a far cry from any pretense to whiteness. The same can be said of many other preserved Greek sculptures made of gray or pale brownish-red marble (e.g. Kouros of Anavyssos).

By the way, it should be noted that the astonishment with which some coloured reconstructions are met seems to stem from the vast difference between the realism level of the sculpture itself and the simplicity of colouring technique (not necessarily reflecting the actual state of the sculpture upon completion) rather than some kind of impropriety linked with the colourful depiction themselves. Giorgio Vasari noticed in his 'Lives of the most exquisite painters, sculptors and architects' first published in 1550 that lack of realism, both in sculpture, drawing and colouring were the symptoms of the decline of art he associated with the fall of Western Roman Empire.

The association of white marble with ancient statues was a product of both the popularity of classicist movement that emerged in Rennaissance from the interest in the culture of ancient Rome and Greece and reappeared in 18th century as neoclassicism and the natural inclination to believe one's eyes. By the latter I mean making copies of the white Roman statues that might have been painted but by the time they were discovered, the colours faded away, giving the impression that the sculptures were indeed in the natural colour of stone, as people in 15th or 18th century lacked means to analyze the artifacts in depth. Furthermore, followers of Bruni's idea of the Middle Ages being the 'backwards' and 'unsophisticated' period between the original Antiquity and its rebirth in 14th-15th century could have quickly assumed that the lack of colour on the discovered sculptures was another proof of superiority over the richly coloured and gilded sculptures popular in Middle Ages, especially in ecclesiastical setting, but also in secular art, as exemplified by the late-15th century tomb of Philippe Pot, Grand Seneschal of Burgundy.

This got reflected in the paragone, or an ongoing debate popular between early 15th and early 16th century, comparing painting with sculpting and discussing the potential superiority of one over the other. Many prominent artists agreed that the realistic colours have no place on idealized sculptures, and Vincenzo Borghini wrote in 1584 'The power and virtue of the sculptor lie in the effects of the chisel and if some clumsy oaf in this field uses colors, it denies the very nature of that art.'. There were attempts to continue the medieval tradition of polychrome sculpture, e.g. bust of Philip II of Spain by Leoni, finished around 1580 and today exhibited in Museum of Art History in Vienna). There are accounts of the technique called 'encarnation' (lit. fleshing [out]) that referred to covering the exposed parts of the body in natural colours. Leoni was also commissioned to create sculptures of Philip II and his wife that are now exhibited in the Escorial, and these portraits were to 'encarnated' but the king is said to change his mind and decided that the sculptures should be monochrome, what may be interpreted as the acceptance of the prevailing artistic trends.

This gets even more pronounced in 18th century neoclassicism that was openly contradicting baroque art in most aspects, and the static, sculptures of neutral colour were a complete opposition to elaborate, dynamic, manneristic and flamboyant baroque imagery. The same can be said of architecture, with various variations of Parthenon and generally simplistic shapes taking precedence over intricate ornaments of the baroque style. Assuming that Romans and, to lesser extent, Greeks, left their sculptures unpainted on purpose (what could have been the case with bronze sculptures due to technical problems, by the way), various intellectuals apparently tried to fit this assumption into the discourse on art, claiming that the lack of colour fits into the idealization of form or that the white is the colour that reflects most light and thus is allows to notice the most details (Winckelmann), monochromatic sculpture 'shows individuality with its inner side not yet differentiated and particularized' (Hegel). These notions however, stemmed from the incorrect assumption of the original state of the sculptures and are not the product of some pre-existing theory of the monochromatic supremacy.

Now, let me touch a subject of methodology. The thinking based on modern racial misconceptions and prejudices is apparent in the penultimate paragraph, where the author suggests that it is in some way inappropriate that 'a man from New Zealand playing the Spaniard Maximus' what makes as much sense as insisting that Edgar Hoover should have been portrayed by an American Indian, because he was an American official (during the reign of Commodus, Hispania has been colonized by Romans for over four centuries). Of course, one could argue that Maximus should have been portrayed by someone more 'Italian', French' or 'Semitic', depending whether one would prefer to make him a descendant of Latin Romans, Celtiberians or Carthaginians, but this leads to another caveat of projecting modern nationalities and associated phylogenetic traits on the realities of the world two millennia ago. And with rather substantial difficulties associated with the reconstruction of the well-preserved skeletal remains of particular people, it is very hard to assume how exactly the population of certain region of the Europe (or any other part of the world, for that matter) actually looked like, especially that we're talking about the times predating the Migrations Period. The fact that Europe and Mediterranean region was and is the home to many different people that migrated extensively within the discussed period does not help either. And this is one of the reasons why using detached historical arguments in the discussions concerning modern politics is generally frowned upon by by conscientious academicians.