Books: A History Of Greek Art
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F. B. Tarbell >> A History Of Greek Art
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The face of the Discobolus is rather typical than individual. If
this is not immediately obvious to the reader, the comparison of a
closely allied head may make it clear. Of the numerous works which
have been brought into relation with Myron by reason of their
likeness to the Discobolus, none is so unmistakable as a fine bust
in Florence (Fig. 105). The general form of the head, the
rendering of the hair, the anatomy of the forehead, the form of
the nose and the angle it makes with the forehead--these and other
features noted by Professor Furtwangler are alike in the
Discobolus and the Riccardi head. These detailed resemblances
cannot be verified without the help of casts or at least of good
photographs taken from different points of view; but the general
impression of likeness will be felt convincing, even without
analysis. Now these two works represent different persons, the
Riccardi head being probably copied from the statue of some ideal
hero. And the point to be especially illustrated is that in the
Discobolus we have not a realistic portrait, but a generalized
type. This is not the same as to say that the face bore no
recognizable resemblance to the young man whom the statue
commemorated. Portraiture admits of many degrees, from literal
fidelity to an idealization in which the identity of the subject
is all but lost. All that is meant is that the Discobolus belongs
somewhere near the latter end of the scale. In this absence of
individualization we have a trait, not of Myron alone, but of
Greek sculpture generally in its rise and in the earlier stages of
its perfection (cf. page 126).
Another work of Myron has been plausibly recognized in a statue of
a satyr in the Lateran Museum (Fig. 106). The evidence for this is
too complex to be stated here. If the identification is correct,
the Lateran statue is copied from the figure of Marsyas in a
bronze group of Athena and Marsyas which stood on the Athenian
Acropolis The goddess was represented s having just flung down in
disdain a pair of flutes; the satyr, advancing on tiptoe,
hesitates between cupidity and the fear of Athena's displeasure.
Marsyas has a lean and sinewy figure, coarse stiff hair and beard,
a wrinkled forehead, a broad flat nose which makes a marked angle
with the forehead, pointed ears (modern, but guaranteed by another
copy of the head), and a short tail sprouting from the small of
the back The arms, which were missing, have been incorrectly
restored with castanets. The right should be held up, the left
down, in a gesture of astonishment. In this work we see again
Myron's skill in suggesting movement. We get a lively impression
of an advance suddenly checked and changed to a recoil.
Thus far in this chapter we have been dealing with copies Our
stock of original works of this period, however, is not small; it
consists, as usual, largely of architectural sculpture. Fig. 107
shows four metopes from a temple at Selinus. They represent
(beginning at the left) Heracles in combat with an Amazon, Hera
unveiling herself before Zeus, Actaeon torn by his dogs in the
presence of Artemis, and Athena overcoming the giant Enceladus.
These reliefs would repay the most careful study, but the
sculptures of another temple have still stronger claims to
attention.
Olympia was one of the two most important religious centers of the
Greek world, the other being Delphi. Olympia was sacred to Zeus,
and the great Doric temple of Zeus was thus the chief among the
group of religious buildings there assembled. The erection of this
temple probably falls in the years just preceding and following
460 B.C. A slight exploration carried on by the French in 1829 and
the thorough excavation of the site by the Germans in 1875-81
brought to light extensive remains of its sculptured decoration.
This consisted of two pediment groups and twelve sculptured
metopes, besides the acroteria. In the eastern pediment the
subject is the preparation for the chariot-race of Pelops and
Oenomaus. The legend ran that Oenomaus, king of Pisa in Elis,
refused the hand of his daughter save to one who should beat him
in a chariot-race. Suitor after suitor tried and failed, till at
last Pelops, a young prince from over sea, succeeded In the
pediment group Zeus, as arbiter of the impending contest, occupies
the center. On one side of him stand Pelops and his destined
bride, on the other Oenomaus and his wife, Sterope (Fig. 108). The
chariots, with attendants and other more or less interested
persons follow (Fig. 109). The moment chosen by the sculptor is
one of expectancy rather than action, and the various figures are
in consequence simply juxtaposed, not interlocked. Far different
is the scene presented by the western pediment. The subject here
is the combat between Lapiths and Centaurs, one of the favorite
themes of Greek sculpture, as of Greek painting. The Centaurs,
brutal creatures, partly human, partly equine, were fabled to have
lived in Thessaly. There too was the home of the Lapiths, who were
Greeks. At the wedding of Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, the
Centaurs, who had been bidden as guests, became inflamed with wine
and began to lay hands on the women. Hence a general metee, in
which the Greeks were victorious. The sculptor has placed the god
Apollo in the center (Fig. 110), undisturbed amid the wild tumult;
his presence alone assures us what the issue is to he. The
struggling groups (Figs. 111, 112) extend nearly to the corners,
which are occupied each by two reclining female figures,
spectators of the scene. In each pediment the composition is
symmetrical, every figure having its corresponding figure on the
opposite side. Yet the law of symmetry is interpreted much more
freely than in the Aegina pediments of a generation earlier; the
corresponding figures often differ from one another a good deal in
attitude, and in one instance even in sex.
Our illustrations, which give a few representative specimens of
these sculptures, suggest some comments. To begin with, the
workmanship here displayed is rapid and far from faultless. Unlike
the Aeginetan pediment-figures and those of the Parthenon, these
figures are left rough at the back. Moreover, even in the visible
portions there are surprising evidences of carelessness, as in the
portentously long left thigh of the Lapith in Fig. 112. It is,
again, evidence of rapid, though not exactly of faulty, execution,
that the hair is in a good many cases only blocked out, the form
of the mass being given, but its texture not indicated (e.g., Fig.
111). In the pose of the standing figures (e.g., Fig. 108), with
the weight borne about equally by both legs, we see a modified
survival of the usual archaic attitude. A lingering archaism may
be seen in other features too; very plainly, for example, in the
arrangement of Apollo's hair (Fig 110). The garments represent a
thick woolen stuff, whose folds show very little pliancy. The
drapery of Sterope (Fig. 108) should be especially noted, as it is
a characteristic example for this period of a type which has a
long history She wears the Doric chiton, a sleeveless woolen
garment girded and pulled over the girdle and doubled over from
the top. The formal, starched-looking folds of the archaic period
have disappeared. The cloth lies pretty flat over the chest and
waist; there is a rather arbitrary little fold at the neck. Below
the girdle the drapery is divided vertically into two parts; on
the one side it falls in straight folds to the ankle, on the other
it is drawn smooth over the bent knee.
Another interesting fact about these sculptures is a certain
tendency toward realism. The figures and faces and attitudes of
the Greeks, not to speak of the Centaurs, are not all entirely
beautiful and noble. This is illustrated by Fig. 109, a bald-
headed man, rather fat. Here is realism of a very mild type, to be
sure, in comparison with what we are accustomed to nowadays; but
the old men of the Parthenon frieze bear no disfiguring marks of
age. Again, in the face of the young Lapith whose arm is being
bitten by a Centaur (Fig. 112), there is a marked attempt to
express physical pain; the features are more distorted than in any
other fifth century sculpture, except representations of Centaurs
or other inferior creatures. In the other heads of imperiled men
and women in this pediment, e.g., in that of the bride (Fig. 111),
the ideal calm of the features is overspread with only a faint
shadow of distress.
Lest what has been said should suggest that the sculptors of the
Olympia pediment-figures were indifferent to beauty, attention may
be drawn again to the superb head of the Lapith bride. Apollo, too
(Fig. 110), though not that radiant god whom a later age conceived
and bodied forth, has an austere beauty which only a dull eye can
fail to appreciate.
The twelve sculptured metopes of the temple do not belong to the
exterior frieze, whose metopes were plain, but to a second frieze,
placed above the columns and antae of pronaos and opisthodomos.
Their subjects are the twelve labors of Heracles, beginning with
the slaying of the Nemean lion and ending with the cleansing of
the Augean stables. The one selected for illustration is one of
the two or three best preserved members of the series (Fig. 113).
Its subject is the winning of the golden apples which grew in the
garden of the Hesperides, near the spot where Atlas stood,
evermore supporting on his shoulders the weight of the heavens.
Heracles prevailed upon Atlas to go and fetch the coveted
treasure, himself meanwhile assuming the burden. The moment chosen
by the sculptor is that of the return of Atlas with the apples. In
the middle stands Heracles, with a cushion, folded double, upon
his shoulders, the sphere of the heavens being barely suggested at
the top of the relief. Behind him is his companion and
protectress, Athena, once recognizable by a lance in her right
hand. [Footnote: Such at least seems to be the view adopted in the
latest official publication on the subject "Olympia; Die Bildwerke
in Stein und Thon," Pl. LXV.] With her left hand she seeks to ease
a little the hero's heavy load. Before him stands Atlas, holding
out the apples in both hands. The main lines of the composition
are somewhat monotonous, but this is a consequence of the subject,
not of any incapacity of the artist, as the other metopes testify.
The figure of Athena should be compared with that of Sterope in
the eastern pediment. There is a substantial resemblance in the
drapery, even to the arbitrary little fold in the neck; but the
garment here is entirely open on the right side, after the fashion
followed by Spartan maidens, whereas there it is sewed together
from the waist down; there is here no girdle; and the broad, flat
expanse of cloth in front observable there is here narrowed by two
folds falling from the breasts.
Fig. 114 is added as a last example of the severe beauty to be
found in these sculptures. It will be observed that the hair of
this head is not worked out in detail, except at the front. This
summary treatment of the hair is, in fact, more general in the
metopes than in the pediment-figures. The upper eyelid does not
yet overlap the under eyelid at the outer corner (cf. Fig. 110).
The two pediment-groups and the metopes of this temple show such
close resemblances of style among themselves that they must all be
regarded as products of a single school of sculpture, if not as
designed by a single man. Pausanias says nothing of the authorship
of the metopes; but he tells us that the sculptures of the eastern
pediment were the work of Paeonius of Mende, an indisputable
statue by whom is known (cf. page 213), and those of the western
by Alcamenes, who appears elsewhere in literary tradition as a
pupil of Phidias. On various grounds it seems almost certain that
Pausanias was misinformed on this point. Thus we are left without
trustworthy testimony as to the affiliations of the artist or
artists to whom the sculptured decoration of this temple was
intrusted.
The so-called Hestia (Vesta) which formerly belonged to the
Giustiniani family (Fig. 115), has of late years been inaccessible
even to professional students. It must be one of the very best
preserved of ancient statues in marble, as it is not reported to
have anything modern about it except the index finger of the left
hand. This hand originally held a scepter. The statue represents
some goddess, it is uncertain what one. In view of the likeness in
the drapery to some of the Olympia figures, no one can doubt that
this is a product of the same period.
In regard to the bronze statue shown in Fig. 116 there is more
room for doubt, but the weight of opinion is in favor of placing
it here. It is confidently claimed by a high authority that this
is an original Greek bronze. There exist also fragmentary copies
of the same in marble and free imitations in marble and in bronze.
The statue represents a boy of perhaps twelve, absorbed in pulling
a thorn from his foot. We do not know the original purpose of the
work; perhaps it commemorated a victory won in a foot-race of boys
The left leg of the figure is held in a position which gives a
somewhat ungraceful outline; Praxiteles would not have placed it
so. But how delightful is the picture of childish innocence and
self-forgetfulness! This statue might be regarded as an epitome of
the artistic spirit and capacity of the age--its simplicity and
purity and freshness of feeling, its not quite complete
emancipation from the formalism of an earlier day.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GREAT AGE OF GREEK SCULPTURE FIRST PERIOD 450-400 B.C.
The Age of Pericles, which, if we reckon from the first entrance
of Pericles, into politics, extended from about 466 to 429, has
become proverbial as a period of extraordinary artistic and
literary splendor. The real ascendancy of Pericles began in 447,
and the achievements most properly associated with his name belong
to the succeeding fifteen years. Athens at this time possessed
ample material resources, derived in great measure from the
tribute of subject allies, and wealth was freely spent upon noble
monuments of art. The city was fled with artists of high and low
degree. Above them all in genius towered Phidias, and to him, if
we may believe the testimony of Plutarch, [Footnote: Life of
Pericles Section 13] a general superintendence of all the artistic
undertakings of the state was intrusted by Pericles.
Great as was the fame of Phidias in after ages, we are left in
almost complete ignorance as to the circumstances of his life. If
he was really the author of certain works ascribed to him, he must
have been born about 500 B.C. This would make him as old, perhaps,
as Myron. Another view would put his birth between 490 and 485,
still another, as late as 480. The one undisputed date in his life
is the year 438, when the gold and ivory statue of Athena in the
Parthenon was completed. Touching the time and circumstances of
his death we have two inconsistent traditions. According to the
one, he was brought to trial in Athens immediately after the
completion of the Athena on the charge of misappropriating some of
the ivory with which he had been intrusted but made his escape to
Elis, where, after executing the gold and ivory Zeus for the
temple of that god at Olympia he was put to death for some
unspecified reason by the Eleans in 432-1. According to the other
tradition he was accused in Athens, apparently not before 432, of
stealing some of the gold destined for the Athena and, when this
charge broke down, of having sacrilegiously introduced his own and
Pericles's portraits into the relief on Athena's shield, being
cast into prison he died there of disease, or, as some said, of
poison.
The most famous works of Phidias were the two chryselephantine
statues to which reference has just been made, and two or three
other statues of the same materials were ascribed to him. He
worked also in bronze and in marble. From a reference in
Aristotle's "Ethics" it might seem as if he were best known as a
sculptor in marble, but only three statues by him are expressly
recorded to have been of marble, against a larger number of bronze
His subjects were chiefly divinities, we hear of only one or two
figures of human beings from his hands.
Of the colossal Zeus at Olympia, the most august creation of Greek
artistic imagination, we can form only an indistinct idea. The god
was seated upon a throne, holding a figure of Victory upon one
hand and a scepter in the other. The figure is represented on
three Elean coins of the time of Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) but on too
small a scale to help us much. Another coin of the same period
gives a fine head of Zeus in profile (Fig. 117),[Footnote: A more
truthful representation of this coin may be found in Gardner's
"Types of Greek Coins," PI XV 19] which is plausibly supposed to
preserve some likeness to the head of Phidias's statue.
In regard to the Athena of the Parthenon we are considerably
better off, for we possess a number of marble statues which, with
the aid of Pausanias's description and by comparison with one
another, can be proved to be copies of that work. But a warning is
necessary here. The Athena, like the Zeus, was of colossal size.
Its height, with the pedestal, was about thirty-eight feet. Now it
is not likely that a really exact copy on a small scale could
possibly have been made from such a statue, nor, if one had been
made, would it have given the effect of the original. With this
warning laid well to heart the reader may venture to examine that
one among our copies which makes the greatest attempt at
exactitude (Fig. 118). It is a statuette, not quite 3 1/2 feet
high with the basis, found in Athens in 1880. The goddess stands
with her left leg bent a little and pushed to one side. She is
dressed in a heavy Doric chiton, open at the side. The girdle,
whose ends take the form of snakes' heads, is worn outside the
doubled-over portion of the garment. Above it the folds are
carefully adjusted, drawn in symmetrically from both sides toward
the middle; in the lower part of the figure there is the common
vertical division into two parts, owing to the bending of one leg.
Over the chiton is the aegis, much less long behind than in
earlier art (cf. Fig. 98), fringed with snakes' heads and having a
Gorgon's mask in front. The helmet is an elaborate affair with
three crests, the central one supported by a sphinx, the others by
winged horses; the hinged cheek-pieces are turned up. At the left
of the goddess is her shield, within which coils a serpent. On her
extended right hand stands a Victory. The face of Athena is the
most disappointing part of it all, but it is just there that the
copyist must have failed most completely. Only the eye of faith,
or better, the eye trained by much study of allied works, can
divine in this poor little figure the majesty which awed the
beholder of Phidias's work.
Speculation has been busy in attempting to connect other statues
that have been preserved to us with the name of Phidias. The most
probable case that has yet been made out concerns two closely
similar marble figures in Dresden, one of which is shown in Fig.
119. The head of this statue is missing, but its place has been
supplied by a cast of a head in Bologna (Fig. 120), which has been
proved to be another copy from the same original. This proof,
about which there seems to be no room for question, is due to
Professor Furtwangler, [Footnote: "Masterpieces of Greek
Sculpture" pages 4 ff.] who argues further that the statue as thus
restored is a faithful copy of the Lemnian Athena of Phidias, a
bronze work which stood on the Athenian Acropolis. The proof of
this depends upon (1) the resemblance in the standing position and
in the drapery of this figure to the Athena of the Parthenon, and
(2) the fact that Phidias is known to have made a statue of Athena
(thought to be the Lemnian Athena) without a helmet on the head--
an exceptional, though not wholly unique, representation in
sculpture in the round.
If this demonstration be thought insufficient, there cannot, at
all events, be much doubt that we have here the copy of an
original of about the middle of the fifth century. The style is
severely simple, as we ought to expect of a religious work of that
period. The virginal face, conceived and wrought with ineffable
refinement, is as far removed from sensual charm as from the
ecstasy of a Madonna. The goddess does not reveal herself as one
who can be "touched with a feeling of our infirmities"; but by the
power of her pure, passionless beauty she sways our minds and
hearts.
The supreme architectural achievement of the Periclean age was the
Parthenon, which crowned the Athenian Acropolis. It appears to
have been begun in 447, and was roofed over and perhaps
substantially finished by 438. Its sculptures were more extensive
than those of any other Greek temple, comprising two pediment-
groups, the whole set of metopes of the exterior frieze, ninety-
two in number, and a continuous frieze of bas-relief, 522 feet 10
inches in total length, surrounding the cella and its vestibules
(cf. Fig. 56). After serving its original purpose for nearly a
thousand years, the building was converted into a Christian church
and then, in the fifteenth century, into a Mohammedan mosque. In
1687 Athens was besieged by the forces of Venice. The Parthenon
was used by the Turks as a powder-magazine, and was consequently
made the target for the enemy's shells. The result was an
explosion, which converted the building into a ruin. Of the
sculptures which escaped from this catastrophe, many small pieces
were carried off at the time or subsequently, while other pieces
were used as building stone or thrown into the lime-kiln. Most of
those which remained down to the beginning of this century were
acquired by Lord Elgin, acting under a permission from the Turkish
government (1801-3), and in 1816 were bought for the British
Museum. The rest are in Athens, either in their original positions
on the building, or in the Acropolis Museum.
The best preserved metopes of the Parthenon belong to the south
side and represent scenes from the contest between Lapiths and
Centaurs (cf. page 174). These metopes differ markedly in style
from one another, and must have been not only executed, but
designed, by different hands. One or two of them are spiritless
and uninteresting. Others, while fine in their way, show little
vehemence of action. Fig. 121 gives one of this class. Fig. 122 is
very different. In this "the Lapith presses forward, advancing his
left hand to seize the rearing Centaur by the throat, and forcing
him on his haunches; the right arm of the Lapith is drawn back, as
if to strike; his right hand, now wanting, probably held a sword.
.... The Centaur, rearing up, against his antagonist, tries in
vain to pull away the left hand of the Lapith, which, in Carrey's
drawing [made in 1674] he grasps." [Footnote: A. H. Smith,
"Catalogue of Sculpture in the British Museum," page 136.] Observe
how skilfully the design is adapted to the square field, so as to
leave no unpleasant blank spaces, how flowing and free from
monotony are the lines of the composition, how effective (in
contrast with Fig. 121) is the management of the drapery, and,
above all, what vigor is displayed in the attitudes. Fig. 123 is
of kindred character. These two metopes and two others, one
representing a victorious Centaur prancing in savage glee over the
body of his prostrate foe, the other showing a Lapith about to
strike a Centaur already wounded in the back, are among the very
best works of Greek sculpture preserved to us.
The Parthenon frieze presents an idealized picture of the
procession which wound its way upward from the market-place to the
Acropolis on the occasion of Athena's chief festival. Fully to
illustrate this extensive and varied composition is out of the
question here. All that is possible is to give three or four
representative pieces and a few comments. Fig. 124 shows the best
preserved piece of the entire frieze. It belongs to a company of
divinities, seated to right and left of the central group of the
east front, and conceived as spectators of the scene. The figure
at the left of the illustration is almost certainly Posidon, and
the others are perhaps Apollo and Artemis. In Fig. 125 three
youths advance with measured step, carrying jars filled with wine,
while a fourth youth stoops to lift his jar; at the extreme right
may be seen part of a flute-player, whose figure was completed on
the next slab. The attitudes and draperies of the three advancing
youths, though similar, are subtly varied. So everywhere monotony
is absent from the frieze. Fig. 126 is taken from the most
animated and crowded part of the design. Here Athenian youths, in
a great variety of dress and undress, dash forward on small,
mettlesome horses. Owing to the principle of isocephaly (cf. page
145), the mounted men are of smaller dimensions than those on
foot, but the difference does not offend the eye. In Fig. 127 we
have, on a somewhat larger scale, the heads of four chariot-horses
instinct with fiery life. Fig. 132 may also be consulted. An
endless variety in attitude and spirit, from the calm of the ever-
blessed gods to the most impetuous movement; grace and harmony of
line; an almost faultless execution--such are some of the
qualities which make the Parthenon frieze the source of
inexhaustible delight.
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