This is a welcome change to the idea of “good taste” being colourless and/or smoke-stained. Remember the horror in some quarters when the Sistine Chapel ceiling was restored to reveal a blaze of colour?

The idea that Romans used loud colours seems to align pretty-well with what else we know about them. The Pompeii interiors also reveal a Roman affinity to bold colourful decorations. The classical Romans were bold, in-your-face, and often brutal people. Not the sort you’d associate with insipid pastel shades and/or shades of grey.