Being an expert, many times I asked myself the question: What if Alexander was not blond? Would that change anything? I don’t think so, but one thing I know for sure: unless some new documents appear, we will never be sure about the colour of his eyes and hair. Only the rosy skin is certain.
Roman copies of paintings by his painter Apelles and statues by his sculptor Lisippos (see pictures) show us a very realistic portrait of Alexander: the inclination of his neck, the lines on his forehead, the large staring eyes, the wavy hair and the long sideburns. The colour of the statues is long gone, but we still have some paintings left. According to those who saw the originals, the copies were too dark because his complexion was fair. Other sources say that he had one brown eye and one blue eye. This is possible; however, chances are it was just a metaphor for his radical nature, which was dark and light in one.
Roman copies of paintings by his painter Apelles and statues by his sculptor Lisippos (see pictures) show us a very realistic portrait of Alexander: the inclination of his neck, the lines on his forehead, the large staring eyes, the wavy hair and the long sideburns. The colour of the statues is long gone, but we still have some paintings left. According to those who saw the originals, the copies were too dark because his complexion was fair. Other sources say that he had one brown eye and one blue eye. This is possible; however, chances are it was just a metaphor for his radical nature, which was dark and light in one.
The context was also very important. The clothes and other objects were subject to the cultural paradigms of the artists, and that was why Alexander in Egypt, Rome and the East is brunet (sometimes he even has a beard, the one thing we know he didn’t like at all) and in the West is blond. I don’t have a theory about the colour of his hair, but I do have one about his eyes. Very light eyes don’t seem to have a definite colour; depending on the sunlight they can be gray, hazel, green, blue and olive. If this happened with such wide-open eyes, it must have been a remarkable trait that added charm and magic to the legend.
Notwithstanding, it was his mystical charisma that made him a leader to follow till the ends of the Earth. He was a gift from the Gods to mankind: young, handsome and brilliant, just like the angels, whose representation he came to inspire. Angels can be brunet or blond, protectors or challengers and can change from lightness to darkness (and vice-versa) in one second. The important fact for me is that the iconography of the angels is based on Alexander’s iconography. And this is only one item in the long list of legacies he left behind.
