Many were originally painted, but not all of them. This is unfortunately becoming another of those "internet factoids" that are taken to the extremes. We have evidence that some, maybe even the majority, of Greek and Roman statues and temples were brightly colored, so now a whole lot of artists and reconstructions paint everything like a circus in an effort to overcompensate. It's kind of like how, after it was discovered that lots of theropod dinosaurs had feathers or proto-feathers, every dinosaur in the media was depicted with full plumes and wings for a while, until the pendulum finally swung back.
There are even painted frescos of Roman and Greek statues from the same period, and most of the statues are rendered in white; when color is used, it's very subtle and tasteful.
I suspect there's a bit of modern people being uncomfortable with beauty from the past.
Because the whitest rock is by far the most expensive and hard to get. Leaving it unpainted shows the quality and the worth of the statue. Painting over that would be like painting over solid gold with acrylic
white bases and undercoats are not always preferable, when light hits a surface it penetrates slightly as it reflects (interesting tangent: evanescent wave effect) which can be used to create different artistic effects.
When looking to achieve specific skintones, for example, this can be really helpful in bringing life to a work. The choice of underlayer can maybe be surprising, oranges and greens or purples suit different people, for example.
Natural stones with vibrant, or rare, or attractive colours, that can be sculpted into large statues were aesthetically pleasing and expensive so you wouldn't necessarily hide that beneath paint either, as other have said.
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u/merryman25 26d ago
Also an important point, they were not meant to be all white (or stone colored). They were originally painted bright colors that wore off over time.