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ESSAYS
ON THE
ART OF PHEIDIAS.
3Lombon : C. J. CLAY AND SON,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
(Cambridge: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.
3Leipzig : F. A. BROCKHAUS.
£eg gork: THE CENTURY CO.

ESSAYS - y
ART OF PHEIDIAS.
BY
Way-ten
CHARLES WALDSTEING M.A.
DIRECTOR OF THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM AND READER OF
CLAssical ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE ;
PH. D. HEIDELBERG; M.A. COLUMBIA COLLEGE, N.Y.
CAMBRIDGE:
U N IV E R SITY PRESS.
NEW YORK : THE CENTURY CO.
1885.
[All rights reserved.].
COPYRIGHTED BY
CHARLES WALDSTEIN
1885.
DEDICATED
TO
M Y MO T H E R
THE CONSTANT INSPIRER OF ALL MY WORK.
C. W.
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE
AMERICAN EDITION.
IN preparing this edition for American readers I can but
realise with true gratification the great advance which has been
made in this country of late years—nay, even since this book
was begun—in the pursuit of the knowledge of the past and
more especially of the study of classical archaeology.
In the actual work in this subject, America can be proud of
the fact that it was the first of the English-speaking nations to
have established a school of Classical Studies at Athens. The
Archaeological Institute of America, justly catholic in the scope
of its enquiries, is extending its sphere of influence over the
whole country. Under its auspices excavations have been
carried on in this country as well as in Asia Minor, which
have yielded most important contributions to our knowledge of
both Greek and American antiquities. The general text-book
on ancient sculpture which I believe to be on the whole the most
interesting and in many respects the most instructive of English
books on this subject is written by an American lady, Mrs Lucy
M. Mitchell. Although the chair of Art and Archaeology has
been ably filled for many years in Harvard University, and
though some of the universities are beginning to pay attention
to this important branch of historical studies, the American
universities have as yet not done their share in producing
special students in these studies. They even fail to give com-
pleteness to their course of classical learning in not supple-
menting the study of classical literature and history by the
I—5
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
study of classical art: for, that our knowledge of general
classical antiquity is imperfect without some acquaintance with
this most characteristic manifestation of the Greek mind is now
universally acknowledged, and this truth is acted upon by all
the great universities of Europe.
As regards the general appreciation in this country of the
great products of classical culture, I believe that the introduction
of original and special articles on subjects of ancient art and
archaeology into magazines and reviews devoted to general
literature, art, and Science, is to a certain degree a proof that
the people at large have the advancement of this study at heart.
We are held by the peoples of the old world to be so much
engrossed in the din and turmoil of the present and its pressing
needs that we have no ear and sense for the softening voice of
the great life of the past. This is very plausible reasoning; but,
as is often the case with such conclusions, it may be misleading.
May not the very necessity of a supreme activity in the present
by contrast and reaction make us more sensitive and receptive
to the impressions from the past, and more eager to dwell and
rest under the sway of its subdued and refining peace 2
I hope to have manifested this growing desire and to have
satisfied it to some small degree in the writing of this work.
CHARLES WALDSTEIN.
NEW YORK, Aug. 16, 1885.
PRE FA CE.
IN Professor Michaelis's prefatory letter to Der Parthenon
addressed to Alexander Conze, the author of this completest
of all the works on Pheidias says: “Of course the investiga-
tion of the sculptures of the Parthenon is not completed in any
point by the present work. On the contrary, the new and
firmer foundation which I certainly believe myself to have laid
will, it is to be hoped, incite others to complete the structure in
its various parts.” Professor Michaelis's work has, no doubt, left
its stamp upon all subsequent efforts in this direction : be it
in general treatises, such as Professor Petersen's Die Kunst
des Pheidias, and the treatment of this period in the works on
the general history of Greek art which have since appeared ; or
be it in the numerous memoirs on special points of Pheidiac
art that are constantly adding information to the large previous
collections of facts concerning this most important figure in
the history of Greek art.
There are two obvious courses open to the writer on such a
subject as the art of Pheidias. He may either give a continuous
account of what is known of the life and works of the ancient
artist in the form of a monograph or text-book, or he may
increase the store of general information in a less direct
manner by the separate publication of any new facts or views
which he may acquire as he proceeds in his own studies.
There is, however, a third method which I believe to have
much in its favour. It consists in leading naturally to the
ultimate result of a general and complete knowledge of the
subject as a whole, but the fixing of this knowledge in the
mind of the reader is effected by means of a continuous series
xii •. PREFACE.
of separate investigations arranged in a methodical manner so
as to enter into every special question and still to cover the
whole ground of enquiry. This method has been followed in
the present work and marks as well its aims as its origin and
history.
The idea of the book actually originated with the discovery
of the Louvre Plaque in January 1881; though the interpretation
of the figures from the eastern pediment of the Parthenon as
Thalassa and Gaia dates back to my student-days in 1873–4.
This was followed by several other studies concerning the art
of Pheidias which have modified the contents, and sometimes
delayed the publication, of these Essays.
These discoveries no doubt vary in importance, and must
be taken for what they are worth. But I believe that in every
case I may claim for them the recognition due to first-hand
research and to honesty of work and purpose.
Each of these separate discoveries, however, serves to
specify one group of the works of Pheidias or one side of his
artistic character, and all illustrate the chief methods of archaeo-
logical enquiry. Thus, after the first two essays, the rest serve
to complete the whole range of the subject. The sculptures of
the Parthenon are dealt with in five essays as they naturally
follow one another in time and in the growth of the artist's
own development: the third deals with the Metopes, the fourth
with the Western Pediment, the fifth with the Eastern Pediment,
the sixth with the Frieze, and the seventh with the subject of
the Frieze. The eighth deals with the gold and ivory statues,
while the ninth and last considers the influence of the work of
Pheidias upon the Attic sculpture of the period immediately
succeeding the age of Pericles.
These seven essays are preceded by two of a more
general character, the one on the methods of the study of
archaeology, the other on the spirit of the art of Pheidias.
These are meant to prepare the reader for the ready ap-
preciation of the investigations following them. Since the
first essay was written the conditions concerning the study of
PREFACE. xiii
archaeology in this country have greatly improved. The
Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies has done much
towards spreading the general interest in archaeological research
and in its proper realisation. The introduction of classical
archaeology into the higher part of the final classical exami-
nation in this university has gone far to create a real school
of classical archaeology which may now be considered to be
established ; and, finally, the creation of the Museum of
Classical Archaeology as a branch of the Fitzwilliam Museum
has provided the apparatus, the need of which was so strongly
felt. The University of Oxford and University College,
London, have recently created separate chairs for this study,
and other universities are directing their attention to it.
Beyond the information concerning the art of Pheidias, I
venture to hope that there may be found in this book some
elements of general and lasting utility in the treatment of
Greek art other than the art of Pheidias, as well as in the
treatment of the general principles and theory of art. To
make this side of the book more complete, four articles have,
in the Appendix, been reprinted from previous publications.
Nos. I. and IV. have, by kind consent, been reprinted from
the Şournal of Hellenic Studies, No. II. from the Transactions
of the Royal Society of Literature, No. III. from the Proceed.
ings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
In looking back upon the obligations incurred in the writing
of a book, most authors must feel how much they owe to the
more or less direct assistance of others. As the acquisition of
knowledge is continuous, so is the incurring of obligations to
others constant. I can but look back with gratitude upon the
kindness shown me in my student days by my teacher in
archaeology, the late Prof. K. B. Stark, of Heidelberg, and after
that to the advantages derived from the attendance at Prof.
Overbeck's classes and lectures at Leipzig. To Prof. Brunn,
of Munich, I am particularly indebted for the stimulus and
encouragement as well as much valuable information he has
tendered me for some years past.
xiv. PREFACE.
As regards direct assistance in the production of this book,
I hope that definite acknowledgements will be found in their
place. But I must thank the authorities of the various
museums, especially of the Museum of the Louvre, the British
Museum, the Royal Museum of Copenhagen, and the Museo
Kircheriano at Rome, for much generous aid in the prosecution
of my enquiries. Beyond all, however, in this way, my heartiest
thanks are due to the Syndics of the Cambridge University
Press, who have generously undertaken the whole cost and
responsibility of publishing the book. Mrs Lucy M. Mitchell
has kindly consented to allow me the use of some wood-cuts
illustrating her articles in the Century Magazine. I must also
thank Dr Henry Jackson, Fellow and Praelector of Trinity
College, Cambridge, for looking over the proof-sheets of the
first two essays and for making useful suggestions.
But, finally, I must here record my sense of deepest obliga-
tion to Mr Henry Bradshaw, University Librarian and Senior
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, who has read the proofs
and made most valuable suggestions and corrections through-
out, so that I feel that a great part of any merit the book may
have is to a large extent due to his counsel. This is work of
the same nature as that to which a great part of his life
has been devoted, so that the fruits of his learning and industry
are disseminated widely through the writings of many other
men. But in view of the encouragement and moral support
which he has bestowed upon me in all phases of my University
work, as well as for the loving kindness and friendship which he
has shown me for the past five years, I am proud to think
that I have an altogether exceptional claim to express my
gratitude.
CHARLES WALDSTEIN.
KING's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
}uly 24, 1885.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ESSAY I. THE PROVINCE, AIM, AND METHODS OF THE
STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
The meaning of the word Archaeology * tº
History of the study of classical Archaeology . ſº e &
Meaning of “plastic” as applied to the character of the Greeks.
Difference between sculpture and painting .
Causes for the plastic character of the Greek mind
Manifestations of this character of the Greek mind
2.
The position of Archaeology among the other studies of classical
antiquity e gº e º tº
Departments of the study of Archaeology tº
The comparative study of style and other methods
Note A. The recognisability of style .
PAGE
II
I 2
I6,
2O
24
27
3O
37
ESSAY II. THE SPIRIT of THE ART OF PHEIDIAs, IN ITs
RELATION TO HIS AGE, LIFE, AND CHARACTER.
2Harmony between form and matter in the art of Pheidias .
Imperfect expression in the Apollo of Tenea
Imperfect choice of subject in Myron's Discobolos
The Type and the Ideal in sculpture . gº º
Simplicity and Grandeur, Pheidias and Aeschylu
The life of Pheidias and the chief features of his age .
His artistic training . . e º º tº
Survey of the works of Pheidias and their spirit .
The extant works, the sculptures of the Parthenon
Note B. The intention of the artist
4 I
- 7 Note C. The death of Pheidias .
47
5o
54
58
63
66
74.
8I
83
xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS.
ESSAY III. THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON AND THE
LAPITH HEAD IN THE LOUVRE.
PAGE
Metopes in Greek architecture . C. g ſº tº e & & 87
The Metopes of the Parthenon . ſe ſº e ge º e wº 88
They are the earliest of the Parthenon sculptures * * * > gº 9I
Chief characteristics of these Metopes . & tº e t e * 95
The Marble Head in the Louvre . © e * tº ge * º 98
Its relation to one of the Metopes. & tº & º e tº . IO2
ESSAY IV. THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON
AND THE VENICE FRAGMENT.
History of the Parthenon down to 1687 & g ſº * . ſº . Io'7
Carrey's drawings, and the interpretation of the Western Pediment . Io9
The composition of the Western Pediment . § © ë © . I I4.
The Venice Fragment .. * te tº © g a * Q I 2C)
Its style compared with other figures from the pediments . © . I24
Essay V. THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON,
. AND THALASSA AND GAIA.
The data concerning the composition of the Eastern Pediment . . I38
Interpretation of this pediment as a whole and of the single figures . 140
The so-called Three Fates really not a group of three figures . . I 52
The two figures Thalassa and Gaia © tº te e d . I56
The composition of this pediment in its bearing upon the interpreta-
tion of the figures in the angles . ſº & e º º . I 59
The cosmical character of the Birth of Athene . . . . . 164
Personifications of nature in Greek literature . tº iº © . I65
Personifications of nature, especially of Thalassa and Gaia, in Greek
art not extant . tº º & g º º tº g . I69
The extant works with personifications of nature and Thalassa and
Gaia . . e e ſº tº º tº tº . I7 I
New interpretation of the pediments as a whole . g e ę . I 85
ESSAY VI. THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE
AND THE LOUVRE PLAQUE. -
The Parthenon Frieze, its position in the temple and subject . . I 91
The gods from the Eastern Frieze tº • . ę te e . I97
The peculiar technical working of the Frieze and its causes e , 20I
The composition of the Frieze . © • . wº e e . 207
Athene from the Eastern Frieze . © i.e. e te * 2 II
The Louvre Plaque and its correspondence with the Athene & • 2 I3
The original destination of the Plaque, the three possibilities . • 2 I5
Note D. The peculiar modifications of the technical working of the
Frieze . tº * t & t * § tº tº . . 227
^
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xvii
ESSAY VII. THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE
AND THE COPENHAGEN PLAQUE.
PAGE
The Copenhagen Plaque and its history . tº & g tº . . 23.I
Comparison between this plaque and the boy in the Parthenon Frieze 234
The central group of the Frieze . * gº & e * tº . 238
Flasch's interpretation of this group . wº & {- e * . 24O
Further arguments in favour of the view . º e * > e , 242
The chief cause of the introduction of this group • * * & . 25I
Note E. Athene and Theseus in the Panathenaic Festival . . 253
Note F. The Kircheriano Plaque e e & * g ge . 258
ESSAY VIII. THE ATHENE PARTHENOS, AND GOLD AND IVORY
STATUES.
Discovery of the Varvakeion Athene . . e ſº * & . 269
Its comparative artistic inferiority to the Lenormant Athene . . , 274
The column of the Varvakeion Athene not in the original . & . 275
The construction of gold and ivory statues . & * e tº . 279
The reasons for modern prejudice against such statues e e . 283
ESSAY IX. THE SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS AND THE ATTIC SEPULCHRAL
RELIEFS.
Limitation of the subject . © te ge º º & & . 291
Conze's views on Greek Relief . * tº e e ; : * . 293
Criticism of some of these views . º e & gº * e . . 294
The School of Pheidias ſº gº e * * * º & . 3OO
The relation between the Parthenon Frieze and the Attic reliefs follow-
ing them . e e & * ſº † tº tº © . 3O2
Actual conditions leading to such works among the followers of
Pheidias . ge © * } g e t a , tº e . 3I7
APPENDIx. REPRINTED PAPERS ON GREEK ART.
No. I. PYTHAGORAS OF RHEGION AND THE EARLY ATHLETE
STATUES (/ourn. Hellen. Stud. 1880, 1881) º d • 323
No. II. PRAXITELES AND THE HERMES WITH THE INFANT
DIONYSOS (Trans. Aoy. Soc. Zit. 1879) . . . . 373
- No. III. THE INFLUENCE OF ATHLETIC GAMES UPON GREEK
7 ART (Proc. Roy. Inst. 1883) . e † © tº • 394
No. IV. THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS
AT OLYMPIA AND THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PAR-
THENON (Journ. Hellen. Stud. 1884). © º e • 423
Fig. I.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Plate I.
Plate II.
Plate III.
Plate IV.
Plate V.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
Plate VI.
Plate VII.
Plate VIII.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 7.
Fig. 8.
Fig. 9.
Plate IX.
Plate X.
Plate XI.
Plate XII.
Fig. Io.
Fig. II.
Plate XIII.
Plate XIV.
Fig. I2.
LIST OF PLATES AND WooDCUTS,
Apollo of Tenea. Glyptothek, Munich . te • P.
The Discobolos of Myron. Palazzo Massimi, Rome. p.
Corner of a Doric Temple (Penrose) . tº º • P.
Marble Head in the Louvre Museum, Paris ... to face p.
Metope of the Parthenon with Louvre Head added,
British Museum, London . & te sº ... to face p.
Kephissos from the Western Pediment . ... to face p.
Fragment of a seated Figure from the Western
Pediment . * tº & e & © ... to face p.
The Venice Fragment. * e e e ... to face p.
The Western Pediment of the Parthenon . gº • P.
The Eastern Pediment of the Parthenon . e • P.
Olympos from the Eastern Pediment . de ... to face p.
Two Horae from the Eastern Pediment . to face p.
Thalassa and Gaia from the Eastern Pediment . to face p.
Personifications of Mountains on Ancient Reliefs . p.
Mountain from Mural Painting . * e © • P
Corner of the Parthenon (Penrose) . e e • P.
From the Eastern Frieze of the Parthenon:
A. The gods on the left side of the central group
B. The central group . tº gº tº
Terra-cotta Plaque, Louvre Museum,
Paris. tº * to face each
Athene from the Frieze of the Parthe-ſ other before P.
non, British Museum, London .
Terra-cotta Fragment, Royal Museum,
Copenhagen . se to face each
Boy and Priest from the Frieze of theſ other before p.
Parthenon, British Museum, London
Boy with a peplos, from a vase painting . e . P.
Boy with chair, from a vase by Exekias . P.
Terra-cotta Plaque, Museo Kircheriano, Rome . to face p.
The Varvakeion Athene, Athens . tº * . to face p.
The Lenormant Athene . . . . . . p.
P.
C. The gods on the right side of the central group p.
45
48
87
98
IO2
II 3
II.4.
I22
I33
I33
I42
I46
I57
I73
. I 74.
I92
198
I99
2IS
235
242
243
258
269
274
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Plate XV.
Fig. 20.
Fig. 21.
Fig. 22.
Fig. 23.
Plate XVI.
Fig. 24.
Fig. 25.
I3.
I4.
I5.
I6.
I7.
I8.
I9.
***
LIST OF PLATES AND WOODCUTS. xix
Heading of an Inscription, 410 B.C. (Louvre) . . p. 3O4
Four Magistrates from the Eastern Frieze of the
Parthenon e tº g e ſº & p. 3O5
Heading of Inscription, 398 B.C. (Athens) . p. 306
Sepulchral Relief inscribed ‘Hegeso Proxeno’ . . p. 3O9
Sepulchral Relief of Myrtia Kephisia (Louvre) . ... p. 312
Sepulchral Slab, Athens e tº e ſº p. 31.4
Sepulchral Relief, Demetria Pamphili, Athens p. 31.5
The Choiseul-Gouffier Pugilist . º ſº ... to face p. 323
Top of the tree-stump from the statue in the British
Museum © § © Ǻ is § ... p. 359
Outline of the statue with right arm and hand restored p. 360
Statue of a Pugilist now in the Palazzo Albani, Rome p. 362
a. Statue of Pugilist at Athens .
b. Statue of Doryphoros at Naples g
c. Coin of Selinus about the middle of the 5th p. 37 I
Cent. B. C. e e tº tº & e
d. Coin of Selinus about the end of the 5th
Cent. B. C. e & { } & g
Bust of Hermes of Praxiteles, Olympia . ... to face p. 373
Hermes of Praxiteles . & & © * * g ... p. 375
a. The Western Pediment of the Parthenon . .
b. The Eastern Pediment of the Temple of Zeus * p. 422
Olympia
ESSAY I.
THE PROVINCE, AIM, AND METHODS OF THE
STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
Taºrm rolvvv, v 3 &yº, ötapó, xopls uév oi's viv 67 &Aeyes pixoéeópovás Te Kal
ºbt)\otéxvous kal irpakrikoús, kal xopls at trept ºv d Aóyos, oùs pióvous āv ris àp60s
Tpooretirot ºptAoorópous.
IIós, òqºm, Méyets;
Oi Hév trov, v 3’ & Yaſ, pi\#kooi kal pixoffeópoves rás Te Ka}\ds powds doºr&ſovrat
kai xpóas kal oxijuara kal trávra rà ék Töv rotoſtov Šmuoupyojueva, atroń ść toº
Ka}\ot dāiſvaros aſſºrów i ölävota rºw piſaw ideºv re kal dotrágao flaw.
PLATO, Republic, v. 476 A.
By the help of this principle, then, I draw a distinction between those whom you
described just now as lovers of sights, lovers of arts, and practical persons, on the one
hand, and on the other, those about whom we are now inquiring, to whom alone we
can rightly give the name of philosophers.
Explain what you mean.
Why, I suppose that those who love seeing and hearing admire beautiful sounds,
and colours, and forms and all artistic products into which these enter; but the
nature of beauty in itself their understanding is unable to behold and embrace.
Davies and Vaughan's Translation.
ESSAY I.
THE PROVINCE, AIM, AND METHODS OF THE STUDY OF
CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
NOTHING is more delightful for one seeking pleasure than
to stroll listlessly, not knowing or caring to know whither the
road leads, what the surroundings are, or what object there is
in walking. Nothing, on the other hand, can be more mis-
chievous for one walking with a fixed purpose than to be
ignorant of his definite goal, of the position and nature of his
destination, the state of the road to be traversed, and the means
of communication. In the scientific treatment of things, in con-
tradistinction to the practical or the artistic attitude of mind,
man follows the methodical road with a fixed aim in view, he
strives to obtain precise knowledge, and therefore he must be
fully conscious of what he desires to find, and the means he
has at his disposal to bring about this purpose. The progress
of any branch of investigation is most seriously retarded by
ignorance of its true province, its aims, and means of inquiry.
Before beginning to work in physiology, the student must learn
what tasks physiology sets itself, how,it is distinguished from
other branches of natural science, and how it may use them as
auxiliaries. Otherwise he will be mixing up physiological with
anatomical and pathological phenomena, and through error
and confusion he will individually go through all the defining
and severing process which the collective efforts of many
individual workers have established. Only after this useless
I–2
4 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
labour will he arrive at the definite conception of the task be-
fore him, and only then can he carry on his research with any
profit.
The greatest confusion exists with regard to the true
meaning of the study of classical archaeology, its aims, and
especially its means of investigation, that is, its methods. The
researcher finds himself baffled at every step by the ignorance
of people in general, and even of those who from their acquaint-
ance with classical literature might be expected to know its
meaning. How can one hope for a just appreciation of special
investigation when not even the actual meaning of the term
classical archaeology is understood, nor the province and aim of
that department of learning as it now exists 2 I therefore gladly
seize this opportunity of putting forward clearly the nature,
province, aims, and method of archaeology, not merely in an
abstract and general way, but by illustrating the general
remarks by some discoveries which, from their associations
and the artistic value of what is found, are sure to be of
wide interest. An essay on the Province of Archaeology in
general terms would not stimulate the appreciative power of
those who prefer facts to views, and would glide off the minds
of readers without leaving any mark. But in these essays the
general principles will be illustrated and fixed by the individual
and concrete instances; while the special inquiries will be ap-
preciated, because viewed in the light of the general definition
of the archaeological system.
When people endeavour to ascertain what is meant by
classical archaeology, they are apt to content themselves with
turning to the etymology of the word. But this is profitless. A
study may have developed far away from the original meaning
of its name, and it is not for us to attempt to press the thing
back into the original meaning of the phrase, but to recognise
and define what the word has actually come to comprise.
Let us provisionally put as the synonym for Greek Archaeo-
logy, the Study of Greek Art. That Greek Archaeology is
chiefly concerned with the study of Greek Art is recognised by
most people in a vague way. The term ‘student of Greek Art’
contains two elements, that of ‘scholar,’ and of “art-student.’
It is natural to translate terms unknown into known terms,
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 5
or the less familiar into the more familiar. Now, most people
are familiar with the ‘scholar, the ‘philologist, the ‘student of
Greek,’ their occupation, and the means and ends of their study;
or again they are familiar with the “art-critic, the ‘writer on
art,' the ‘connoisseur of pictures and statues.' They are not so
familiar with the “Greek Archaeologist.’ Accordingly they will
translate the less familiar compound idea into terms of either
of the component elements which is most familiar to them
individually. So some will consider the Greek Archaeologist
as a species of the genus ‘scholar,’ which to a certain degree
he must be, and, as we shall see, to a still greater degree he
was: ‘He wishes to illustrate passages of ancient authors by
the works of art” will be their simple summing up of his aims
and ends. Or, they will consider him a species of the genus
“art-critic’ who has made a specialty of one group of works of
art, namely, the Greek: “He means to point out what is to be
admired in the works of ancient art and what is not,’ will be
their summary definition of the province of Archaeology.
As a matter of fact this fluctuation in assigning a definition
to archaeology, which in most cases arises from ignorance, has
been the most conspicuous feature in the history of that study
from its beginning down to our day, and this struggle is not yet
over. It is the ever recurring struggle of bodies, states, indivi-
duals, and studies, whose elements lap over into other older
or more familiarly established forms, for independent and self-
contained recognition. Studies are in one way as dependent
upon outer circumstances in their development and modifica-
tions, as organisms are affected by their environment, or goods
are influenced by the market supply and demand. These outer
circumstances in the case of archaeology are the conditions
under which certain persons have taken up the study, and, above
all, the recognised institutions of education, schools and univer-
sities, into which it will have to be introduced before it comes
before the world as ‘a definite study, such as can be called a
‘scientific discipline.’ And in truth there is a rational principle
in this process: a science cannot be admitted into the academic
course until it has settled and defined its province, and fixed
and established its own method—only then can it be taught.
This outer, didactic influence of universities upon the inner con-
6 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
stitution of a study is most beneficial to science, provided that
it do not engross the attention of the student to the detriment
or destruction of research, and, further, provided that teaching
be not degraded to be the handmaid of examinations. It
forces those who pursue the subject to collect into a methodical
system what was before disjointed, to become clearly conscious
of what the means and ends of the study are, to make the great
step from the dilettante to the student, from the listless stroller
to the earnest traveller.
The beginning of this fluctuating struggle for the indepen-
dent establishment of a separate study of Archaeology was
coeval with the beginning of the study of ancient classical
monuments during the Italian Renaissance. The Revival of
Letters was also a revival of the ancient Greek art. But at this
time the study of ancient monuments was pursued by only two
classes of people, scholars and artists. The artists generally
assimilated it with their own creative genius, and carried it
into their works. Some of them took the more theoretical
aspect of the study of ancient remains, but always with a view
to utilising them for purposes of contemporaneous art. So
Brunelleschi” began (1407) to study ancient architecture with this
view; Leo Baptista Alberti (1404–1472) in his works, Della
Statua, Della Pittura I435, De Re Aedificatoria 1457, and
many others with regard to the other departments of art. Urged
by Brunelleschi, Francesco Squarcione (1394–1474) travelled
in Greece, and brought with him originals “in his head as well
as in drawings’ (tum mente tum chartis). He was followed by
the indefatigable Cyriaco de’ Pizzicolli of Ancona (about 1430,
and again in 1447), and a number of other travellers. It is a
well-known fact that many of the later artists studied and
wrote on ancient monuments. -
The scholars, on the other hand (e.g. Poggio Bracciolini,
1380–1459) began with the study of the ancient writers on art'
such as Vitruvius, Frontinus, the elder Pliny, subsequently also
* See Stark, Handbuch der Archaeologie der Kunst, Leipzig, 1878, pp. 8o seqq.
I must refer the reader to this exhaustive though unfortunately fragmentary work, in
which he will be well directed, if he desires to become acquainted with the history.
of archaeological studies—an inquiry far from the aim of the present essay.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 7
Lucian and Pausanias; and when they referred to monuments
it was with a view to classical literature, mythology, or, at the
utmost, antiquities.
A third spirit in which the ancient remains were studied in
these times was the local patriotic feeling of the Italians, espe-
cially with regard to Rome. And so began, with Francesco
Poggio (1404–1459) and Biondo Flavio (1388–1463), the
study of the topography of ancient Rome, together with col-
lections of epigraphic remains. Pomponius Laetus founded
the Accademia degli Antiquarii in Rome (1478—1553). When
monuments of art are dealt with by these writers, it is chiefly
in the light of their immediate bearing upon the past history
of Rome, and this history again is somewhat influenced by
the patriotic interest in their native soil. The works of art
are introduced for the immediate purpose of illustrating to
the eye past historical events and institutions of their country.
Hence it is that busts and coins are of especial interest, not so
much for their own artistic value, as because they are means
of illustrating the personal history of Rome.
With Winckelmann (1717–1768) the separate and really
independent study of ancient art begins". Not that ancient
monuments had not been studied before, and had not furnished
topics for many learned and excellent books; but in Winckel-
mann we have the literary, artistic and antiquarian spirit used
as an instrument for a new and independent study of ancient art
for its own sake, together with all the enthusiasm for the history
of the land which became almost his adopted home. Gifted with
a sensitive organism to start with, with a keen feeling for all that
is beautiful and great, sympathies widened out by the study of
history, of natural science, of modern German, French, Italian
and English as well as ancient literature, and by his subsequent
travels and intercourse with people of varied standing and
interests, fully conversant with the classical authors and open to
their spirit, he combined with these advantages a sound training in
* Stark has rightly pointed out how great and wide-spread was the interest in
ancient works before the time of Winckelmann, and how much preparatory work had
been done, not only in Italy but also in the other countries of Europe, France,
England, Germany, and the Netherlands.
8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
the practice of art itself, living in its very atmosphere in Rome,
and having as his friend and adviser a genuine artist, Raphael
Mengs. Such were the circumstances that favoured him in
the consummation of his task". At the same time Pompeii
and Herculaneum are discovered; Etruria, Southern Italy and
Sicily yield their rich harvest in ancient works, especially vases;
the temples of Paestum and of Sicily rise from oblivion; English
and French architects wander through Rome and Dalmatia to
Greece, Asia Minor and Syria. After twenty years a series
of valuable exact reproductions of monuments from Pola,
Salona, Athens, Miletus, Ephesus, Byzantium, Palmyra and
Heliopolis are offered to the student. Societies are founded,
and collections arranged systematically, and great museums
formed by order of the state, as the papal museums at Rome,
and the British Museum in London. The most wide-spread
interest begins to be felt in archaeology, the most powerful and
refined minds of all European nations, especially among the
higher classes of society, devote themselves to this study.
But again there was a tendency to emphasise or obtrude one
or other of the component elements alone, and for its own sake,
while it ought to have been used merely as a means to the
ultimate end. Soon in this or that archaeologist we find the
scholarly side, or the purely antiquarian interest predominating,
or the mere subjective, dilettante pleasure in the artistic quali-
ties of the works, or even (and this is most frequent as it is
most detrimental) the collector's attitude of mind, who wishes
merely to amass curiosities, whether Greek or Fiji. These
relapses were bound to take place so long as the study was not
firmly constituted in its method, and this could only be brought
about by its introduction into the acknowledged circle of studies,
its admission into the university course. This was done,
especially in Germany.
But here begins a new phase of the struggle for inde-
pendence. The danger from the side of art, of dilettantism and
curiosity-hunting is now removed. In the universities and
the university teachers, it was not probable that the artist's
* See Stark, as above, pp. 162, 163, and especially C. Justi, Winckelmann,
sein Leben, seine Werke und seine Zeitgenossen, Leipzig, 1872.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 9
attitude of mind would give the key-note to the study of
archaeology. In fact the predominance of the scholastic and
philological method would even tend to counteract any real
artistic appreciativeness which is a necessary condition of even
a sober and systematic study of the history of art. Before the
establishment of special chairs for archaeology, men like
Fr. Creuzer would draw archaeological matters into the pale of
their lectures on philosophical and philological subjects. In
order that classical archaeology might be at all introduced as
a separate study, it had to appeal to the fixed body of the
philological faculty, and had to express its claims to utility
in terms intelligible to these scholars, in fact in terms of
philology or antiquities. Then the teachers of archaeology were,
and have been until quite recently, enlisted from those who
were primarily classical students, while the students who took
up this study were generally students of philology, destined
to be teachers of Latin and Greek in Schools". The result has
been that, though at present archaeology is fully established as
a separate branch of study, it is still considered as a subordinate
department of classical philology; simply because the student of
archaeology having to make use of ancient authors must to
some degree be conversant with the classics, and is therefore
put down as a philologist of a special and restricted department
of that study”. Accordingly in Stark's book”, however justly in
many ways that archaeologist has conceived the province of the
study, archaeology is considered to hold a somewhat subordinate
position to classical philology, as one of its subdivisions. Now,
however wide our conception of the term philology may be, it
can but be detrimental to clearness thus to misunderstand the
relations between these various branches of classical learning.
The study of ancient monuments must be in no way subordi-
nate to the study of ancient literature.
Archaeology is together with ancient literature a co-ordinate
1 It may fairly be questioned whether such students and in general those of an
essentially philological turn of mind are best adapted to make good archaeologists.
2 It must never be forgotten, however, that the archaeologist must combine
classical learning with artistic feeling in an equal degree for a new combined
method and purpose.
* Stark, as above, I and 2.
IO ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
*
department of the science of classical antiquity. It deals with
that side of Greek life which, in its own peculiar and unwritten
language, conveys one of the most essential characteristics in the
history of that people. Though, as a matter of fact, most people
are more familiar with classical authors as a source for informa-
tion, the remains of art, especially of Greek art, are, from its
| position in antiquity, one of the most important sources for the
t study of the institutions, customs, and, above all, the spirit and
' character of that people, and of the changes and modifications of
its constitution and spirit in various localities and various epochs.
It is universally recognised that the study of Renaissance art is
indispensable to any student of Renaissance history. Yet we
may deliberately say that art was much more fully a part of
Greek life, domestic, public, and religious, than it was of the
life of the Renaissance. It is difficult for those of our time
to realise this primary and essential position held by art
with the Greeks, simply because art is not to us the great
reality which it was to the ancient Greeks. To us art is
either associated with museums, or is considered a part of
domestic decoration. A very minute portion of our time is
devoted to its contemplation. We cannot help feeling as if we
were doing something extraordinary and not belonging to the
daily routine of life, when we contemplate a picture or a statue,
however much attention we may devote to such matters in
comparison with the general public. This was never felt by the
Greeks. Nothing proves this uncommonness of art with us
better than the assertion that it is found necessary to make
of our appreciative power. Self-assertion always points to the
fact that what is asserted is uncommon or unexpected in the
individual or in his natural surroundings. This, with respect to
our subject, is expressed by the conscious distinction which is
established by those who self-complacently draw a fixed line
between themselves and those whom they consider as not gifted
with the same amount of appreciation. The Greeks had no
more need of asserting that side of their mental constitution,
than we should have of asserting the difference between those
among us who can read and write, and those who can not. For
art was so essential a part of Greek life, was so constantly be-
fore their eyes, so thoroughly permeated their system, that it
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. II
occupied the position of one of the common needs of their life.
We have ours; they had theirs, and this was one of them.
But while recognising that the Greeks were an essentially
artistic nation, we have further to bring out the fact that, of all
the phases which the artistic spirit manifests, the plastic character
of mind is that which the Greeks most emphatically present to
us. I cannot hope that the force of such a statement will be
immediately realised by those who have not been in the habit of
looking upon the history of Greece with such questions in view,
though it has been clearly put before". I am convinced that if
scholars give their attention to it they will find it realised in all
individual instances. It is so important for the true conception
of the position of Greek archaeology in the general study of
Greek antiquity, that I must do all in my power to make it
understood. I shall do this, even at the risk of being taxed
with philosophising, by attempting to account for the origin of
phenomena and their effect, instead of merely remaining con-
tent with a statement of dead facts, which, indeed, from being
merely stated can hardly be at once recognised as facts. In
other words I shall attempt, first, to define what is here meant
by the term plastic; secondly, to trace the causes which underlie
this distinctive characteristic of the Greek race; and, thirdly, to
indicate the chief manifestations of the plastic spirit among the
Greeks.
In the first place, it is incumbent upon us to make clear
what such phrases as ‘the plastic mind,’ ‘the plastic spirit,” in
the active sense of the words, are meant to convey. I must here
anticipate what needs much fuller and deeper exposition; but
seeing that they concern the most important aspect of Greek
life, a clear understanding of these terms is a necessary prelimi-
nary to any adequate study of Greek art.
Of the two arts which present themselves to the eye, plastic
art or sculpture differs from pictorial art or painting, in two
principal points, its material forms and its choice of subjects.
* Welcker, Kleine Schriften, III. p. 332: “Was die Griechen auszeichnet, ihrer
Mythologie und Poesie den höchsten Werth giebt und ihre ganze Bildung durchdringt,
das Plastische, tritt in den Werken der Künste, die von ihm den Namen haben, in
grösserer Anschaulichkeit und Fülle hervor als in allen Uebrigen. Darum sind sie
eine Schule der Alterthumskenntniss überhaupt und ein nothwendiger und grosser
Bestandtheil der Alterthumsstudien.” -
I 2 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
First then it differs in the material. The sculptor represents
bodies in their solidity and roundness, as they are. The painter
translates the roundness and depth to a plane surface, and
therein departs from reality, in giving the semblance of volume
instead of real volume. So too in details; the sculptor, for
instance, comes nearer the reality of hair in modelling ridges
into the surface, elevations, recessions; the painter produces the
illusion of varying depth by means of light and colour. To
produce these effects the painter must study appearances, reflect
upon laws of chiaroscuro and perspective ; he must, so to say, be
conscious of the difference between things as they are and as
they appear to be. While the sculptor is nearer reality, is
simply observing, the painter must be more reflective, intro-
duce more abstraction.
Secondly, sculpture differs from painting in the choice of its
subjects. Both sculpture and painting represent forms of or-
ganic life, and when the painter has to represent parts even of
the inorganic world, as for instance a rock, in so far as painting
has a vocation as an art, he arranges these parts one with
another, chooses, accentuates, and omits, in fact makes a com-
position, so that the whole receives that unity of organisation
which makes a picture a work of art in contradistinction to a
mere accurate reproduction. He harmonises the multiplicity of
nature into unity in accordance with the laws of association
inherent in the human mind. The artist gives life to the dead
in introducing the natural design of human mind into nature
as he reproduces her in his work. Now organisation, or life,
in the first instance manifests itself to our senses or our imagina-
tion in that there is a central unity belonging to the parts,
towards which they all tend, so that none is accidental, but all
are essential to the whole. A hand separate, an arm separate,
would appear to us dead; but a hand joined to an arm and the
arm to a complete body is living to us. A branch severed from
the tree is dead or dying. When in active interaction with it,
receiving its sap from the tree of which it is a real and breathing
part, a part which contributes to the maintenance of the whole
organism, it is living. In what we call an organism multiplicity
is bound up into unity. Now our senses and our imagination,
in contradistinction to inner analysing, demand that this unity
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. I 3
should be localised, that we should be made to perceive the
centre or vital point of this unity. This centre or vital point
will be either physical or moral: either the actual mathematical
centre, or the individual point of the greatest moral importance,
as, the head in a human organism with regard to spirit, the
chest with regard to physical strength, or the person of the
accused in a trial scene. This, of course, is a very general
statement of the principle, for the central point of interest
in a work of sculpture or painting may vary in its position
according to the special nature of the subject represented.
But sculpture and painting differ fundamentally in the way
in which they give this organic life to their representations. A
painting can represent bodies” in their natural, environment. It
represents the centre, the foreground and the background. In a
statue this is not the case. Here we have only the body itself,
the human figure, with no foreground or background of any
kind”. The unity which gives organic life to a statue , must
therefore be localised within the body itself, the leading lines”
must return into the work, or else they will drive the eye
towards something which has no existence in the work, and all
unity will be lost. In the picture, on the other hand, this life-
giving unity is not to be found wholly in one or other element
alone, but lies in the relation between the several independent
parts, and is to be localised in the centre of the picture between
the foreground and background, in the unity of composition
which unites the numerous separate parts or bodies into an har-
* For clearness' sake I shall merely allude to human figures, the only true sphere
of sculpture.
* I do not include purely decorative sculpture, in which sculpture is subservient
to another more general end.
* In every statue we can distinguish the leading lines corresponding to the
attitude of the figure. In the statue of a Hypnos in the Louvre museum the arms are
folded above the head, and it will be easy for the reader to understand how the
lines may be said to return into the work. On the other hand, in the statue of the
Borghese Gladiator in the same museum, one arm is stretched forward and upraised,
the other lowered and stretched back; the statue, as we have it, is but half a
composition, with no unity in itself, and the lines lead us away from the central
point to the wall of the museum or some other work which happens to be near.
These leading lines correspond greatly to the irons in that important first stage of
the modelling of a statue, which is called ‘putting up the irons,’ round which
the soft clay to be modelled is massed.
I4. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
monious whole. This centre, moreover, is not so definite or
definable as in a statue, but may, and in many of the best
pictures does, lie not in the centre of the drawing, but in the
unity of colour, the tone of the picture, the mood which all the
single parts evoke in the spectator”. Even if the statue of a
Venus is introduced into a picture, the centre of life will not
necessarily lie within the statue independent of its surroundings;
but may, and generally will (if it be really a picture and not
merely a study)*, lie in the relation between the statue and its
surroundings; how it stands out from the wall which is its
background, how the lines lead up to it from the front and
the side, what shadows it throws or what light is reflected
upon it, how its colour is affected by the surrounding colour,
as a curtain, and how it modifies the adjoining colours, how it
chimes in with the whole tone; finally, what character it gives
to the place represented, whether a palatial hall or a Greek
temple, solemnity, wealth, refinement, or luxury, how the figure
bows down in adoration before it, or critically balances its
merits, and so on. *
Therefore, as with regard to the means of expression used in
the two arts, so also in the choice of subjects, painting differs from
sculpture in that it does not depend upon the simplicity of purely
sensuous observation, but is rather concerned with the relation
between things; it is more abstract and must introduce re-
flexion. Plastic art corresponds rather to things in themselves;
painting (and this is still more the case with poetry) corresponds
rather to the relation between things. The plastic mind is simply
* No doubt painting is able to represent the same objects as sculpture, and has
frequently done so with great effect; but it is essentially painting in what it can do
more than sculpture, in representing that which can be best expressed by its own
peculiar means of expression. An actor in a pantomime no doubt can represent
a spoken dialogue; yet the strength of the pantomime lies in the representation
of action by means of expressive and graceful movements, and not in narrative or
dialogue which is the strong point of the spoken drama.
* Modern artists often forget the difference that exists between a picture and a
study. Many of the pictures by ancient masters in museums were considered by them
merely as studies, as Leonardo's head of Christ. I purposely omit portraits, as
their chief aim is accuracy of reproduction. Were it not destructive of clearness,
however, I could show how in a less manifest way the same rules of composition
apply even to them.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. I5
observing ; the pictorial and the poetic minds are less intuitive,
more reflective and associative. .
Hence the plastic mind, in the active sense of the term, comes
to mean the mind which acts through the senses alone, by pure
and simple sensuous observation; while the pictorial or the
poetic tendency is less intuitive, more reflective and associative.
The word ‘plastic’ in this active sense has been so long in use in
Germany to express this definite idea, that though less widely
used in England, it becomes a necessity to adopt it in dealing
with the present subject.
The ancient Greeks were thus ‘simply' observing and plastic
in mind; while we of modern times are, so to say, verbal rather
than plastic. The Greeks thought by means of the inner repre-
sentation of the things themselves, while we think by the repre-
sentations of words"; be it in recalling their sound or their written
symbols. We have lost the power of simple observation and our
interest in the things themselves, that is, things independent of
their relation to other things or to us. The Greek carried his
humanity into inanimate nature, endowed it with a self-centred
life of its own ; we draw nature into the sphere of humanity and
regard it in the light of use or conscious pleasure. But to look
at things thus with a view to use implies reflexion and thought
concerning these things, and this counteracts the simple ob-
servation of their form. Hence we are bad observers”. For
* Besides many causes for this turn of our mind, one of the most manifest is the
multiplication of books, and the prevalence of reading as a means of communicating
thought. In reading the eye is made a mere handmaid for the other sense of
hearing. We do not look at the form for its own sake, but call upon the essential
function of the eye only just enough to stimulate by association the memory of the
sound of words. When once we realise what an amount of this sound and word reading
is done by the average man in our days, as compared with a Greek, we shall no longer
be astonished to find that we are losing the power of observing things; so that modern
philologists and psychologists are not wholly wrong when they consider language to
be the only currency of thought. -
* For several years I have made a point of inquiring into the power or rather
feebleness of observation of people I meet, and it was strange to notice the effect
when their attention was directed to this side of their nature. Unlike the M.
Jourdain who was not aware of a power which he really possessed, they are
astonished to find that they are hardly possessed of a faculty, with which they
were always in the habit of crediting themselves. With a view to testing the above,
I asked one who was present while I was writing these lines the colour of his
I6 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
to fix Outer objects in our memory we make but scanty use of
impressions of eye and touch, in fact use them merely as provi-
sional means to be cast away so soon as we have translated them
into some associative thought which is really bound up with
some word. The Greek on the other hand would translate even
abstract ideas into some visible or tangible form, and would thus
strengthen his memory by an image and not by a word.
In the second place, we have to consider the causes which
underlie this distinctive characteristic of the Greek race. These
causes are twofold, physical and social. -
First as regards physical causes, we must remember that
their climate held the happy mean between the tropical and
enervating and the cold and indurating. Neither of these ex-
tremes is conducive to a spirited appreciation of the forms in
nature; the tropical in not sufficiently raising man above the
vegetating impassivity of sense, the colder in calling too strongly
upon the active exertion of intellectual and physical power to
allow of any dwelling upon pleasurable impressions from with-
out. The tropical does not sufficiently stimulate the construc-
tive impulse of mind to build or to fashion what nature gives
into forms that suit man's use or fancy; the colder drives him
before all things to build himself a house, to transfer thither his
life and his interest, firmly hedged off from the outer world,
which henceforth he must subjugate to his use. The tropical
mother's eyes. He informed me that she was dead. “But don’t you remember
it?’ After some attempts he found he could not. But later on he started up
with, “they were blue.’ ‘How comes it that you know now and did not know
before?' I asked. “Because I remembered that two years ago we spoke about
it.’ He had no image in his eye but he remembered the words. Mr F. Galton
(“Statistics of Mental Imagery,” Mind, 1880, p. 301 seq.) has made some interesting
observations which bear out my generalisations. One striking result of his induction
is the fact that, of those whose power of reproducing mental images he tested, the
hundred scientific men were most deficient, while the schoolboys were far higher
in the scale. No doubt scientific men are much occupied in reflecting on the rela-
tion between larger groups of things and spend the greater part of their time in
reading books, while boys have retained their naive power of observation of the
individual things that surround them. Even if some of these scientific men were
habitually engaged in experiments and scientific observation, their sphere of interest
in the things observed was no doubt abnormally centralised in that one group of
phenomena which belonged to their scientific specialty. This specialisation is an out-
come of modern social development and was unknown to the Greeks who maintained
their all-roundness of interest. -
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 17
drives man's senses and thought out into the outer world ; the
colder drives them within and makes him primarily self-centred
so that he views the things without in their bearing upon the
subject within.
The same holds good with regard to the constitution of the
soil. Midway between luxurious vegetation which demands no
exertion to yield its fruit, and the relentless sterility which
makes work the mainspring of man's life, the Greek soil roused
its inhabitants to exertion of energy, yet permitted of their
seeing in nature a kind and beautiful mother. Both climate and
Soil favoured, what may be expressed in the one short word,
play. While neither the East nor the South provided their
inhabitants with sufficient energy for sportiveness (which always
demands Some surplus of vital spirits), the northern climes har-
dened energy into the sternness and earnestness of labour. It
was this physical constitution of the surroundings of the Greeks
which led them to their early and most characteristic institution,
the athletic games. And this institution again, coupled with their
primary predisposition to observation, fostered and developed
their appreciation of the human form, thus becoming one of the
chief promoters of the plastic spirit in its higher stages.
With regard to the physical causes which in the most ele-
mentary way furthered the observing and plastic power of the
Greeks, we must also bear in mind the physical geography of
Greece. Here again we are midway between the flat expanse
of endless plains which do not impress the eyes of the inhabi-
tants either with succinctness of form or with variety, and the
awful ruggedness of alpine districts which oppress man and his
fancy with their stern majesty, and restrict his horizon. Plains
and valleys, free and wide, open to the eye, moulded and varied
into individual form by clear-cut hills, loosen as it were the
fetters of fancy, but limit its sphere by the bounds of modera-
tion and harmony. So also the sea, which appeals so strongly
to imagination and enterprise, did not wash a flat shore with its
endless procession of waves, suggesting the infinite and vague,
but was fettered into form in the numerous inlets, gulfs, and
bays, clasped and held as it were by the firm land. Thus the
natural surroundings favoured in every way the free and full
development of the powers of observation of the Greeks.
* J
W. 2
I8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
Secondly, as regards Social causes, the political constitution
of the Greeks exercised a similar influence upon the formation
of their mind in the same direction. Their states and communi-
ties, while affording to the individual citizen ample opportunities
for widening his sympathies and throwing his desires outside his
immediate selfish interests, were not so great in size or so nume-
rous in inhabitants, as to withdraw themselves from immediate
physical perception, and to become mere abstractions inviting
vague generalisations. Nor was there that cosmopolitan feeling,
which in our days drives even the simplest of modern citizens (to
whom distance is measured by the telegraph) to deal with such
vast terms as ‘humanity, and ‘evolution,’ of which he can have
no definite image in his mind. Then, again, the full Greek citi-
zen had time and leisure for ‘play’; for the slaves performed
most of the tasks necessary for the maintenance of life. In our
times, on the other hand, the economical struggle for existence
has transfused all classes of Society and has given an essential
stamp to the inner nature of man, Saturating his whole being.
We are therefore sophisticated in our observation of things and
do not meet them with the naïveté with which a Greek allowed
himself to be impressed. Play is becoming more and more a
delicacy in lieu of a part of daily food, and even the wealthiest
among us, who are not immediately concerned with the material
struggle for existence, cannot help feeling more or less con-
sciously that a life not immediately productive is not quite in
keeping with the spirit that surrounds us. However far we may
be removed from the mercenary spirit, our age has received its
impress from this economical struggle of modern society, ever
since free competition was introduced. It is not an age of
chivalry or of feudalism, and, in spite of European congresses
and standing armies, it is not one of national principles; it is
essentially one of economical struggle. We all feel the reality
and moral weight of the tasks of peaceful economical subsis-
tence; and this view, as applied to all things, primarily, though
but half consciously, affects our senses. This view of things,
however, is essentially detrimental to a purely playful and
artistic contemplation of things and events". &
* See Essay VIII.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. I9
In the same way the more strictly social institutions of the
Greeks, all that determined the daily occupation of their lives,
furthered what we may call roundness in them, so that all sides
of their nature, physical and mental, were equally developed;
while we, in the natural course of events, have been forced into
specialisation and division of labour, which rob us of the simple
and sound observation of things. The fact is that one who is a
physiologist for three quarters of his day, or a political econo-
mist, or anything else, will look at things chiefly or primarily in
the light of physiology, or economical generalisation, or whatever
his special subject may be.
Institutions, again, such as the palaestra and the agonistic
festivals went far to develop the feeling of the Greeks for form,
as has been stated above". Further, the political position of their
country, menaced as it was by powerful and hostile neighbouring
states far surpassing them in number of inhabitants, forced the
Greeks to rely upon the superiority of the individual soldier in
skill and strength. Thus, while encouraging the institution of
the athletic games, it tended to increase their appreciation and
study of the human form and its manifestation of strength and
health. - *
Finally, their religion, which no doubt to a great extent took
its particular form from the natural predisposition of the race,
reacted upon their faculties of observation through its rites and
its beautiful sacred images. The essence of the Jewish and
Christian faiths is the spirituality of the Divine power, and to
attempt at producing an image of divinity, whether inwardly
or externally, is condemned as a sin. But even the highest and
subtlest of feelings were thus brought home to the Greeks by **
this very process. -
In the third place, having examined the causes, we have to
indicate several manifestations of the ‘simply' observing and
plastic spirit of the Greeks which we notice as the most striking
characteristic in all the spheres of their life and thought.
1 A more thorough investigation of the relation between this institution and the
Art of the Greeks I hope to make the topic of a special inquiry. Since this was in
print, I have given a preliminary sketch of this relation, in the form of an address at
the Royal Institution of Great Britain, April 13, 1883; see Roc. A'. I. for 1883.
2—2
2O Essays ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [I.
Their very language is immediately based upon observation
of nature. The Greek draws his words from the direct source
of nature, while the Roman introduces some abstraction, Some
mental association. Cicero” mentions with some self-satisfaction
that the Roman word for a feast, convivium, which draws us up
to the association of intellectual converse, is far nobler and less
material than the Greek word orvparróa'uov, which draws us down to
the material act of drinking. Where the Roman says benevolens,
which points to the inner well-wishing, the Greek says Trpóppov,
which lays the stress on the outer object, a forward, outward-
leaning soul. The words Tpó8arov and eixiročes 800s evidence
their minute observation of outer nature, denoting that the sheep
in walking places one foot before the other, while cattle drag one
foot after the other. It is most interesting to read through Homer
or any one of the great poets with this question in view, and to see
how perfectly simple and sensuous are the attributes and com-
pound words used by them. The more we study their language
the more strongly will this characteristic impress itself upon us.
In their building, too, and engineering, the first step with
the Greeks is the clinging to nature and the adaptation to the
natural environment. The Romans, however, construct almost
irrespective of the environing nature, appearing almost to repel
the suggestions made to their senses by the material at hand.
While the Roman builds his theatre on a plain, a colossal
monument of his imperium over nature, the Greek seeks a
hill-side, itself affording shelter and an arrangement of seats
from each of which the stage is visible. The Greek leads his
water underground or in grooves cut into the rock, the Roman
erects arched aqueducts for miles and milssº'over the country.
The same applies to the roads. . -- -
In their conceptions of the state we notice above all things
that the state to the Greeks was not a mere imaginary circle
which encompasses the really existing individuals; it was an
essence, an existing being, which even presented man with that
attribute which constitutes the difference between the animals
and himself, which makes out of the £30w a £60w troAvruköv.
Herakleitos attributes such reality to the state that he considers
* De Senectute, XIII.
I.] THE STUDY OF CIASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 2 I
all men who attempt to imagine themselves existing indepen-
dently of it to be dreaming awake and waking in dreams. Plato,
in the Republic, derives the morality of the individual from the
Idea of justice in the state; while the modern philosopher, Francis
Lieber, in his Political Ethics, attempts to establish a kind of
morality for the state corresponding to the idea of goodness which
he finds guiding the individual. State, with the Greeks, was not
a mere name, but a reality, a thing. g
The religion of the Greeks has ever been recognised as in-l
timately connected with their feeling for form and its manifes-
tation in their sculpture. As Greek art was strongly influenced
by their mythology, so their works of art again reacted upon and .
modified their religious feeling". Yet both in their mythology
and in their religious art they clung to nature and avoided
abstraction. While the gods of the Greeks arose out of nature,
and did not transcend it, even when they developed into full
personality, the specifically Roman gods, such as Saturnus, Ops,
Terminus, arose from preconceived notions of human needs”.
Their most ideal statues breathe of life. The Greek conceptions
of gods were built up from the real bases of human life, and
the statue of a god differed from man merely in that it was
perfect in its qualities, which man is not. The highest concep-
tion of what is admirable in man constituted their gods. The
early Oriental and the Byzantine art expressed the divine, the
difference between man and god, by the uncommonness or
abnormality of the types by means of which they chose to
represent their gods: and so we have the fanciful combination
of man and beast in Egyptian and Assyrian art, and we see
the readiness with which the picture of a Madonna turned dark
brown from age was accepted in Byzantine painting as a type of
something preeminently holy, as the ‘Black Madonna.’ There-
fore it is, that these Oriental types must remain the same and
there can be no development, or else the known difference be-
tween man and gods would not remain fixed; while the Greek
* I need but remind the reader of the passage in Quintilian (Inst. Orat. XII. Io. 9)
concerning the influence of Pheidias's Olympian Zeus upon the religious conception of
that god: Cujus pulchritudo adjecisse aliquid receptae religioni videfur; adeo majestas
operis deum aequavit.
* Th. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, Vol. I. p. 165.
22 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
gods may develop in their type and in their representation,
because influenced and essentially modified by impressions from
nature. The Oriental is the upshot of reflexion and abstraction,
the Greek of “simple’ observation which directs the course of
the imagination. |X
It has further been universally acknowledged that Greek
poetry is essentially plastic in character. Its imagery, beginning
with the Homeric attributes, appeals above all things to the eye".
The persons and things described stand before our eyes in their
visible form before they appeal to our sympathy with their
spiritual qualities; nay, in Homer, who manifests his apprecia-
tion of form and his study of nature in his detailed descriptions
of the anatomy of the body in his wounded or falling heroes,
spiritual qualities such as majesty, power, kindliness, effeminacy,
vileness, are merely conveyed by the description of their
physical correlatives. And we must not ignore this element in
the representation of the Greek dramas. The actors were above
all chosen with regard to their physical fitness for the parts:
stature and voice had to convey the individuality of the character
before the acting was considered. And we must not forget that
the eye of the audience, with its artistic fastidiousness, had to be
satisfied by attitudes which were to present living sculpture, and
that the dancing of the chorus had no associations of childish-
ness, effeminacy, and frivolity (as it invariably has with us),
but was an art in the true sense of the word, which translated
into visible rhythm the emotions evoked by the action.
Finally, even in their philosophy, we have the same manifes.
tations of the plastic spirit, not only in the simplicity with which
the Ionic hylozoists seek for the principle of the world” in
e-... tº ºr " '
*
* Lessing, in his Laokoon, could not have chosen a more unfortunate repre-
sentative than Homer, to illustrate the difference between pictorial and verbal prin-
ciples in art, and there can be no doubt that he forces the data into accordance with
his general principles. The distinctive characteristic of the descriptions of Homer
is that they are essentially plastic. .’
* Greek philosophy as a whole seems to me to differ from modern philosophy
taken as a whole in that it is primarily metaphysical, while modern philosophy is
primarily psychological. The former strives before all and above all to find the first
principle of things (including man), of the visible and invisible world. The latter
more or less consciously draws the human mind as a circle round all things whose
first principle is to be found. The Greek by this fundamental frame of his mind is
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 23
material substances such as water, air, fire, but in the artistic
and sculpturesque form which the thoughts of the great philoso-
phers like Plato and Aristotle take. Their instances are re-
peatedly taken from the fashioning arts, and the main point of
controversy between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy is
expressed in the relation between matter and form, the sculptor's
material and the form which he infuses into it. In Plato above
all we notice the supreme influence of the artistic training and
the artistic surroundings. Nay, I venture to maintain that, un-
less the artistic and plastic constitution of the Greek mind is
taken into account, Plato's doctrine of Ideas can never be under-
stood. What puzzles and baffles the modern student, and makes
Plato to him a mixture of the profound and the fantastic, is that
Plato's Ideas on the one hand correspond to universals, and
that on the other hand he endows them with real, almost
material, existence. These conceptions can only be understood
when we take into account the plastic nature of the Greek mind,
in which thought and form were inseparably connected, and
when we remember that art was a great reality to the Greeks
and to Plato. In the art of a Pheidias we have a representation |
of human form which nevertheless rises above every individual
man; every individual is imperfect, the statue of Zeus was not.
A mind which is thus from childhood saturated with the ideal
forms that surround it, will be able to feel much more keenly
the reality of that which floats above the incomplete individual |
beings, than one to whom art is not such a reality.
I have devoted all this space to suggesting in some way
the plastic character of the Greek mind because it is the fun-
damental characteristic of Greek culture. If we are ignorant
of this quality, it is vain for us to strive at appreciating Greek
antiquity and at conceiving justly the position of classical
archaeology. We may now say with Welcker: “that the
plastic 'spirit which distinguishes the Greeks, gives to their
mythology and poetry the highest worth and penetrates their
whole culture, stands forth in greater clearness and richness in
º - - * , ,
driven to find the first principle in a great unity corresponding to a visible thing; the
modern philosopher finds this first principle in some Relation or Thought which
cannot be conceived without the supposition of a mind human or similar to it.
24. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
the art which takes its name from it than in all others. There-
fore the plastic arts are a school of the science of antiquity in
general and a necessary and important constituent element of
the studies of antiquity. After all that has been said, it will
now be evident, I hope, that the study of Greek art is of suf-
ficient importance to be carried on in an independent manner,
and that at all events it is in no way subordinate to classical
philology. We are now therefore free to review the various
departments of the study of antiquity, and fix the position of
archaeology among them.
The whole study of classical antiquity may be conveniently
and profitably divided according to the different sources from
which information concerning this bygone period of culture is
derived.
Broadly speaking, our knowledge of classical antiquity is
derived from three main sources: (1) Words, (2) Monuments,
(3) Events.
(1) The branch which mainly derives its information from
words is Philology, in the widest sense of the term ; and this
again is divided into two groups, according as we study the
words and their combinations as such, the formal side, or the
contents of what is conveyed by combinations of words, the
material side. The former is philology in the restricted sense
and has to deal with the forms of words and their meaning,
grammar, dialect, &c.; the latter comprises ancient literature
and philosophy, and deals with the thoughts and feelings of
the ancients in so far as they are expressed by means of
words. -
(2) Archaeology draws its information concerning the life,
thought and feelings of the ancients from the monuments.
If we carefully study the monuments that have come down to
us, they will not only tell us their own story, but that of the
men who made them, of the people who surrounded them, the
time and country in which the artists lived. As we shall see,
archaeology will have to draw some of its information from clas-
sical authors; but this will not be for the sake of what is written
or of the author, or of the events recorded, but for the light which
is thrown upon the art and the individual monuments.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 25
(3) Greek and Roman history" is concerned with the events
which took place in those particular localities and within a certain
period of time; and, as a science, it must investigate the causes,
natural, social and political, which led to certain events. It
might be urged that there is no ground for this distinction
between literature and philosophy on the one hand and history
on the other : for history is handed down by means of words.
Yet they are clearly distinguishable in that words are an es-
sential part of literature and philosophy; while in the case
of history they are mere signs and symbols of events. Without
the words which compose the Homeric poems or the Nico-
machean Ethics, these works are not conceivable; without
Thucydides, Pericles would still have lived and acted, and we
might learn these facts from Plutarch or some other source.
We can, it is true, treat an historical work from a literary or even
a grammatical point of view, and as a matter of fact this is done,
and perhaps too much or too exclusively; but then we are not
historical. What the historian looks for are the events, and,
because it is in a book or on a battle-field that he immedi-
ately apprehends them, he is not on that account a philologist
or a topographer. *
There are intermediate studies within this broad threefold
division (see B, in the scheme given below). Much information
concerning the Greek and Roman past is derived from inscrip-
tions, and these decidedly represent words; yet of such im-
portance is the material form of the letters, so dependent for
recognition are they upon the eye of the student, that they
partake of the character of monuments, and so the position of
epigraphy really lies midway between philology and archaeology,
overlapping into both.
So too ancient topography is a Source of much important
information. Its aim is to discover the sites of ancient political
centres and of the great events of past political life. It derives
its information equally from a kind of observation of things and
remains belonging to the study of archaeology, more especially
of the architectural division, and from the records of historical
* The word history might comprise the whole of the knowledge concerning the
past; but it is here used in the most restricted acceptation of the term.
26 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
events. In fact it is archaeologically historical or historically
archaeological, bringing out the historical bearing of ancient re-
mains and exemplifying and illustrating history by these material
testimonies. Its domain thus lies on the border-line between
archaeology and history, and like epigraphy, it overlaps into two
departments.
Finally, what is called the study of antiquities, gathers its
material equally from all these sources and is concerned with
the manners, customs and institutions of the ancients (see C, in
the scheme below). It uses literature to gather information con-
cerning customs and habits. It views the events of history, not
to follow their sequence and their causes and effects, but to
collect from this sequence that which remains as fixed insti-
tutions; a difference of aspect which can be compared with the
difference between constitutional history and constitutional law.
It is greatly concerned with the remains of antiquity and to
some extent, therefore, deals with the same material as archae-
ology, and it is therefore not to be regretted that the meaning
of the two words is so similar; but it is well that they should
be kept apart by the difference of their origin. For the study
of antiquities does not deal with monuments as such, with regard
to the artistic style or the school, or what we may learn of the
spirit of the age from the spirit of the work; but it uses the archi-
tectural remains, the statues, vases, coins, &c., as a means to dis-
cover the customs of the Greeks with regard to their habitations,
public or religious ceremonies, dress, implements of war, peace
and commerce, and so helps to elucidate many departments of
literature and history, besides giving much information to the
archaeologist.
All these branches together constitute the whole sphere of
classical learning, and the ideal scholar would be equally
conversant with them all, while every scholar ought to study
each of them, before he directs his attention more exclusively to
the one or the other.
The accompanying scheme will serve to fix this classifi-
cation in the reader's mind. -
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 27
SCIENCE OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
derived from
A. WoRDs. Monuments. Events.
Philology Archaeology. History.
(in the widest sense).
Form Contents Technique, meaning, Political and
Etymology, Classical and spirit of social events,
Grammar, Literature Classical remains. their causes and
Dialect, &c. _, and Classical Art effects.
Philology Philosophy. studied in its
in the growth and
restricted development.
SCI1S62.
B. : WORDS. MONUMENTS. EVENTS.
Philology. . Archaeology. History.
I L- —l
Epigraphy. Topography.
Ancient Inscriptions, The sites of ancient
their form and political centres
meaning. and events.
C. WORDS. MONUMENTS. EVENTS.
Philology, Archaeology. History.
i - } _ſ
Antiquities.
Ancient manners and customs
and institutions.
It is hardly necessary to point out that these are not abso-
lute lines of distinction which sever entirely from one another
these various branches, for such they are, of one tree. It has
been sufficiently indicated how each subject may overlap into
the other, and how they may, and do in many instances, offer
valuable information and explanation to each other. But it is
necessary to define the difference between these divisions of the
study; and, in our case, it is most advisable to recognise the
position of archaeology in relation to the other spheres of scholar-
ship, that we may be able to define its ultimate aims and the
method it has to follow.
The whole department of archaeology, as of every other
branch of science, may be regarded from two different points of
view: we may view it from without as a whole, as a general
study, or from within, in which case we see the working of the
parts, as a special study. - - - -
As a general study, archaeology is conceived as a fixed and
firmly constituted department of knowledge to be definitely used
28 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [I.
for teaching purposes, to confer useful information, to foster and
to develop in the learners methodical thought, to increase in-
tellectual pleasures in refining the sense of artistic appreciation,
and to widen man's sympathies as all (especially the historical)
sciences cannot fail to do. It may be also used to supplement
other kindred branches of study, such as literature and history;
and finally it may complement our knowledge of the entire period
of past culture. Nay, in this light it will be one of the main
tasks of the teacher or demonstrator to impress the facts which
the monuments yield concerning the general spirit of each age
and locality, dwelling upon the unity which binds all the various
manifestations of one period together, and thus restoring to life
that which, when absolutely disconnected in its parts, must ever
remain dead. *
Here must be presented to the student the fully identified
monuments and the well-confirmed facts and instances concern-
ing the history of ancient art, in a chronological, reasonable and
intelligible sequence. So far as it is not absolutely necessary
to discuss them, all controverted points must be discarded.
Archaeology is to be presented in its firm and solid existence,
and not in the process and labour of its birth and growth. It
need hardly be said that this will be the groundwork upon
which the special investigator will have to take firm footing
before he begins his onward journey in search of new discove-
ries, and that the firmer this groundwork is, the greater is
the chance of information arising out of special research in
unknown districts.
As a special study, on the other hand, archaeology is viewed
without any immediate relation to other branches of study or
further practical ends. The completion of the inner constitu-
tion of archaeology itself in all its parts is the supreme end.
This is called research. It is with this that we are chiefly con-
cerned.
Here the chief aim is to increase the number of well-
confirmed facts, by adding to them material which has not yet
been identified and elevated to the rank of that mentioned under
the preceding head. This material upon which the special
archaeologist has to work consists of the monuments themselves,
and, as subsidiary to these, the literature concerning monuments
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 29
and artists. After what has been said above, I need hardly
insist that the monuments are the real points of interest, and
that we use literature merely to throw light upon them. The
passages and authors do but interest us in so far as they throw
light upon the works. So too with regard to the biographies
of artists; though we may endeavour to learn all about their
private life, even as an historian would, yet for an archaeologist
it is merely in the light of their works, it is because they were
artists, that we desire to know them as men.
The most satisfactory state of things is when literature and
monument go hand in hand, when the passages in classical
authors concerning works of art and the existing remains
confirm each other; the passage giving us definite information
concerning the monument, and the monument showing us that
the ancient author is to be trusted. This may be called full
identification. .
But in many instances we are driven to rely upon the literary
sources alone. The really artistic paintings of antiquity have all
been destroyed, and so we must gratefully accept the descriptions
of ancient authors, as enabling us to form some idea concerning
them. This idea, of course, will be most perfect, the more we
have studied the lower decorative paintings, such as frescoes and
vases, and the more complete our knowledge of the other
branches of art is. So also many of the great works of sculp-
ture, especially the temple-statues (dyaxpara), have been de-
stroyed, and here again we are driven back to the descriptions
of authors. But if these descriptions are not to be mere words,
but are to call forth any image of what the destroyed works
were like, our eye must direct our reproductive imagination by
means of the extant monuments to construct a picture which
approaches the work described. The more our eye is famili-
arised with the extant architectural sculpture of Pheidias, the
more correct will be our imaginary reconstruction of his
Olympian Zeus suggested by the verbal description of ancient
authors; as a graphic account of a tropical climate will call
forth a more real image and sensation in proportion as we have
in our travels approached those southern regions.
The greatest abundance of material however is to be found
in instances where we have only the monuments without corre-
3O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [I.
sponding passages, or with which no such passages have as yet
been identified. The museums all over Europe are full of such
works, and excavations that are being carried on, continually
yield new treasures. And if we compare this mass of un-
identified material, which the earnest student cannot, with due
regard for scientific morality, ignore, with the comparative
scantiness of firmly systematised information, we cannot help
feeling how much work remains to be done in this direction,
and even that the working power of archaeologists up to this
moment has not been properly expended and distributed, and
that there must be something radically wrong in their method
of research. And so it is. As has been stated, partly as a
result of the history of the study itself, most archaeologists, up
to the present day, have been too strongly influenced by the
philological spirit. The primary impulse was almost always
given by the literature and not by the monuments, and so not
only did their eyes fail to receive the training which would
enable them readily to perceive likeness, and settle similarity
and difference in the character of works, but they have, more
than that, lost even their original naïveté through being pre-
judiced by what passages led them to see. The result is that
observation has not been made systematic and that whenever
they do profess to use their eyes, their statements carry no
sufficient weight. Though the archaeologist is bound to make
use of his literary evidence, his chief task for the future must
be to study the actual form and nature of the existing
monuments, adopting the methods of observation which the
natural sciences have long since supplied. Palpable and mani-
fest as the advantage and urgency of this course must appear to
all who have the faintest idea of the nature of the archaeological
material, it is still far from being recognised by the great mass
of scholars. An inaccurate passage from any miserable scholiast
of the 12th century who happened to write Greek, has more
convincing power over the word-enslaved minds of many modern
scholars than the life-long careful comparative study of form in
the things themselves. The same struggle is noticeable in many
branches of research which are connected with literature. Yet
if this method of the comparative study of form has been so
fruitful when applied to plants, animals and man, how much
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 3I
more is it the case with works of art where the form is at the
same time the essence, where the anatomy is at the same time
the physiology, the psychology, and sometimes also — the
pathology. -- .
Inasmuch as the artist cannot, even if he would, reproduceſ
every detail of things in nature, he must choose, select, accentuate
or omit in what he is representing. The units or parts of his
work are borrowed from nature, but the choice at least comes from
himself, is his own, and this will be modified by the quality of
the material he uses, such as wood, clay, stone, bronze, by his
national and historical character, his individual nature, and his
artistic tact. This we call the style of a school or of an artist.
This style differs most distinctly in the various schools of Greek ,
art and in the individual artists. The duty of the archaeologist
is above all things to make a careful comparative study of the
various styles, and to arrange the monuments which have not
yet been identified, in accordance with these laws of form, so
as to constitute a morphology of Greek art. *.
The first thing to be done is to codify the identified monu-
ments which are representative of the work of the various schools
and masters. The number of these monuments is at present not
inconsiderable, and is growing with every new excavation that is
made. These monuments must be carefully studied and com-
pared in their form and the character of their work, and their
distinctive features must be enumerated.
To discover the general style of a school or an artist we must
bear in mind the difference between the forms that are essential
and those that are accidental, between the forms in which the
biologist recognises marks of heredity and those in which he
sees only adaptation. The general style will be ascertained if we
subtract what is accidental from the whole number of its features.
To take a definite instance: if we wish to ascertain the style
of Pheidias from the Elgin marbles, we must first consider the
general character of these works and all the special features of
the modelling and the technique. But then we must further
bear in mind that it is only in the temple-statues that the pure
style of Pheidias comes out, while the Elgin marbles were
merely designed by him and executed by others; furthermore,
that we only have the pedimental figures and the frieze of the
32 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, [I.
Parthenon, which belong to architectural sculpture, and merely
serve to manifest the decorative" style of Pheidias and not the
plastic style in the pure sense of the term. This decorative
element we must consider as accidental to the general style of
Pheidias’ work, and we must subtract it from the sum of the
attributes if we desire to ascertain the general style of Pheidias.
In the pedimental figures again we must bear in mind the
individual character of the single figures, which from their
special nature may call for a definite treatment which we should
be wrong in enumerating as one of the characteristics of the
general style of Pheidias. Thus, for instance, if Pheidias repre-
sents in the Eastern pediment Iris, who bears the news of the
birth of Athene, with drapery flying in the wind (a figure which
Pheidias would never have represented as a separate statue), we
must consider this flying drapery not as a characteristic of the
style of Pheidias but as accidental to it. And here it may be
noted that, as in the natural sciences it has been found that
what is adaptation in one species of the genus becomes heredity
in a subsequent one, so we find that what is accidental in
Pheidias becomes essential in Skopas: the decorative style of
Pheidias becomes the plastic style of Skopas, and the accidental
restlessness of the Iris of Pheidias becomes the essential charac-
teristic of the works of Skopas".
* As has been said before, one of the most essential attributes of plastic art is that
the spirit and unity of the work are to be centred and localised within the work
itself. In decorative sculpture however the unity lies within the whole work of which
Sculpture becomes merely a part, and to a certain extent the strict laws governing
sculpture are partly suspended to make room for those governing general decoration.
So too relief is not pure sculpture, but really stands on the boundary line between
sculpture and painting, and is therefore not exclusively under the laws of sculpture.
A pedimental group, though composed of figures in the round, has really the appearance
of standing out from its background like very high relief. This, therefore, is not
exclusively under the laws of pure sculpture. It will always be found that freedom in
attitudes and movement are put into a relief or a pedimental group quite foreign to
that in the separate statues of contemporary art. Reforms or degenerations in the
representation of the human figure are generally introduced in this class of decorative
or modified sculpture.
* The Chiaramonti Niobide attributed to Skopas reminds us very strongly in
conception and execution of the Iris from the Eastern pediment of the Parthenon,
only with still greater expression of rapid movement. This, as is evident from the
literary description and the extant replicas, was the character of the famous separate
statue of the Maenad by Skopas. Pheidias would never in a separate statue have
represented Iris as flying and rushing forward.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 33
If we wish then to obtain the general style of Pheidias from
the Iris of the pediment, we must subtract from all the attri-
butes of the work those that are due to its being (I) a pedimental
figure, and (2) a flying figure, and what remains will be essential
to his style.
But sometimes what is to be discovered is the meaning and
not the style of the figure, and then of course any attributes or
outer marks, such as a sceptre, a thunder-bolt, a caduceus, a
wreath, may be of the greatest value; but even here the study
of the style may be of immediate use. In such a case, if we
know the style, we must subtract it from the general appear-
ance, and the idiosyncrasies that remain may help the unpre-
judiced observer to a correct interpretation. Thus, if after
enumerating the characteristics of the flying figure from the
Eastern pediment of the Parthenon, we subtract from them
those features of character and style that are common to all the
extant figures by Pheidias, the remaining peculiarities will be
those indicative of rapid motion, and these will aid us in
discovering that this figure represents Iris, the fleet messenger
of the gods.
When an archaeological investigator meets with an unknown
monument, his course in attempting to identify the monument
will have to be, in the first place, carefully to study the style, to
weigh all its characteristics, both the spiritual character of the
work and the peculiar handling of the material, for instance, the
way of indicating the texture of the skin, and muscles, whether
the forms are full and round, or scanty and rigid, the peculiar
modelling of the hair (for in this no two schools of sculpture
are alike), and especially the treatment of the drapery. The
hasty observer of sculpture hardly knows how much forethought
and how much choice there is for the artist in indicating his
drapery. In dealing with this the individual habits of the artist
come out most pronouncedly. Folds may in reality fall in any
conceivable manner, but still there are only certain definite kinds
of folds that will please the eye of the spectator or suit the cha-
racter of a particular work. Every original artist searches for a
long while before he can find a method of indicating this pleasing
fall of drapery, and gradually there is formed in him, more or
less consciously, a method of attaining this result. This then
W. 3
34. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
becomes his style. If this method is clung to too severely, this
habit may arise from early want of freedom, the conventionality
of the early stages of art; if it is of a very peculiar and con-
spicuous nature and is clung to in its sameness irrespective of
its propriety in a definite instance, it becomes mannerism. But
even the artists who are equally far removed from incompetent
conventionality or affected mannerism have all a recognisable
individual way of transferring the forms of nature into clay,
marble, or bronze. Then, after careful study of these details of
style, the archaeologist will have to look among the well-
identified monuments for the same style; rather, indeed, he
ought to have them firmly fixed in his head and in his eye
beforehand from what we have called above his general study of
archaeology. He must compare it also with the same style
and subject in kindred works of art: if a statue, for instance, he
will have to search for analogous cases in coins and vases and
terra cottas and gems. Then too he must examine the material
itself, the particular kind of marble or of clay or of bronze, which
will often afford him more or less helpful indications of origin.
In the special schools of classical archaeology in the univer-
sities this method will have to be transfused into the succum et
sanguinem of the student, not only by means of lectures, but
also by practical “laboratory’ work and experiment. The
archaeological “laboratory’ ought, in its ideal state, to comprise
a great mass of material. It ought to contain: The archaeo-
logical publications with plates; architectural, geographical, and
topographical charts and diagrams; a full set of important
photographs; electrotype series of coins; impressions of gems;
above all, a complete museum of important casts, not only of
sculpture, but also of representative types of architecture, and
also several striking types of Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician,
and even modern work, to show the distinctive features
of each. These casts should be so mounted that they can
readily be moved, so that subjects that are to be compared may
be placed side by side. There should also be casts of fragments
of nude figures and of drapery, which are to be identified by the
student and for which a corresponding work is to be found by
comparison. Such an archaeological laboratory should also
contain a collection of pieces of marble representative of the
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 35
various kinds used by the ancients; fragments of bronze and
other metal, if possible such as will illustrate their technique
in beating, Soldering and casting; specimens of the various types
of vases and ceramic work; terra-cotta in figures and relief; a
few original coins, and gems, and mirrors, and glass; and also
Some good reproductions of mural paintings". *
Finally, such a laboratory ought to comprise a small sculp-
tor's studio, in which the special archaeologist is to be taught the
rudiments of modelling which are to enable him, not to vie with
the artist, but to copy a work which he is studying for its style,
and thus to give him the most important advantage of the
method of natural science, the experiment. This will be a
great help in the attempt at discovering the style of a work
of art, for we can learn by experience the method by which
it has been made, by which the individual effects upon our
senses have been called forth by the artist”. These are the
means required to implant this method of archaeological research
firmly in the special schools. -
In the second place, the investigator will have to inquire into
the origin, the provenance, of the particular discovery; to find, if
possible, the diary of excavation, or the note of purchase, or
other notes in the museum inventory. If he has ascertained the
place where it has been found, he must consider its exact position
in the earth, in what building, on what site; he will further
* This may sound very ambitious; but attention must be drawn to the fact, that
such a collection could be acquired at a comparatively small outlay. Though its
great use for purposes of archaeological study chiefly concerns us, there is another
noteworthy aspect, namely, the creation of a valuable museum of art, for the town or
institution, at an exceedingly low cost when compared with the sacrifices which a
museum of original works or even of copies of pictures would demand. Casts have
the one great artistic advantage over other classes of reproductive art, that though
they never equal the originals in fineness of texture, they are true reproductions
moulded on the originals themselves. This consideration must not be ignored by the
teacher of archaeology, and he must aim at combining the demands of public taste in
the disposition of the works with the exigencies of efficient study. Finally, it must
be insisted upon that what we are here describing is an ideal museum. Many
original specimens are to be found in some of the collections of large towns. It is not
necessary that every archaeological museum should contain either all that has been
enumerated or nothing at all. The beginning must be made with what is most
important, namely, a museum of casts. -
* See note A at the end of this Essay.
3–2
36 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
have to study the topography of the district, and the local history,
from all of which he may receive additional evidence, if he has
but properly studied the work itself. The character of the work,
the site, and any traces of attributes on the figure, or even found
near the work, will help him in deciding upon his interpretation,
whether god or man, what god" and what man, which particular
aspect of his nature. He will here have to draw upon his know-
ledge of Mythology. And finally he must turn to the literary
traditions concerning art, and see whether, and to what extent,
they confirm or disprove his inference gained by observation of
the work itself.
In the greatest number of cases, in the thousands of works
lying unrecognised in museums, we cannot hope to find any clue
from the records of ancient authors. Instead of shrinking from
the difficulties, our very object must be to study their forms and
enumerate their distinctive characteristics. We shall then in
many cases be able to assign them their place; especially when
once the work of putting within the reach of students a well-
formed manual of the identified monuments in their natural
sequence of time and place has been accomplished, and we can
fix in their minds and so lead them to grasp the characteristic
style of each epoch and school. The number of such ‘represen-
tative' monuments is not great, although sufficient to furnish
types of the chief schools; and the excavations have yielded and
are sure to yield in the future most valuable material for this
purpose. The more good research is carried on at present, and
the firmer and more highly developed this method grows, the
greater will be the facilities for making new discoveries. But this
* In the study of art-mythology, the representations of each individual god and
hero are grouped together. This is now being done on a large scale by Prof. Overbeck
in his Kunstmythologie. We are thus enabled to distinguish the various gods and
heroes through the type of human form which is given to each. But we may go
further than this. A careful study of any one type will show us how it alters in
character in accordance with the different age or school or sculptor. So the early
Dionysos and Hermes are bearded, while later they are beardless; in early works
they are severe, in the great period they are dignified, and later they become
sentimental and even effeminate. In later works we notice a tendency to represent
figures like Apollo as more and more youthful, to accentuate the woman in Aphrodite,
the god of revelry in Dionysos, the god of commerce in Hermes. All these con-
siderations will have to be taken into account by the student who wishes to identify an
unrecognised statue.
I.] THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 37
codified manual is not yet in the hands of the student, and this
method of investigation is merely in its first stages. The results
attained will not be so plentiful with us as with our successors,
who will have the advantage of using as training for future
investigation, what now we shall have to discover by means
of experience founded on narrower bases. Until this method is
firmly constituted and universally accessible, a good deal must
depend upon the personal tact and experience in observation
possessed by the individual archaeologist. The more this is the
case, the greater will be the responsibility resting upon the
investigator, not to weaken in the public mind the claims of
the method by hasty and incorrect application. Individual
errors, however, do not affect the soundness of the method, as
little as prejudiced or unpractised eyes will make the use of the
microscope superfluous. At all events we must meet important
questions that present themselves for solution and not evade
them. No science was ever advanced by those who said “no”
to every new position, and merely repeated what had the au-
thority of age upon it. It is a common occurrence that those
who say “no”, or wisely shrug their shoulders, congratulate them-
selves, if they prove right in having doubted ; and if not, they
tacitly glide into assent, until they will sometimes even impart
as a novelty to the discoverer himself the very truths for the
recognition of which he had to struggle with them ; so natural a
food is proven truth, and so easily is it assimilated with our
mental constitution.
- NOTE. A.
P. 35. “For we can learn by experience the method,” etc.
Here it is that Archaeology has a decided advantage for the attainment of exact
results over the natural sciences. In physiology, for instance, the experimentalist
cannot entirely create an organism after nature, he can only reproduce certain
functions or phenomena in the given organisms; while the modelling archaeologist
who is copying a work, can actually reproduce the whole object and follow and study
its process of growth at every stage. The naturalist, on the other hand, has, no
doubt, many advantages over the archaeologist, in that the laws of the products
of nature are more uniform and recognisable than the laws of the products of art,
where human volition and the accidents surrounding human life and the functions of
the individual are introduced. Yet the conditions of artistic production are much
more determined and outwardly recognisable than “exoterics’ are inclined to believe.
Continuity of style (the ancients themselves continually speak of the style of a
school and even of a country, such as the Aeginetan or Attic épyaariptov) of the
38 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [I.
individual and even of the school, especially in Greek Art, is, as a matter of fact, and
as experience shows, so great, that it approaches very closely to physical laws in the
mind of one who brings natural ability and much honest labour to its recognition.
And furthermore the arbitrariness in the formative arts as compared with literature,
music, &c., is powerfully counteracted by the necessary introduction of the physical
material of artistic expression, and of the means of affecting this material, both
(material, tools, and their application) being subject to physical laws, and both
counteracting and checking any attempt towards absolutely arbitrary volition on the
part of man. Whatever be the causes, the fact remains, that the works of Michelangelo
have characteristics which distinguish them even from the Barocco school, that modern
Gothic differs from ancient Gothic, modern Pre-Raphaelites from their ancient proto-
types, a French boot and glove from an English boot and glove, and a walking-stick
made fifty years ago from one made in our days—and that this individuality of
characteristics comes out most distinctly in the works of Greek Art. A dealer in
leather-ware who at all knows his goods can immediately distinguish between those
manufactured in England, in France, in Germany, or in Austria; a connoisseur of lace
can immediately tell whether the same species of point-lace is made in France or in
Bohemia. Nay, if we but analyse and compare what we see in passing from Paris to
London in eight hours, this recognisable difference in the appearance of works of
human craft corresponding to the distinct individuality of their makers will be mani-
fest. Consider the aspects of the streets, the dress of the people, the style of the
houses, the lamp-posts, the policemen's uniform, the caps of the porters at the station,
the leather peaks of these caps, the soles of the boots in each country, all so expressive
of the national differences of the peoples; and among those of the same nation again,
the difference between the various classes, the city banker and the village school-
master, the military man in undress and the labourer; and among the same class
the outward differences of individuals, how the one arranges the same tie and the
other dents in the same soft hat—and then consider that all this is in a time of
manufacture by machinery and with the minutest partition of labour, and the new
appliances for manufacture immediately open to all markets, in a time when national
differences are dying away and the feeling of humanity is a real motive power, in a
time in which the limits of space are shaken off by railroad and telegraph, in a time
of equalisation of culture and the stereotyping of character. Now let us turn to the
antiquity of Greece, and consider the following three facts: (1) That in the works of
Art the form, the appearance, is the very aim, use, and essence of the thing; (2) That
the Greeks were of most marked individuality, and that the local and temporal
distinctions were most decided and fixed, so that, for instance, the characteristics which
the Peloponnesians and Athenians give of themselves in the speeches at Sparta recorded
in the first book of Thucydides show them to be in many ways diametrically opposed
(characteristics which apply entirely to the works of early Spartan and early Pelopon-
nesian art that are extant); (3) that their art was one of the most specific modes of
expression. If we bear in mind these three facts, we cannot fail to conclude that the
numerous extant works will be without difficulty capable of being classified and
recognised in their distinctive features, if only we bestow a fraction of the attention
and interest upon the things themselves which the modern lace-dealer bestows upon
his goods—only in a conscious and systematic way, differing from him in that the
interest is entirely centred in the knowledge itself, without any ultimate regard to
profit or to the immediate utilising of this knowledge, without any ultimate regard
to whatever is foreign to scientific apprehension. - ‘. . .
ESSAY II.
THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, IN ITs
RELATION TO HIS AGE, LIFE, AND CHARACTER.
aio bºrrà &tów.
Things eternalised.
ARIST. Metaph. B. 2, 997°12.
ék rod etőous kal rºs j\ms j orivo)\os Xé-yéral offorta.
What is called existence is the combination of form and matter.
ARIST. Metaph. Z. II. Io97°29.
ESSAY II.
THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, IN ITS RELATION TO
HIS AGE, LIFE, AND CHARACTER.
THE spirit of the art of Pheidias is to be found not merely
in the mode in which the conceptions are expressed, but above
all in the nature of the things he chooses for expression by
means of his art, in the selection he makes among all possible
things and events in nature for translation into his artistic
language. Or rather it lies in the simplicity and harmony
that obtains between the thing expressed and the mode of
expression.
In order however that this simple correspondence and
harmony between the form and matter of art may exist, it is
necessary that the artist should be possessed of all the mani-
pulative skill to express his own thoughts with freedom, as
well as that his productive imagination be so well regulated
that it never drives the hand to attempt at reproducing any-
thing not by its nature suited to that mode of expression.
Greek sculpture of the earlier archaic period shows as its
chief and most manifest characteristic the evident want of skill
in handling the material. The most noticeable feature of all
these earlier works is the obtrusion of the material (stone or
metal), and the mechanism of handling it, upon the senses of
the spectator to the detriment of the illusion of form which the
artist wished to evoke. The first thing we should naturally
say upon examining such a work is: “I see that he desired
42 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
to represent a man”, or, “he felt that muscle correctly and
indicated it in this or that manner, with marked or slight grooves
of the chisel,” or even, “there is a good deal of skill in the
modelling of that texture.” All these remarks will indicate
that the working of the statue, the struggle with the material,
is the most manifest characteristic of such a work of art. In
a perfect work of art, however, we are not reminded of the
technique; it does not obtrude itself upon us to the detriment
of the illusion of form. The first remark we make would not
be one indicative of the intention" of the artist, or the mode
of his manipulation; but we should say “What a majestic head
of Zeus, what a strong athlete, what a graceful attitude”.”
The further we proceed in archaic art, the more do we
notice, how step by step the artist gains in this power to
overcome the resistance of the material, how the obtrusion of
the material difficulties upon us gradually diminishes. The
artist has no longer to struggle above all things with the means
of expression themselves, but he is free to express whatever he
desires. The question then is, what things or aspects of things
are most suitable for expression in sculpture ?
This question is solved by again reverting to and studying
the nature of the material used in that art. This may cause
some astonishment. We have just been relieved from the
struggle with the material, and the great result of the history
of archaic art has been stated to be the attainment of freedom
of execution. Yet the imperfection of this early art consisted
in the obtrusion upon us of the material as the first and most
noticeable feature, to the detriment of illusion; and in perfect
art we were not primarily and above all reminded of the
material, even before we were struck by the form. But it
never was the aim of Greek art, to make us wholly unconscious
of the material, to make us believe that the forms represented
are actually those of a living being and not of a statue. That is
not illusion, but deception. Deception was never aimed at by
the artists of the good period of Greek art. -
1 Goethe's words “Man merht die Aósicht und man wird verstimmt,” sums
up the disturbing effect which noticeable intention has upon pleasure based on
illusion. - - - - - •
* See note B, at the end of this Essay,
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. - 43
If such deception is aimed at, the artist will never entirely
succeed for any length of time in making us mistake a repre-
sentation of a man for a living man ; and we are, by reaction,
again forcibly reminded of the material, because the would-be
deception has challenged immediate comparison between a work
of nature and a work of man. Overworked technical skill thus
produces the same result as incompetency of technical handling:
both forcibly remind us of the material and its handling to the
detriment of artistic illusion, though they do this through oppo-
site channels.
As has been pointed out above, the perfection is attained,
when full harmony exists between the subject represented and
the mode and means of representation. An art like sculpture
or painting or poetry, is not at its best, when it merely conveys
what it can possibly express; but when it expresses what it
can best express. An art does not deal with whatever is, i
does not take all things as they happen to present themselves
(as science must do); but it chooses and selects among all
things in accordance with principles inherent in the human
mind, and creates a state not of ‘what is, but of ‘what ought
to be.’ -
In so far the provinces of Ethics and Art, of the Good and
of the Beautiful, differ from that of Science, of the True ; the
two former dealing with ideal states, which they wish to create,
with the ‘ought to be’; the latter with the actual state of things
which it must recognise, with ‘whatever is.’ This is what
Aristotle means when he says that art deals with ola elvat Set.
But this “ought to be’ which underlies art in general and
corresponds to what we might call, in the widest acceptation
of the term, Beauty or Harmony, becomes more definite when
it is the motive to special and actual arts, the ‘ought to be '
of architecture, of sculpture, of painting, of poetry and music.
These various departments of art are sufficiently defined for
practical purposes, and though all have one ultimate aim, of
producing what is beautiful or harmonious, they differ in the
modes of producing this effect, and this difference is entirely
the outcome of the material means of expression belonging
to each art. The ‘ought to be’ in the first instance is the perfect
harmony between the thing or the aspect of things represented
44 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
and the material of representation. The means of expression
in sculpture are stone or metal, the things represented are wide
conceptions of life. -
The great task of sculpture then is, to put organic life into
the inorganic material in the most natural and perfect form.
It has to choose those aspects of life, which correspond most
to the essential and most striking characteristics of stone and
metal; and on the other hand it must infuse the material with
those forms, which are, if we may say so, most ‘sentient,’ which
are most suggestive of flow and life. These two currents of
tasks must meet and blend, and, modifying each other into
harmony, must produce a new whole called a work of art.
The modelling of this inorganic material, the composition of
the parts of the figure must be as near to the appearance of
life as possible; while the life that is chosen for representation
must in its attributes correspond to the essential characteristics
of stone and metal, must be of the most lasting and monu-
mental kind. The two tasks that we shall have to examine
in order to appreciate the spirit of the art of Pheidias are,
to put it epigrammatically, (I) to vitalise stone and metal, and
(II) to monumentalise life.
(I) If we examine an early archaic male figure such as
the Apollo of Tenea (Fig. 1), or those of Thera or Orchomenos
or Actium, we are chiefly struck with the woodenness” and stiff-
ness of the figure, characteristics that would not be strange
in a block of stone or a tree-stem or the pillar of a temple;
but which strike us as strange, because the thing represented
is a human figure. We call a figure wooden and stiff, when
it does not suggest to us flexibility and the power of moving
(a) in the parts of the figure, and (b) in the figure as a whole.
* I can here only point out in passing, that the technical awkwardness in the
earliest stone statues is to be attributed to the fact that the earliest statues in the round
were of wood, and that the technique of wood-carving prevailed strongly among the
post-Daedalean stone-sculptors of archaic art before a new technique corresponding to
the new material had been fully established. For the nature of these earliest works
as related to the art of Daidalos, I must refer the reader to some remarks I have
made on this art in the Revue Archéologique, Feb. 1882, Dédale et l'Artemis de
Alé!os. -
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 45
(a) The outward characteristics of the living human figure *
are flexibility and the power of moving. Flexibility is sug-
gested in the surface of the human form, in that there is a
continuity in the rise and fall of this surface, in that the parts
do not appear to have been put together but to flow together, so
that the whole suggests the power of spontaneous contraction
and of movement from within. This power depends upon the
nature of the organs and muscles of the human body. Far from
being anatomical studies, statues must
suggest, by means of the visible modi-
fications of the surface, the presence of
the organs, which enable us to breathe,
and the muscles, whose contraction gives
us the power of moving. This is done
by the indication of the rise and fall,
the change of surface in its continuous
flow, varying in its outer aspect as it
covers different forms; and this is the aim
of the perfect modelling of the surface.
I have said before that this does not
mean manifest anatomical study. On
the contrary, so soon as the modelling
of the surface does not tend merely to
produce the effect of living power and
action according to the individual nature
of the figure represented or the peculiar
situation, so soon as this correctness is
not merely a means to a further end,
but manifestly becomes the end and en- Fig. 1.
grosses the attention of the spectator Apollo of Tenea.
for its own sake, art is not perfect. This *º;unich
was the case in later Greek art, espe- .
cially of the Rhodian and Pergamene schools, and it is so to 12
a great extent in our days. -
In early archaic art, sculptors had not the power to repre-
sent this continuity and organic quality of the surface of the
human figure by means of the modelling. It grows considera-
bly the further archaic art advances, in figures like the Aegina
marbles, until in Pythagoras of Rhegion and Myron the power

46 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
to indicate vitality by means of the modelling of the surface
of the human figure attains considerable height.
(b) The outward characteristics of a living human figure
are furthermore to be found in the relation which the members
of the body bear to one another and to the body as a whole.
We are struck above all things with the fact that these parts
are not mechanically put together, but that they grow together.
Now, in statues of the order of the “Apollo’ of Tenea, Thera,
Orchomenos, and Actium this effect is not produced. No
doubt to a great extent this is to be attributed to the deficient
modelling of the surface before alluded to, which does not allow
the members to appear to be gradually and continuously joined
to one another; but this effect of woodenness and lifelessness
is also in great part due to the grosser mode of composition
itself, independent of the modelling of the surface. Such
statues stand with both feet firmly planted on the ground and
equally bearing the weight, the shoulders and hips exactly on
the same horizontal line, the head maintaining its central
position between the shoulders straightforward at right angles
to the chest, the arms symmetrically pinned to either thigh—
the whole composition reminding us of some human fabric,
say a wall with stone resting upon stone because of certain laws
of statics. As soon as we alter this exact relation of the parts
of a wall, the structure falls. So long as the composition of
the members of a human body suggests the building of a
wall of stone, it cannot produce the illusion of life. Whether
this be scientifically true or not, our impression of rest and
motion in living beings in contradistinction to those of inor-
ganic things, is that their rest and motion appear spontaneous,
independent of the broad general laws of attraction and gravi-
tation. A stone wall stands merely because it corresponds to
certain laws of statics; a human being stands in the first-in-
stance because the individual brings the parts of his body
into one of many possible relations which will correspond to
certain laws of dynamics and statics. Where a body or thing
strikes us as maintaining its unity and position solely because
of certain laws of statics, there we cannot receive the impression
of the conditions of life. With these early statues we feel.
that the maintenance of this erect position of the body is
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 47
essentially bound up with just that one disposal of the parts
and of the weight of the figure; add just one pound to this
side or that, and the figure will lose its balance. Though the
feet are firmly planted and the arms are pressed to the side,
the figure does not impress us with the stability of one resting
on one hip, simply because this exact symmetry inevitably calls
forth the association of an inorganic structure put together (whose
conjunction depends upon just that one relation of the parts
and only that) and not of a living individual with limbs grown
together. The effect of life is produced when the sculptor
deviates from this absolute symmetry, shows that the leg is
grown to the trunk by altering the balance in placing the weight
upon one leg more than upon the other, that the arms are
grown to the shoulders in allowing them to be suspended freely,
that the head is organically joined to the neck in allowing it
to turn sideways or to droop, in one word, when he modifies
symmetry by the varying flow of life". All these effects were
attained in the gradual growth towards perfection in the archaic
period of the art of sculpture. Here too we notice considerable
freedom in the pedimental figure from the temple of Athene at
Aegina, while Pythagoras of Rhegion notably consummated this
end, and the ‘distortus’ Discobolos of Myron is the very anti-
podes, in this respect, of the ‘Apollo’ of Tenea.
The first half of the great task of perfect sculpture is accom-
plished before the time of Pheidias, the sculptor has succeeded
in ‘vitalising stone and metal ;' but the second condition, the
‘monumentalising of life’ has not yet been realised.
< (II) If the sculptor has gained the power to express life
by means of the material forms with which he deals, the next
question is: what life, or what aspects of life, are most suitable
for reproduction in this peculiar language 2 It will be that
life or those aspects of life which correspond most to the es-
sential characteristics of the material used; or, in other words,
those aspects of life will have to be avoided, whose essential
characteristics are opposed to the lasting and monumental
* Compare the paper by the present writer on Pythagoras of Rhegion, published
in the journal of Hellenic Studies (Vol. I. 1880, p. 195), and reprinted as Appendix I.
in the present volume.
48 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
character of the material. For, unless this is the case, the
work will be wanting in the chief feature of a work of art,
namely, the complete harmony between conception and execu-
tion, between form and matter. -
Myron's Discobolos (Fig. 2) is in many ways an admirable
work of sculpture; and yet there will always be some features
that disturb the spectator and do not admit of that complete
harmonious and restful impression which is ever the outcome
of the contemplation of a perfect work of art. In representing
the Discobolos the sculptor has chosen the Supreme moment
of the game, the moment immediately preceding the catastrophe,
if we may call it so. The attitude he thus gives his youthful
figure is one which allows the muscles of the body to stand
Fig. 2. The Discobolos of Myron. Palazzo Massimi, Rome (marble).
forth in bold relief and enables him to display great skill
in modelling. What is most to be admired in this composi-

II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 49
tion is the way in which the sculptor has been capable of
suggesting, by means of the whole composition of this figure
in all its parts, the concentration of energy and of effort on
the part of the Discobolos, and of interest and expectancy on
the part of the spectator, into that one moment preceding the
outburst. As in every good statue, the centre of life and of
energy is localised within the work itself, in this case in the
centre of the figure towards which all muscles seem con-
tracted.
The Greeks threw the discus not as we throw the quoit, only
with arm and shoulder, but by bringing into play and utilising
every limb and muscle of the body’. Immediately preceding
the actual hurling of the discus therefore, there had to be a
general storing-up and compression of energy which, when
suddenly set free, produced the violence of the projection.
The principle is simply that of the spring which, when com-
pressed, shoots out from the centre. The greater the contortion
of the body, the more each muscle and sinew is strung towards
one centre, the greater will be the impetus when this compres-
sion is suddenly set free. It is because of the unconscious as-
sociation with this simple principle, of which the statue in
question is such a perfect and living incorporation, that it
strikes us as so convincingly conveying the idea of Supreme
action. This is carried out in the statue, not only in the way
in which all the lines of the modelling indicate the tension
of the sinews towards the contracted centre of the body, and
the legs, neck”, and shoulders tend towards the same point
when we view the statue from the front; but also, when we
walk round it, in the way in which even in the back and sides
all lines seem to lead towards that central point, like the
spiral contraction of a spring. All this expresses most wonder-
fully what the sculptor desired to express. But the question
remains, whether this is at all worthy of or even suitable for
expression in sculpture in the large and round 2 .
1 This, by the way, is the distinctive characteristic of all Greek Athletics, which
cannot be properly appreciated by us unless we bear this in mind.
* In the best replica in the Palazzo Massimi at Rome, of which the accompanying
engraving (fig. 2) is an illustration, the head is turned back towards the right side
and not forward as in the copy in the British Museum.
W. 4
5O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
This is distinctly not the case. However interesting and
attractive one supreme moment of exertion may be, if it be
essentially transient and momentary, it is not suited to a
material like stone or bronze, the most striking characteristic of
which is the lasting and unaltering, which we cannot and need
not ignore. Myron has expressed with most perfect skill the
one moment preceding a violent though no less trivial’ act;
yet he cannot chain this moment of pause, without appearing to
lengthen indefinitely the duration of the supreme exertion, or
to limit, in our minds, the durability of the material. Both
these suppositions are absurd, and therefore the untrained and
naïve spectator is quite right when he wishes that “that youth
would throw the discus and have done with it,” however in-
teresting the statue may be to us in many ways.
Those aspects of life, then, which are in themselves merely
momentary and evanescent, as well as those which are essentially
individual, which do not necessarily recur, because they do not
affect or concern general life (and that is at the bottom of
the meaning of trivial), are not suitable for expression in
monumental material. The sculptor must seek, and must
have the natural feeling for, the monumental aspect of life,
that within life which is most lasting; and these aspects are
to be found both in physical life and in spiritual life.
In physical life the most lasting is the most general. The
idea “man’ suggests longer duration to us than any particular
man or group of men, a race more than a tribe, a tribe more than
a family, and a family more than an individual man. In physical
life the idea of disease, or even of cessation of life, is suggested
to us really by some deviation from the normal constitution
of the conditions of life. The more normal any individual
organism, the more does it suggest continuance of organic
existence. Now what we call individuality in contradistinction
to generality when speaking of húman beings, consists, really
in certain deviations from the general run of normal beings.
The incorporation of all these normal conditions of physical life
* We must not, however, forget that the athletic sports which to us are mere play,
partook to the early Greeks of a religious character, and that no act connected with
the sacred games was to them really trivial. -
, V
J
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 5 I
in human beings is called the Type. The Greek sculptor could
readily form in his constructive imagination an individual figure
which, true to nature in all its parts, was still the bearer of
these characteristics of typical life. Especially amongst the
athletes of the Palaestra his eye received impressions of
numberless individual forms, which became as it were his
materials, with which without an effort he could construct new
and great forms, individual works of art unmatched in real
life.7
It might be supposed, and has been asserted by those who
have but a superficial acquaintance with works of Greek sculp-
, ture, that this infusion of the general and typical into the Greek
sculptor's representation of human life would of necessity lead
to some sacrifice of the appearance of the actual, as fixed in Our
minds through our experience of what we actually perceive in
the life surrounding us. This would be true, if it were the only
immediate and ultimate aim of the sculptor to produce such a
normal type of the human body and nothing more, a mere canon
of human proportion. And it would therefore be partly true of
such an academical sculptor as Polykleitos, one of whose chief
distinctions was to have established a canon of human propor-
tion. It is interesting to note that even the ancients reproached
him with a certain monotony, as is evident from these passages:
“It is peculiar to him to have made his statues rest upon one
leg”; and again : “Varro says that his statues were square and
almost according to model”; and finally : “for though he per-
fected the human form above reality, he nevertheless appears
not to have attained to the dignity of gods’.” The last state-
ment that, though Polykleitos added charm to the human figure
even beyond reality, he did not attain to the dignity of gods,
affords the answer to the doubt, whether the typifying of physical
life may not rob statues of the appearance of pulsating reality.
For the physical type will always be modified and vitalised by
the spiritual element, the character of a work; and in the
* Proprium ejus est uno crure ut insisterent signa excogitasse, quadrata tamen esse
ea tradit Varro et paene ad exemplum. Overbeck, Schriftguellen, 967 (Plin. M. H.
XXXIV. 56).
* Nam ut humanae formae decorem addiderit supra verum, ita non explevisse
deorum auctoritatem widetur. Overb. SQ. 968 (Quintil. Inst. Orat. XII. Io. 7).
4–2
52 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
spiritual there is no fear of absolute sameness. In the physical
aspect of a statue all the petty and ephemeral elements will
have to be eliminated, in order that it may be capable of being
worthily represented in monumental material. It will always
have to be a type, though the type will in every case be trans-
fused with some spiritual idea.
Of spiritual life, again, the broadest and most monumental
V/ aspect is to be found in that which is common to all men
without being entirely comprehended in the individual man.
And here we may distinguish the objective and subjective
aspects of spiritual life, that is, the outwardly visible manifesta-
tions, those that can be perceived by us through our senses, and
those that are the effects of such outer manifestations upon the
passive mind, which effects we become conscious of by intro-
spection.
In the objective aspect of the spiritual life of man, just as in
physical life, that impresses us as most lasting and therefore most
suited for translation into monumental material, which is not
knit up with the evanescent existence of the individual man;
and as in physical life this was called the Type, so in spiritual
life it may best be called the Ideal. As in the physical type
all the abnormal accidents were eliminated and the parts of the
body, all true to nature, were composed into a new harmonious
whole, so in the ideal the accidents which disturb the spiritual
unity are discarded, and all the individual traits, each true to fact
and experience, that tend to express one idea, are combined into
unity as we never meet it in real life. These ideals, true to
nature in all their constituent parts, which in actual life are never
seen combined in organic unity, the Greek sculptor had already
before him, in his mind's eye, in the gods and heroes of his
religion. These gods and heroes were constructions based upon
the real attributes of human beings, the highest conceptions of
human qualities. Each of their attributes was common to man,
yet their degree and the combination of these attributes in each
one were to be found in no one living man. The person, the life,
of a god were essentially akin to man and to his life, only they
were endless in duration and unaffected by the adversities of
passion, like the lasting bronze and the unimpressionable stone.
Alexander had majesty, and Pericles had moments of sublimity,
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 53
yet these were but moments that were impaired in their pure
existence by other peculiar qualities and frailties; but Zeus is
sublime and majestic in all aspects of his existence, for he is the
impersonation of majesty and power. Alcibiades was graceful
and beautiful, yet his vanity and selfishness may engross our
attention to the exclusion of his finer qualities; while Apollo ever
remains the fairest leader of the Muses. Yet it may be urged that
these impersonations of the general qualities of mankind are
too limited a sphere for the activity of an art. But not only
does each sculptor differ in his productions in accordance with
the difference in his own individual conception of these ideas;
but also, he may choose the various aspects of these ideal
beings, their various modes and character, and even certain.
incidents of their spiritual life. Which incidents these should
be, can best be ascertained from the examination of the subjec-
tive aspect of the spiritual life that is most suited for reproduc-
tion in sculpture. -
In the subjective aspect of spiritual life, we can also dis-
tinguish that which is most lasting, or rather that which does
not at once suggest to us the transient and ephemeral. There
are inner experiences, impressions that we call lasting impres-
sions. They are not those that affect merely a part of our
nature, so that we have always attention enough to bestow upon
some other stimulus or upon our immediate self, and then glide
away without leaving a trace; but they are those that grasp our
whole nature and do not momentarily alter only one side or one
faculty; those that affect our whole moral constitution to the
exclusion of other interests and the immediate self, because they
grasp us entire. The difference between these two classes of
impressions may be well illustrated by two phrases: in the one
case we are pleased or amused, in the other case our whole
nature, our soul, is thrilled. Or it may be expressed objectively
in the difference between the Agreeable and Pretty, and the
Sublime. This analysis must be further limited in that the
power of thrilling the soul is not in itself the measure of the .
suitability for sculpture. For of all the aspects of life, there are
two which most readily produce a thrilling effect, namely,
violence and pathos. Yet these are in themselves momentary ;
and for other reasons, which will become evident, these belong
54 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
*
really to the sublime phase of another art, namely the drama.
Those ideals of life and those incidents in life which, without being
violent, are capable of producing a great and lasting impression
upon us, are most suited for incorporation in plastic art. For
purposes of great sculpture we are not concerned with the vague
and immaterial feelings of spiritual devotion ; the grandeur and
sublimity which evoke such high feelings must be based upon
visible nature and expressed in terms of nature. This corre-
sponds to the plastic spirit of the Greeks, which gave birth to
their mythology, as has been shown in the first Essay; and here
the votary of the highest art had ready for his creative genius
the sensible bearers of these highest qualities, the gods and
heroes of Greece. - -
Pheidias and AEschylus have, both of them, greatness and
breadth as the chief characteristic of their work. Yet it is
most instructive, for the recognition of the different fundamental
principles of their respective arts, to consider the choice of
subjects by means of which they impress us with these qualities.
Pheidias in his great works always represents gods, AEschylus
depicts in bold lines the fate and sufferings of beings from the
heroic world. Both ultimately leave one impression on our minds,
the experience of something great. In the art with which Pheidias
produces these impressions, he works upon our feelings and
thought through the channels of those senses which convey to us
things that are essentially different from us, are of the outer
world, namely sight and touch. The art with which Æschylus
produces these impressions of greatness, effects this end by
means of a sense which has to us less of the material character,
conveys to us rather the immaterial signs of immediate inner
thought and feeling itself, which we cannot dissociate from man
in general and Our self in particular, namely the sense of hearing,
and more especially the hearing of human language. In other
words, sculpture conveys its effects by means of forms which are
essentially not our self, which belong to the outer world, and are
in so far opposed to our self; while the drama stimulates us
through the immediate channels of our inner experience. There-
fore, if a sculptor wished to produce in us the effect of the grand
and sublime, he must, in harmony with the material which his
art gives him for expression, transcend the sphere of whatever
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 55
-
immediately reminds us of our self, constructing forms that we
have never seen before, at least in that combination, and placing
before our senses a representation of that which is essentially
above us. On the other hand the poet, with the same high aim,
can never, from the very nature of his art, transcend the sphere
of man's inner experience. If a work of sculpture is meant to
call forth in us the highest feelings with regard to human
attributes, it will do this the more effectually in proportion as
it carries us away from our self, from human frailties and suffer-
ings, into the sphere of gods. Tragedy also may lift us far
away from petty life, but it only raises us the higher, the more it
is Saturated with the true struggles, longings, and sufferings of
the human heart. Pheidias leads us into the ideal world by
means of forms that we have never seen before, the forms of
those that float above human weakness, the Zeus with the nod
of whose ambrosial curls earth trembles and the heavens shake.
AEschylus too gives the greatest forms to his large figures and
leads us into a higher ideal sphere, but through the channels
of love, fear, and compassion. We cannot feel love, fear, and
still less compassion for the gods, for they float above us, suffer
not, nor need our sympathy. The figures of an AEschylus then
are above life-size, greater than the immediate world that sur-
rounds us, they are heroes; but they suffer and struggle. And
as their strength is greater than man's, so also are their passions
and their suffering Titanic. Pheidias's Olympian Zeus thrilled
the souls of the ancients and filled their hearts with the sublime;
so also did the Titan Prometheus of AEschylus; he too, though
greater than man, yet loved man, and rising to the sphere of
that Zeus, with whom he dares to struggle, yet suffers human
anguish, suffering only as a Titan can suffer, at once gigantically,
and for endless ages.
The course I have pursued in this exposition of the prin-
ciples of the highest sculpture, proceeding as it does from the
general to the particular, has been the reverse of the course
which has been followed in the actual establishment of these
principles; for it is the careful study of the existing remains
of classical antiquity and of the causes of their artistic perfection,
that has led me to these general principles. I would not there-
56 - ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
fore have it believed that these general principles are preconceived,
unfounded, and unfit for practical application. On the other
hand, I would not have it believed that it has been my aim
to give an exhaustive enumeration of the principles of sculpture,
criteria of what is excellent in that art, or in any way a practical
guide to modern sculptors. If this exposition were viewed in
that light there would be a danger of misapplication. I am not
of those who, because they see the greatness of Greek art, spurn
all that is modern, and demand of the modern artist that he
should slavishly follow the ancients in the choice of their sub-
jects as well as in execution. Such a course on the part of
the modern artist would be most un-Greek; for art would not
then be an expression of what is highest in the actual life that
surrounds the artist. The conditions of our physical, social, and
religious life are so different from those of the Greeks, that our
ideals must also be different. The one principle however re-
maains: that sculpture, from the nature of the material it uses,
must choose the greatest, broadest, and most lasting aspects
of life for representation in its material; and modern life will
not fail to present these aspects to the sculptor, provided he
has the keenness of sight to perceive them, the artistic tact
to feel them, the largeness of nature to grasp them, the sensu-
ousness of imagination to embody them, and the power over
his hand to reproduce them in his material. The immediate
aim of the exposition of these principles has been, to prepare
the reader easily to perceive in the art of Pheidias, those
qualities which a careful study of his works has forced me to
recognise. In keeping with the spirit of his age and with his own
character, or rather because of these, Pheidias represents in his
works the widest and most lasting aspect of the things of life.
We shall have occasion to note both in the extant works of
Pheidias, and in those that have not come down to us, so far
as we can judge from the literary records of them, two chief
characteristics, width and grandeur coupled with simplicity. It
is above all to Pheidias and his works that Winckelmann's
perfect summing up of the attributes of Greek works of art
applies, “noble naïveté and placid grandeur.” Coupled with all
the grandeur and width is that most striking feature of Greek
art, the simplicity which adds to the silent greatness, and gives a
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 57
monumental rest to these gods of stone. It arises from that
unreflective, unanalytical, unintrospective attitude of mind which
drives it simply to do what it feels and thinks with serene
spontaneity of action, without analysing its own power, not
“sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.” On this account
Pheidias is the type of the plastic mind" among all artists and
sculptors, and this simplicity and unreflectiveness can best be
appreciated when we compare him with Michelangelo, who,
though possessed of the greatness, lacked the simplicity. The
thoughts and conceptions of Michelangelo preceded and ran
beyond his active and executive power. This manifests itself
not only in his life, not only in the confession of his thoughts in
his sonnets, but also in his works. Every one of them tells us
the story of struggle; and though so much is expressed, we feel,
what he felt so strongly, how much more remains unexpressed
in the labyrinthine recesses of his ever active brain. Frequently
his heart failed him at the impotency of his sluggish hands, the
work remained unfinished, the hand dropped with disgust and
depression at the sight of the inane gulf that lies between the
thinking and feeling and the doing and creating. His greatness
then sought an outlet in numerous spheres of thought and action
separately followed and intermingled. When sculpture failed to
express all that he felt, he called to aid the pictorial element
with which he transfused his plastic works, and when painting
was too weak, he strengthened his pictures with plastic forms,
spreading over all his works a dim veil of deep thought and
solemn poetry. Of this the works of Pheidias have nothing.
Grand or sublime or awful as they may be, they are ever serene,
they have coupled with all their greatness the truly Greek
element of grace, in which the works of Michelangelo are some-
times wanting. It is characteristic that in the passages of ancient
authors relating to the statue of the Olympian Zeus, one praises
its lofty majesty while another insists upon its benignity and
sweetness. The very moment at which Pheidias is related to
have represented Zeus, as described by Homer, is that in which
he is about to shake his mighty locks, causing the world to
tremble; yet the act is that of granting support to his child
Thetis who dares to touch his face in imploring his favour for
* See Essay I., pref. 14.
58 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
her son Achilles. In all his works there is that simplicity which
is ever the outcome of the perfect harmony between the concep-
tion and the power of expression, between the spiritual aim and
the physical means, between form and matter. But man, even
the great man, is not isolated or unaffected by his surroundings,
and the spirit of his age. On the contrary, the greatest men
are the most perfect incorporations of the spirit of their age,
and we must, before all things, study and recognise the spirit of
the age, of which Pheidias was the child, in its bearing on th
character of his genius. -
The chief features of the age of Pheidias are those of grand
and powerful life, conducive to width of thought and feeling
coupled with simplicity of purpose and action’. -
Pheidias was born about 500, and died about 430 B.C. About
the time of his birth began the contest between Greeks and
Persians in the Ionian revolt, and this brought flocks of refugees
from the Ionian cities to Athens, placing before the eyes of
the Athenians a varied culture, and with it the widening feeling
of a relationship with that which was in many ways so different
from themselves. When he was a boy of ten years of age, the
news of the victory of Marathon thrilled the hearts of the
Athenian people, and must have left its broad stamp of heroism
upon the impressionable mind of the strongly feeling boy. When
a youth of twenty, three of the most stirring events in history
were crowded into the period of a little more than a year: the
battle of Thermopylae, the victory of Salamis, and the final
overthrow of the Persian supremacy at Plataeae, and Mykale.
It is more than likely that Pheidias himself took an active part
in some of these great struggles.
The effect of the Persian war upon the political spirit of
the Greeks may be summed up in two words: width (of vision),
and definiteness (of purpose). For the time being the narrow
limits of the cramped interests of each individual state were
torn down ; the Athenian felt the ties that united him with the
* See a short sketch of the age of Pheidias as distinguished from the age of
Praxiteles by the present writer in a paper on ‘Praxiteles and the Dionysos-child from
the Heraion at Olympia,’ published in the Zºransactions of the Royal Society of Zitera-
ture, for 1879. &
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 59
Spartan, so different from himself in many ways; all the Greek
states, however closely defined a civic community may have
been, were impressed with the reality of the brotherhood of
race, of that which physically binds individual communities
together, over and above the boundary lines of the geographical
district which their eyes have seen and their feet have wandered
over. In this period of Pan-Hellenic unity they could not feel
the narrowness of the interests of the petty state, or party, or
family, or self; they saw the strength and realised the blessings
arising from an united Greece over which floated, as super-
human guardian, the Pan-Hellenic Zeus, a divinity really only
conceived by the religious imaginations of the united Greek
people after the Persian victories. But this feeling of width
and grandeur did not arise from a merely inner idea, or consume
itself in the inner recognition and admiration of its own lofty
flight; it was the outcome of a great immediate need, and had
before it a real and physical aim of strong action and exertion.
The Persian foe was at their very doors. The unity of Greece
was called forth by the common feeling of danger, and it had
to manifest its virtue in the combined exertion to overthrow
a powerful foe. While widening their vision it made them feel
the force of action and the power of man doing his best. -
And when the war was over, while lifting their souls on
high with the enthusiasm of victory, there was no room for
idle luxury in Athens; for the victory had brought with it
the total destruction of their homes and city, and, filled with
this high spirit and with all the vast experience of a great
history, the Athenians were forced, as it were, to re-colonise their
own country; to begin life again, as backwoodsmen instinct with
long culture and old traditions of home, as an ancient commu-
nity moved with the new tasks, vigour, and energy of emigrant
settlers. It is the combination of these two apparently contra-
º dictory elements, a combination unparalleled in the annals of
the world, which lies at the root of the splendid growth of the
Periclean age. No wonder that such an age was productive
of the greatest works in all spheres of culture, and that all these
works bear stamped upon them the great sign and token of
width and grandeur. An AEschylus with the largeness and
boldness of his types of human character, that stand forth like
6O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
great monuments in their massive forms, a Pindar with the
heroic tone of his lyrical lays, stronger and more lofty than
they are sweet or feeling, an Anaxagoras in whose philosophy
the infinite particles are all set in motion by the one great
conception of a world-soul, all these, however varied and
opposed to one another their forms of thought may be, have
in common the largeness which emanates from that great age.
We can thus imagine how a boy, gifted by nature with
strong impulses, a receptive heart, a rapid intelligence, and a
creative imagination, should, from the earliest age, be imbued
with the spirit of greatness: how the youth was affected by
the stirring events of the overthrow of the Persian supremacy,
and how his desire for work and for the effectuation of his
inner great feelings in outer production would be nurtured by
the activity and energy which surrounded him at the close of
the war. The rebuilding and fortification of Athens, begun by
Themistocles, and completed by Kimon, who also began to adorn
the city, presented a spectacle of activity and work, of which his-
tory rarely presents an equal display. From all parts of Greece
and Asia Minor artisans and artists flocked to Athens, sure
of finding occupation and remuneration. And the wealth of
Athens enabled the people to undertake whatever they desired,
and to carry into effect whatever they undertook. A double
wall was to be built from Athens to the Piraeus, as well as one
of equal height round the Piraeus five miles in circumference.
It was done. Expenditure of labour and of money were of no
consideration. Something conceived by an imagination satu-
rated with well-balanced thought, whose conceptions, however
lofty, were never fantastical, had to be realised ; and there was
no question of weakness or powerlessness for the victors of
Marathon and Salamis.
An artist bred in this world of human exertion and of its
products, surpassing all that ordinary minds were accustomed to
expect, could but feel the desire for great, immense works, such
as should correspond to the simultaneous uprising of a whole
nation for the purpose of peaceful exertion; as the interesting
small picture of the Dutch artist corresponds to the thrifty
occupation of a well-to-do and portly merchant ‘house-father’
in the domestic Netherlands. Moreover, the great wealth of the
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 6I
Athenians after the Persian war did not have the effect of pro-
ducing the luxurious habits which lead the oversatiated imagi-
nations of Oriental monarchs to that which is opposed to reality
and to nature, namely the fantastical and pompously decora-
tive, but it ever remained simply a means to bring out to the
highest degree those qualities in which nature showed herself
admirable. Wealth itself was never worthy of admiration for
its own sake, but became so only when it took the form of
that which was spiritually admirable, of which it heightened the
splendour.
The realisation of these great artistic conceptions, which
were growing and budding in the mind of Pheidias, was reserved
for the time of Pericles, the most striking figure which stood
out boldly against the softened after-glow of the resplendent
noontide, the war-like glory of the Athenian people. The
dwellings of Athens had been rebuilt, the needed homes were
established, the walls were completed, and security was afforded
to the city which now supplied the needs of daily life. There
was now room for artistic adornment. Already Kimon had
begun this work. But with Pericles this task of the artistic deco-
ration of the city became the one great aim, as under Themis-
tocles its fortification had driven all the citizens to united action.
His subtle taste and delicate tact, combined with his universal
culture and practical energy, made him the fittest person to
help and encourage a genius like Pheidias, as they enabled
him to detect this genius, insure his services, and join in friend-
ship with the man. Under Pericles Pheidias became not only
the chief sculptor but the counsellor of the political leader in
all matters of public work, the supervisor or, as we might
call it, the Minister of Public Works.
This friendship, so productive of culture, which bound to .
Pericles men like Anaxagoras and Pheidias, could not but make
them in the end the sharers in the fate and adversities of the
great political leader. Nay, the less powerful friends were the
most convenient marks for the wrath and envy of political oppo-
nents, who could not venture to attack openly or hope to succeed
in overthrowing the most powerful and popular citizen of
Athens, though they could wound him in striking at his friends.
So both Anaxagoras and Pheidias were banished, the former
62 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
on the plea of atheism, the same that subsequently was brought
against Socrates, the latter on that of sacrilege and dishonesty.
With the first of these two charges against Pheidias, in which the
Sacrilege consisted in that he had given his own likeness and
that of Pericles to the figures of two Lapithae in the relief repre-
senting the battle between Greeks and Amazons on the shield of
the Athene Parthenos, the opponents of Pericles and Pheidias
failed. In the second charge they were more successful. It is
inconceivable that even modern critics should still believe that
Pheidias was guilty. One would have thought that the most
superficial acquaintance with Greek history and with the vio-
lence and unscrupulousness of party spirit in the period im-
mediately preceding the Peloponnesian War would have shown
that such charges, though sometimes successful, were as frequent
as they were unfounded. The mere fact of a previous charge
having been brought forward without success ought to show us
that there was at work the persevering spirit of animosity, the
aim of which was the ruin of the person more than the establish-
ment of justice. That Pheidias and Pericles anticipated such
personal attacks is evident from the fact that upon the advice
of Pericles Pheidias so arranged the gold of the Athene Parthe-
nos, some portion of which he was accused of having embezzled,
that it could be taken off and weighed, and that this test was
applied in his favour during the Suit”. It appears moreover
that his accuser Menon, the chief witness against him, was
bribed by the political intriguers; for we hear” that he was freed
from taxes and was to be protected against the wrath of the
people by the strategi. Finally, it is inconceivable how the
people of Elis could have received a felon with such honour,
however great his genius; how they could have conferred upon
his descendants the sacred office of keeping in order the gold
and ivory statue of the Olympian Zeus, and have retained his
very workshop in the sacred Altis, as may be seen in the
* Plutarch, Pericl. xxxi. (Overb. SQ. 630); in a Scholion to Aristoph. Pax 605
(Overb. SQ. 629) he is accused of embezzling ivory. Nay, in his speech recorded
in the second book of Thucydides, Pericles refers to the gold of the statue, forty
talents in weight, which the people might use. -
* Plutarch, ibid.
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. % º
- s
discovered ruins of Olympia". When we consider all these cir-
cumstances we cannot hesitate for a moment to reject the fables
concerning the guilt of Pheidias”.
All this surrounding greatness and simplicity of action and
purpose was no doubt favourable to the development and
growth of the artistic imagination of Pheidias, to the con-
ception of and desire for great works, to the fostering of a lofty
imagination modified and kept in health by the continuous
presence of the practically possible. But these desires and pre-
dispositions, which give their tone to the artist's productions,
when once he has mastered the technicalities of his art, are
not enough in themselves actually to produce great works of
art; they can only take effect and bear fruit when the artist
has gained the power to express in the material forms of his
art whatever his eye meets with in nature and considers worthy
of such expression. We have seen before in the general survey
how sculpture in Greece had, previously to Pheidias, gained this
power of technical expression. Pheidias individually had every
opportunity of receiving and acquiring these technical advan-
tages and of advancing upon his predecessors even in this
direction.
The more general circumstances, which were conducive to
an advance in the technical sphere of sculpture were manifold.
In a negative way, the Persian wars and the ensuing revival
and renewal of activity at Athens were conducive to an eman-
cipation from the strict bonds of school tradition. In Myron,
who in time and by nature bore the impress of this very period
immediately succeeding the Persian war, and did not reflect
that softer after-glow of which I have spoken above, this revo-
lutionary spirit is carried into effect. That which was heroic
in the energetic reconstruction of the city and its fortifications
was too restless and positively active for the more moderate and
passive spirit conducive to art-production. With Myron this
earlier time fell in with the period of his chief productiveness;
with Pheidias it coincided with his years of “storm and pressure,”
* This has now been identified, with the greatest probability, in the remains of a
small building to the north of the temple of Zeus in the recently discovered ruins of
Olympia. See Ausgrabungen zu Olympia, III. page 29 seq.
* See note C at the end of this essay.
64 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
and did but strengthen the normal impulses of that period of
life in which restless striving is natural.
In a positive way, the new impetus that was given to the
Palaestric exercises and the sacred games (especially those of
Olympia and the Panathenaic festivities) and the growing custom
which had begun in the time of the Peisistratidae of associating
sculpture immediately with these games in making it commemo-
rate the victories, were among all events and institutions those
which most immediately advanced the study of the human figure
and its representation in the sculptor's material. Furthermore
the numerous public buildings which were erected in those times
and had to be adorned with plastic decorations, taxed the sculp-
tor's manipulative skill in all directions, even in those which from
natural indolence and unconscious intellectual cowardice the
purely spontaneous workers are liable to neglect. It provided
the inestimable blessing of a moderate amount of outer compul-
sion. Some definite space of prescribed form had to be filled
with figures either in the round or in relief: the eye was thereby
disciplined in composition, and the hand in execution. It is
highly probable that the Metopes of the Parthenon represent
partly such a trial sphere for Pheidias". Finally we must not
forget that Athens was, and since the war had become still more,
the central point through which passed all the roads by sea and
land from all directions; and that the refugees who flocked there
brought with them not only their work but also their peculiar
modes of technique. The artistic votive offerings and dedica-
tions from the north and east to Olympia, and from the south
and west to Delphi, passed through Athens and trained the
eyes of the Athenian sculptors.
The technical training of Pheidias in particular was of the
most favourable kind. Though the age in which he lived en-
couraged his emancipation from the shackles of school, he did
not, as is often the case with a barren “genius', begin with
opposition and ever continue in it; but he began with the regular
school, which forced upon him its priceless training, and then at
least he had something positive upon which his original power
could exercise itself, could fix, modify or in part cast away what
* See Essay III.
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 65
the school had given him. And this schooling could not have
been more happy. His first teacher was the Athenian Hegias",
the sculptor of the first group” of the tyrannicides Harmodios
and Aristogeiton, erected about 508 B.C. His second teacher",
and the one who probably had the greatest influence upon him,
was the famous Argive sculptor Ageladas, the teachef also of
Myron and Polykleitos. It was at Argos that he chiefly received
the advantages of a strict academical, nay, old fashioned technical
treatment, characteristics which so markedly distinguish archaic
Peloponnesian art from the early Attic. The archaic Attic art,
though manifesting a more vivid sense for vitality and naturalism
and rhythm, is wanting in a sense for composition, law of form
and symmetry. The very fact of his having undergone the
discipline of two distinct schools, which taught him how to obey
others, and thus to make his own imagination and hand obey
him, made it easy for him to avoid the idiosyncracies, tricks, and
conventionalities of one school, and to feel himself free in
introducing innovations even in the more formal side of his art, as
he notably did in the treatment of drapery. But even in this
point he must have learnt much from the painter Polygnotos
who made considerable advance in the indication of folds in
drapery". Polygnotos held a relation to Kimon similar to that
of Pheidias to Pericles. In the works of Pheidias there is
evidence that he studied and knew the principles of pictorial
art. Herein we may trace a general influence upon his youthful
training exercised by Polygnotos.
With all this course of special training in the craft side of his
art he ever found time to cultivate his susceptibility, apprecia-
tiveness, and active comprehension of the other spheres of
thought and culture, as is evident from his intimacy with
Pericles, his friendship with Anaxagoras, and his acquaintance
with the works of the great poets. Without robbing him of
naïveté of feeling and the freshness of a constructive imagina-
* SQ. 755 (Dio Chrysost. Orat. 551, p. 282).
* SQ. 453 (Lucian, Rhetor. Araecept. ix.).
* SQ. 393 (Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 504); SQ. 398 (Suid. v. Texidas); SQ. 622
(Tzetz. Chil. vii. 929); and SQ. 399 (Chil. viii. 325). - -
* See Brunn, Geschichte der Griech. Künstler II, pp. 28, 29; SQ. Ioff3 (Lucian,
Zmagg. 7); SQ. 1 oz.6 (Aelian. Var. Hist. Iv. 3).
W. 5
66 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
tion, these varied interests and occupations, far from infecting his
artistic creativeness in leading him to attempt immediately to
introduce some one instance from the other spheres of culture
(which is the case only with those who have but just begun half
to understand such facts from an unknown region of thought),
had the one great effect of widening his intellect, giving a loftier
stamp to his conceptions, and making him more completely and
entirely a representative of the spirit of his age".
And yet the mastery over the technical side of his art, which
enabled him to represent freely whatever he desired to represent,
never led him, as it generally does lead artists in the period of
decline or exaggeration of an art, to be carried away by his
manual skill into making the display of this dexterity an end in
itself, so that that appears most admirable which is most difficult
to perform, and this difficulty becomes the measure of the value
of the work. The chief characteristics of the works of Pheidias
are never the technical skill or the manipulative power, but are
those of a moral nature, namely, grandeur and width coupled
with simplicity, which we shall now be able to recognise in
studying the works that are extant and the records of those that
have not come down to us.
The works of Pheidias are, and have been since Preller's"
disquisitions, most naturally divided into three groups corre-
sponding to three periods of his life. The first group consists of
those that belong to the period immediately succeeding the
Persian war, and fall chiefly in the time of Kimon ; the second
falls in the age of Pericles, Pheidias's great activity at Athens;
the third includes those which were brought forth during his
sojourn at Elis. - - -
The works of this first period have as a common feature that
being brought forth under the immediate influence of the past
great victories, they all are in some way immediately affected
by these events, and, as they were destined to commemorate
these victories, have a distinct relation to them. These works
are: (1) A set of thirteen figures in bronze at Delphi", Miltiades
* See the last pages of Essay V.
* Hallische Encyclopaedie iii. 22, pp. 165—203.
* SQ. 633 (Pausanias X. Io, i.). -
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 67
in the centre between Athene and Apollo, with five Athenian
heroes, Theseus, Kodros, and others, following on either side,
arranged in a semicircular position. (2) An Athene at Pellene",
of which little is known. (3) The Athene Areia at Plataeae”,
erected out of the money (eighty talents) paid by the other
states to the Plataeans for their valour. This statue was
akrolithic, that is, covered with gold drapery while the nude
parts were of marble. (4) The colossal Athene Promachos
on the Acropolis”. The exact height of this statue is not
ascertainable, inasmuch as recent researches" have shown the
unfoundedness of the hypotheses formerly proposed. Never-
theless this bronze figure, ‘the great Athene' (Tiju aeyāXmv), as
Demosthenes calls her", must have been of considerable di-
mensions, certainly over thirty feet in height. The sailors
saw her from the sea, she was the first to welcome them home".
Athene in all these statues is conceived rather in her warlike
aspect, she is the protectress of the warlike Greeks. The
Athene Promachos was fully armed, and, if not actually in the
attitude of advancing upon her foe, her position was at least
suggestive of the power to do so. And the other statues were
most likely represented in the same way.
Quite a different conception of Athene is met with in the
statues belonging to the second period, in which Pheidias ap-
pears first to have become himself and to have manifested the
true spirit of his art. Here it is rather the peaceful and be-
nignant side of the goddess that is brought forward. To this
period belong the decorative sculptures of the Parthenon, the
chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of the Athene Par-
thenos', the Virgin Athene; the Aphrodite Ourania", and pro-
bably most of the works to which no exact date can be fixed,
some of which however may have fallen into the third period.
1 SQ. 634 (Pausan. VII. 27, ii.).
2 SQ. 635 (Pausan. IX. 4, i.); SQ. 636 (Plut. Aristid. 20).
* SQ. 637—644.
4 Michaelis, Mittheilungen des deutschen Arch. Institut’s zu Athen II. p. 88 seq.
5 De Falsa Zegat, p. 428, § 272.
6 The statement in Pausanias (I. 28, ii.), that the sailors saw the point of her spear
and the top of her helmet upon rounding Sunium, must not be taken verbatim.
This could not well be possible for topographical reasons.
7 See Essay VIII. - * SQ. 691 (Pausan. I. 14, vii.).
- 5–2
68. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [II.
These are the Lemnian Athene on the Acropolis", so widely
famed for its beauty, a bronze Athene mentioned by Pliny”,
a Hermes Pronaos at Thebes", an Aphrodite in marble men-
tioned by Pliny", an Amazon for the temple of Artemis at
Ephesus, a work with which Pheidias contended with Poly-
kleitos and Kresilas and Phradmon"; and finally, two draped
statues and one nude, all of bronze, mentioned by Pliny as
being in Rome".
To the third period belong the Olympian Zeus in his temple
at Olympia', a gold and ivory Aphrodite Ourania in a temple
at Elis", and the statue of a victor at Olympia, binding the
taenia round his brow”. -
To realise the spirit of the art of Pheidias exhibited in the
works that have not come down to us we are chiefly concerned
with three of these works: the Athene Parthenos, the Lemnian
Athene, and the Olympian Zeus, of two of which, the Parthenos
and the Zeus, the fullest and most numerous accounts have
come down to us in the writings of the ancients.
In the Athene Parthenos, dedicated in her temple in the
year 438 B.C., Pheidias has represented the peaceful aspect of
the great goddess; and yet, in harmony with the largeness of
the material forms he has used (it was about 34 feet in height)
and the height and splendour of the material (gold and ivory),
he did not conceive her merely as the virgin, making her
maidenly charms the most striking feature, but brought out
that side of maidenhood which is greatest, the strength of purity.
Therefore, from the point from which we are just now viewing
the art of Pheidias this work is most instructive. Maidenhood
does not essentially call forth in us the idea of grandeur. The
feelings corresponding to it would, in the first instance, rather
be those corresponding to lowlier qualities, those evoked by
* SQ. 758–764. * SQ. 765 (Plin. M. H. XXXIV. 54).
* SQ. 766 (Pausan. IX. Io, ii.). , 4 SQ. 767 (Plin. M. H. xxxvi. 15).
* SQ. 768 (Lucian. Imagg. Iv.); SO. 946 (Plin, M. H. XXXIV. 53).
* SQ. 769 (Plin. M. H. XXXIV. 54).
7 See below, and more fully in Essay VIII.
* SQ. 755 (Pausan. VI. 25, i.); SQ. 756 (Plut. Coniug, Praecept. 32).
* SQ. 757 (Pausan. VI. 4, v.). I do not mention works of which the attribution
to Pheidias is doubtful. . .
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. 69
the Lovely and the Charming. Yet there is one aspect in which
the effect produced in us may partake of greater dimension and
intensity, that is, when the essentially pure qualities are brought
out to the highest degree and bring before us the strength of
purity and of serene unconsciousness, the power of simplicity.
We are predisposed to be impressed with sublimity and power
in the representation of a Zeus, but in the virgin goddess this
can only be attained in making us forget the woman in our
adoration of the maiden. It must be the glorification of sim-
plicity. That Pheidias succeeded in this is shown by the refer-
ences to the statue by the ancient authors as simply the maiden,
# IIapóévos. In another work they may praise above all
things the charm of the bodily forms, in her it is simply the
virgin, the powerful protectress of the Attic people, the daughter
of Zeus, that is admired. No doubt Pheidias added to this
effect by the accessory attributes; for, though she was not in
full armour, she wore the helmet and the aegis; and her arms,
shield and spear were ready by her side. But still, however
huge in dimensions, however brilliant in the material that took
her form, this statue never could suggest a Hera, the womanly
queen of gods and men, and still less an Aphrodite; to the
eyes of the Greeks she ever remained the virgin daughter of
Zeus. -
And still Pheidias in his manysidedness was able also to
represent the smaller and more human aspects of the maiden
goddess; but then, with the tact of the great artist, he turns to
smaller dimensions and simpler material (bronze). This we find,
in the Lemnian Athene. Here it is chiefly the beauty which
attracted admiration, nay the spectator was even allowed to
analyse and to define this beauty. So Lucian, whose attitude of
mind with regard to beauty was rather that of a worldly con-
noisseur, admires in her chiefly the contour of the face, the soft
modelling of the cheeks, and the well-shaped nose; and Hi-
merius' notices the delicacy of the modelling of the cheeks, and
says that Pheidias cast a soft rosy tint over the cheeks. But
even in all this analytical praise, it is still the head upon which
the admiration is concentrated. ... *
* SQ. 761 (Himerius, Orat. xxi. 4).
7o ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
The work however in which Pheidias appears to have been
most himself, was the Olympian Zeus. It is here that he
distinctly brought out the qualities of his art to which we have
drawn attention before, those which were recognised by the
ancients. An oracle" addressed to Sulla combines Beauty (Tö
káAXos) with Grandeur (tò pláye60s), as the chief characteristic
of this work. Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ praises in it its
solemnity, grandeur, and dignity (ró oreplvöv kai peya MóTexvov
Acal détopwatuków). And still with all its grandeur it had perfect
simplicity, as is shown by the effect it produced upon others,
who were chiefly struck with the beauty and sweetness (the
Xàpts thS Téxums) of the “peaceful and benign" god. Its effect
upon the spectator was quite magical: Arrian” and Dio Chryso-
stomos" look upon it as a magic draught which banishes all care
and pain. “I think,” says the latter, “that even a man who is
quite cumbered in spirit, who in his life has drunk often of the cup
of adversity and sorrow, and to whom even the sweet solace of
sleep never comes, I think that even he, when he stands before
this statue, forgets all the cruel and alarming accidents that
beset the life of man. So happy hast thou (Pheidias) been in
inventing and contriving a spectacle that is simply
Grief's cure, vexation's antidote,
Making forgetfulness of every care".
and such surpassing radiance and charm has thy art conveyed
to the work.” Pausanias" relates the story that, when Pheidias
had completed his work and implored Zeus for a token mani-
festing whether he was contented with the work of the artist,
Zeus sent through the hypaethral opening of the temple flashes
of lightning, and a slab of black marble on the white pavement
of the temple indicated to posterity the spot where Zeus had
marked his approbation of his image. Plotinus’ says that
“Pheidias had conceived Zeus in his imagination as Zeus would
have been if he had appeared to him face to face.” Even upon
1 SQ. 720 (Plut. Syll. xvii.).
* De Isocr. p. 95, Ed. Sylb. ; Brunn, Gesch. d. Gr. Künstler I. p. 204.
3 SQ. 727 (Epict. I. vi. 24). * SQ. 707 (Dion Chr. Orat. XII. 51).
8 Hom. Od. IV. 22 I. * SQ. 696 (Pausan. v. xi. 7o).
7 SQ. 716 (Ennead. v. viii. p. rooz. Ed. Creuzer). *
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 71
a Roman like Aemilius Paullus the statue had the same effect,
for it appeared to him either that he saw the embodiment of
the Zeus of Homer, or that the god himself was present".
We meet with similar expressions, concerning the images of
gods in general by the hand of Pheidias, in numerous authors.
But finally the most instructive and definite statement of the
effect of the statue is given by Quintilian” when he says: “that
Pheidias is held to be a greater artist in the fashioning of gods
than of men, and that his Zeus had even added to the existing
religion a new element, so closely does the majesty of the work
approach the god himself.”
This “added ” is most instructive. When we approach a
modern work of art”, even of the most excellent type (we may
perhaps except some of Turner's landscapes), what is it we
generally find 2 If true, some scene, some figure, some mood is
\
recalled to our memory, only purified and freed from any of
the disturbing surroundings that dwelt with that actual sight.
We may be carried away by the poetic mood which the work
creates in us. But do we really see anything new, before
unseen, really created 3 Do the forms and the things and the
scenes that the painter or the sculptor represents to our eyes,
if they ever do attain the highest and most beautiful that we
can conceive of, that our imagination, or inner eye, has shown
us whether in day-dream or night-dream—do they ever surpass
this higher power of our inner conception ? I venture to say
‘No.” But it is not enough for the great artist that he should
have the power of executing and realising more or less ade4
quately the inner conceptions of the generality of men. The
stress in that case is put exclusively upon the power of expression
* SQ. 725, 726, 729 (Polyb. Exc. xxx. 15, 3; Plut. Paull. Aem. 28; Liv. xlv. 28).
* SQ. 721 (Inst. Orat. XII. x. 9). -
* I should like it to be understood that it is not primarily with a view to a
comparison of merit between ancient and modern art that I adduce this parallel.
When we consider modern art in its relation to modern times and their spirit much
could be said in its favour. It is merely to convey a notion of the spirit of a certain
class of art to which the works of Pheidias belong, what the French call le Grand Art,
that I dwell upon the difference between the Art of a Pheidias and modern Art.
There is no doubt that this ‘Great Art” is not adequately represented in our times, and
the reasons for this are chiefly to be found in the surrounding social, political and
economical circumstances. (See Note at the end of Essay VIII.)
72 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
and not of conception; though there the power of expression
is no doubt of the greatest importance and a fundamental pre-
miss to artistic work. But the great artist must also have a
finer inner sight, a subtler creative organisation, a loftier pro-
ductive imagination, than ordinary man, and must have the
power to reproduce this in his work, so that, when the spectator
stands before it he must feel its meaning, and, without effort,
have presented to his imagination, through the channels of
his outer senses, higher, more harmonious, more beautiful forms
than he has ever constructed for himself within. Whatever may
be the sphere of things and events, and aspects of things and
events which the artistic representation relates to, it must tran-
scend, in its way, the ordinary conception of the daily experience
of every-day men. If it be a religious subject it must work
religious feelings that have never been felt before. Before
Pheidias (and we may say after him too) whatever degree of
perfection sculpture had arrived at, the temple statues were to a
certain degree mere idols, even in the modern acceptation of the
term. They were rather the symbols for religious exaltation,
the physical stimulants to inner religious moods, but the surplus
constituent of devotion was presented by the inner religious
imagination, and was not essentially determined by the ma-
terially artistic incentive. In other words, the devotee brought
more religious sentiment into the temple than was offered him
by the spirit which emanated from the sacred monument of
the god. . . .
But upon viewing the Olympian Zeus the spectator received
more than he could possibly have brought. The form of the
majestic figure, the grandeur of the perfect brow, over-shadowed
by its massive locks, the sweetness and benignity of the smile,
the colossal dimensions all but overpowering the perceptive
faculty of the eye, the power, the brilliancy, and above all the
beauty, shed forth by this more than human form, must have
moved the senses beyond the experience of previous sensations,
must have filled the emotions with unfelt vibrations, must have
called forth thoughts that had never before been combined into
one conception, and even then through their overpowering
greatness merged into one huge feeling, that of the sublime.
This is meant when Quintilian says that “Pheidias added some-
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. - 73
thing to the received religion,” and this it is that constitutes
the ideal in art. It is the archetype of things and feelings,
higher than any one particular individual, in fact, one of Plato's
Ideas, one of those conceptions which Aristotle, in speaking of
Plato, characterises as aiorðmrå dièua, that is, things perceptible
to the senses (and therefore temporal) translated into the sphere
of eternity. This relation between the art of Pheidias and the
Platonic Ideas is expressed directly by Cicero, when he says
that “Pheidias did not fashion his Zeus after any single man,
but that there had been in his mind some perfect picture of
beauty, which he had contemplated, with which he had en-
tirely filled himself, and which had directed his hand. But
this image, he says, is nothing more than the Platonic idea,
of which Plato says that it has no birth, but is ever existing
and rests in the human reason and understanding (ratione et
intellegentia)".”
All these great effects however were produced by the sim-
plest means. The greatness of the Zeus never led to an ex-
aggeration of any part of the body to the detriment of the
simple harmony of the whole, to any contortion of the figure, no
excessive accentuation of one side of the whole figure, which
was fashioned in strict accordance with the truth in nature.
And so it is that along with this lofty praise of the spiritual
qualities the ancient authors do not fail to add the more sober
praise of the correctness in composition and execution. It is
the beauty (ró ca)\\os) which is connected with the grandeur
(ró puéyeffos), in the above quoted oracle, which points to this
harmony of proportion, so that the sublime and awful can
still be harmonious and beautiful. It is the grace (xãpts),
* Orat. 2. 9. Nec vero ille artifex, cum faceret Iovis formam aut Minervae,
contemplabatur aliquem e quo similitudinem duceret, sed ipsius in mente insidebat
species pulchritudinis eximia quaedam, quam intuens in eague defixus ad illius
similitudinem artem et manum dirigebat. Ut igitur in formis et figuris est aliquid
perfectum et excellens, cujus ad cogitatam speciem imitando referuntur ea quae sub
oculos ipsa cadunt, sic perfectae eloquentiae speciem animo videmus, effigiem auribus
quaerimus. Has rerum formas appellat ideas ille non intelligendi solum sed etiam
dicendi gravissimus auctor et magister Plato; easque gigni negat et ait semper
esse ac ratione et intelligentia contineri, cetera nasci, occidere; fluere, labi, nec diutius
esse uno et eodem statu. Quidduid est igitur de quo ratione et via disputetur, id est
ad ultimam sui generis formam speciemgue redigendum,
74 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
that Dio Chrysostomos praises; while Demetrius' mentions
that it is a characteristic of the works of Pheidias to have not
only the grandeur (rö ueya)\etov) but the correctness as well
(Tó dept/8és àpua).
All these great works however have been destroyed, and
nothing more remains of the art of Pheidias than the plastic
decorations of the Parthenon. We must ever bear in mind
that these works, incalculable though their value may be for
us, and however admirable they may be in themselves, are far
from being the full representatives of the plastic art of Pheidias.
If we wish to appreciate the relationship they hold to the
works of Pheidias, we can best do this in considering the
relation that the pictorial decorations of the Loggie of the
Vatican hold to the art of Raphael. I do not mean to imply
that this similarity of relation amounts to identity. For, how-
ever vastly different in spiritual importance a figure from the
Parthenon pediment may be as compared with the sacred
temple-statue of the Olympian Zeus, still these pedimental
figures are more like colossal statues than the decorations of
the Loggie are like pictures. Yet, if we could imagine that all
the great works of Raphael had been destroyed, and that for
the appreciation of his genius we had been driven back to
the Loggie and the written descriptions of those authors who
had seen his great works, the case would be very similar to
the one in which we are now placed with regard to the recogni-
tion of the genius of Pheidias. - -
Nevertheless even in these comparatively meagre remains
of his work we can trace in every stroke of the chisel his
characteristic grandeur, width, and simplicity. It was breathed
into the character of the man by the spirit of a great age. The
sculptures of the Parthenon are transfused with this spirit.
Massive and large in their lines, they are free from everything
that points towards the petty tricks of the craft, and they are
solemn and simple as the measures of a great work of Bach,
only less formal and more full of life. Never do they suggest
to us the laboured and the painfully wrought, and though they
* SQ.. 794 (De Elocut. I4).
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 75
are massive and large in character, they are never heavy. This
general impression of the Parthenon sculptures as a whole is
maintained and enforced when we examine the special groups
more closely, whether Metopes, or Pediments, or Frieze.
Of all the existing remains, the Metopes are least fully
expressive of the art of Pheidias. There is reason in fact
to believe that they are not the production of his full-grown
genius. So that for the purpose we have now before us,
namely that of investigating the spirit of the art of Pheidias,
they are only of service as enabling us to study the stages of
its growth". - -
With the Pediments”, it is altogether different. From what-
ever side we consider them, the general conception, the composi-
tion of the work, the single figures, the chief characteristics of
Pheidiac art impress themselves upon us.
The conception of the events represented has the effect of
producing an artistic creation saturated with the deepest human
thoughts to an extent unequalled in the whole range of art.
What makes them so unique is that these loftiest and most
weighty conceptions of the human mind are expressed in, a
sensuous language, intelligible to the ordinary Greek of antiquity
without any effort and without any demand for a previous
training in philosophical thought or a long habit of such reason-
ing. This greatness and vastness of the thoughts that are here
expressed in stone applies chiefly to the Eastern pediment; for,
as we shall see”, the subject represented in the Western pedi-
ment has a more local character. In the Eastern pediment,
without any strained allegory or any didactic obtrusion of
erudition, the widest conceptions of the human brain, Time
and Space, the terrestrial and the celestial world, humanity
and divinity, are all put into the familiar forms created by the
childlike imagination of an essentially artistic people. It is
the birth of Athene, the clear-eyed daughter of Zeus, the bright
atmosphere which descends from heaven to earth. Can we
imagine a nobler frame-work for this great event than Time
incorporate 2 Helios, the sun-god, rising over the mountains at
* For a closer investigation of the Metopes of the Parthenon see Essay III.
* See Essays IV. and V. * See Essay IV,
76 ESSAYS ON TIIE ART OF PHEIDIA.S. [II.
the left' wing, and Selene, the moon-goddess, descending into
the sea on the right, and both these figures, while making
manifest to the senses of the most childlike mind the great
process and endless course of nature in time, definitely suggest-
ing to human reason that which is indefinite and boundless, at
the same time serve to fix the event to the early dawn; and
hence, taking Olympus as the seat of action, indicate the whole
compass of the earth by what lies between the East and the
West. Surely if one task of the poet and artist is to express
the great truths of life and nature in terms that are harmonious,
and therefore intelligible without an effort, Pheidias has here
succeeded in his task. . . . . .
In the composition of these pediments as a whole, we
have the same largeness of line with fulness of decorative
effect. In both pediments our eye is driven with one con-
tinuous sweep to the centre of interest. If we do but compare
these compositions with the composition of the pediments of
the Temple of Athene at Aegina, which are but thirty years
earlier, we shall appreciate the advance that was made by
Pheidias. In the Aegina pediments, however great be the
progress which they mark, we feel in every instance how each
figure was placed in a position to suit the height prescribed by
the limits of the cornice, and withal there is a certain emptiness
in the composition as a whole, a number of blank spaces left
which rob the representation of organic unity. In the Par-
thenon pediments, on the other hand, however large the outline
of the composition, there is that fulness which gives life and
variety to the whole”; and yet it is not so in the sense of later
(especially Roman) art, in which architectural sculpture is not
only engaged in contributing to the harmony of effect in an
edifice, but becomes literally enslaved, to the entire extinction
of its own rights and claims as sculpture, so that the apparent
1 Throughout these Essays, by “right’ and “left” I mean the right and left of the
spectator. . - • - •
* This is an instance of the relation between symmetry and rhythm, the regularity
of form in composition and the flow of life in the modelling in regard to separate
statues, as I have tried to show in the earlier part of this Essay, and in the article on
Pythagoras of Rhegion, reprinted from the journal of Hellenic Studies (i. 192) at the
end of the present volume, . . .
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 77
purpose of the plastic figures is primarily and above all to fill
a certain space with pleasing lines.
The single figures of these pediments tell the same story.
They are in fact perfect models for decorative sculpture, inas-
much as, though they satisfy the demands of the laws governing
such work, they are found to be, as far as possible, still in
compliance with the laws governing sculpture properly so called.
As we have seen before", in decorative sculpture the laws apply-
ing to sculpture proper are modified in so far as the single figure
becomes subservient to the general effect of the whole composi-
tion, and even mediately to the total effect of the architectural
structure; and laws that partake of the nature of the laws of
pictorial art modify those that apply more strictly to plastic art.
But still decorative sculpture is the more perfect according as
the artist succeeds, while complying with the demands of deco-
ration, in keeping within the limits of the art of which this is
but a modification. Though the single figures of the Parthenon
pediments join organically to one another and each and all
contribute to the harmony of the decorative effect of the com-
position as a whole, still each figure, both in composition and
in modelling, has that self-containedness and inward localisa-
tion of the centre of interest, which to a certain degree makes
it a remarkable work when viewed by itself, disjointed from the
whole group. Nay, we can go so far as to say, that, despite
the unbroken unity of the compositions as a whole, we can
very well subdivide the whole pediment into smaller groups
of two and three figures, these smaller groups having the most
complete roundness of composition; and again subdivide these.
smaller groups into single figures which are individually remark-
able statues.
In these single figures again, we can distinguish, as displaying
the chief attributes of Pheidiac art, three particular points, the
attitudes, the proportion, and the modelling.
By means of the attitudes he has chosen, Pheidias has given
to these figures, without being cumbrous and heavy, a width
and breadth which present to the eye large masses of broad
and monumental lines as opposed to the meagre and unstable.
* See Essay I., page 32.
78 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
It is the one thing of which we most frequently feel the want
in modern monuments placed in the open air. However at-
tractive they may appear to us in the studio, when once they
have as back-ground an open space or a lofty building, they
dwindle into pettiness, barely attaining neatness. They have
often one side or aspect which corresponds in character to the
scale of the surroundings; but this character is seldom main-
tained throughout, and some aspects will be sadly meagre and
thin.
Now this largeness does not relate to the actual size of the
monument as a whole, but is a question of inner proportion, the
relation that subsists between the parts among each other and of
the parts as a whole. If this inner proportion of the work does
not impress the stamp of largeness upon it, no amount of increase
in dimension will produce this effect. On the contrary, such
an enlarged work without the elements of grandeur in the
composition itself, becomes monstrous and formless. A good
instance of this is the gigantic (9 feet 8 inches) infant Herakles'
of basalte nero in the Capitol at Rome. As the statue now
stands, it is grotesque and monstrous. If, however, we try the
experiment of examining it through a reversed opera-glass, it
becomes quaint and bearable. The reasons for this difference
of effect are to be found, in the first place, in the fact that a child
suggests to us the essentially small, and will not therefore bear
translation into colossal dimensions. A separate colossal statue
of a child, even when seen from a distance, is monstrous ; there
is not then the perfect harmony between the subject repre-
sented and the material form in which it is expressed, which
we have learnt to consider a primary principle of art. In the
arms of some grown-up figure or as part of a group, the colossal
statue of a child might be represented without incongruity; for
then its essential smallness would be made evident by its com-
parative size. In the second place, the reasons for the quaintness
of this statue when viewed through a reversed opera-glass as
compared with its formless appearance as it now stands, are to
be found in the fact that the exaggerated proportions of this
Herculean child, which would be apparent even in natural
* Aſuseo Capitolino, Vol. I., p. 112, pl. XL.
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 79
dimensions, become still further exaggerated with an increase
to colossal dimensions; while in the reduction they become less
obtrusively noticeable as faults, but merely produce the effect of
quaintness. Quaintness generally depends upon some faulty
proportion or something abnormal. Genre and comic painting
and sculpture will never bear colossal dimensions. This the
Dutch painters knew. Quaintness made colossal becomes gro-
tesque and even repulsive. Now, from whatever distance we
view the Parthenon figures, however small the actual image
on our retina be, the figures will ever appear large to us,
because in their composition and in their proportions they are
largely conceived and executed”. And yet (and this is an
uncommon feature) these statues will well bear close inspection,
and their inner harmony is such that they ever remain beautiful,
whatever the point from which spectators view them.
Lastly, this is the result of the character of the modelling
itself, and of the love with which the details are executed. Each
smallest line and part of the surface has that breadth of model-
ling, that avoidance of all that is petty and accidental, which,
attracting the eye for its own sake, does so to the detriment
of that which is more important, more typical and lasting. It
is the indescribable something which is inherent in the execu-
tion of these Parthenon sculptures, and in some of the works
of Michelangelo, which can only be hinted at by such words
Though this quality is the immediate outcome of the character and nature of the
artist himself, it is evident that Pheidias studied most carefully, almost scientifically,
the laws of proportion governing colossal statues. In the artist’s sketch this quality
will come out spontaneously from his inner character and from the theoretical study
after it has become a part of his nature, Saturated his mind, and has, as it were, gone
over from the sphere of intellect into that of emotion and will. But in the execution
on a large scale the actual immediate application of these almost scientific principles
of proportion will have to be made. That Pheidias did this, is evident from the
passage in Tzetzes (Chil. VIII. 340) in which it is stated that Alkamenes was pro-
claimed victor over Pheidias in a particular competition when the works were
examined below, but that the palm was given immediately to Pheidias when once this
colossal work had been placed on its high pillar. It is also evident when we notice
how carefully the lower and projecting parts of the seated figures from the eastern
pediment are slightly diminished in order not to appear disproportionately large in
relation to the upper and more receding parts. That the ancients carefully considered
these matters is shown by a passage from Plato's Sophist (235 D, E.), in which the
necessity of diminishing the lower parts of the colossal work in order to comply
with the demands of proper proportion is clearly stated.
8O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. . [II.
as “breadth' and ‘largeness', and negatively indicated by saying
that they are free from half-tints and half-lines. It is felt most
readily by comparing one of the Parthenon figures with an
Apollo Sauroktonos, the Aphrodite of Melos with the Venus
de' Medici, a Sibyl from Michelangelo's fresco of the Sistine
Chapel with one of Watteau's shepherdesses, a stanza from
Milton with a song of Béranger, or a symphonic movement of
Beethoven with an impromptu of Chopin.
Finally, in the Frieze”, as is necessarily the case with con-
tinuous relief work, the principles of plastic art are exception-
ally modified by those of pictorial art”. Yet even here the
effect is produced with a least possible encroachment upon
the laws governing plastic monumental art. Here again we must
notice separately the general conception, the composition, and
the single figures. -
In the conception of the subject, the Panathenaic pro-
cession, Pheidias has manifested his innate sense of what is
typical and lasting even when he is representing what is
manifold, varied, and changing. The very arguments which
the archaeologist Boetticher” brings against the assumption
that the frieze represents this procession are most useful in
illustrating this artistic tact of Pheidias. Boetticher misses
regularity, the rank and file of a solemn procession, and the
heavy ornaments of wreaths on the heads of the figures, and
therefore doubts whether it can be a representation of the
sacred pomp. But, happily, Pheidias was not an archaeologist
but an artist. Instead of copying the procession as it really was
and presenting us with monotonous lines of orderly ranks of foot
and horse (as is sometimes done with considerable display of
handicraft skill in more modern reliefs), he has chosen that
which is typical and lasting and therefore most worthy of being
transferred to marble. -
And this is also true of the composition. In the frieze as
in the pediments, the whole is true and pleasing, harmonious
in its distribution, and uniform in its conception, and yet replete
with life and movement. There is no violent flapping of
* See Essays VI. and VII. - * * See Essay I, page 32.
* Zeitschr, f. d. Alterthumswissenschaft, 1857. - . . .
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 81
drapery, no contortion of rippling lines, as in the frieze of the
temple of Apollo at Phigalia; and still, the longer we look at
the Parthenon frieze, the more it will gain in life; while, in
comparison with this, the longer we see the Phigalian frieze,
the less vital will its movement appear. -
And the single figures, moreover, play each its part in the
whole drama, and yet are so self-contained in their composi-
tion that they afford endless motives to sculptors for separate
statues. Nay, though they be but half the size of life, many of
these figures are so large in conception that they need but be
transferred to the round and increased in their dimensions, to
present admirable colossal monuments. -
Thus, though the great works of Pheidias have not come
down to us, the remains of the decorations of the Parthenon tell
us of that spirit of Art which we have been endeavouring to
recognise.
This grandeur of character in the works of Pheidias is heighten-
ed and partly produced through the absence of all conscious
striving and straining after effect by means of the small tricks
and bye-ways of technical skill. It is their simplicity which
makes, or adds to, their power. Yet all these qualities in the
work cannot be immediately produced by one act of the will of
an artist; they are to be traced back to the same characteristics
in the man. And such a man was Pheidias; the offspring
and typical representative of the age of Greek history most
characterised by loftiness of feeling and directness of purpose.
NOTE B.
P. 42. “The intention of the artist.
It would be well for modern art critics, who do not profess to deal with works of
art from the historical or scientific point of view, to bear in mind the fact that a
perfect work of art does not remind us of the process of its creation. They must not
believe that they are conveying any adequate notion of a painting or of the effect it
was intended to produce upon the appreciative public, when they use a few words
like ‘chiaroscuro' or ‘fore-shortening,” and try to write as much as possible as if they
were doing, by means of a few empty words, the very actions that the maker of a
picture has really to perform in the most craftsmanlike stage of his art-production.
W. 6
82 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
These art critics appear to aim at converting the appreciative public into a host of
non-painting painters, who are first to be oppressed with the material difficulties of
the production of such things, and then perhaps to be delighted at having succeeded
in constructing this imaginary work. They are looking for the same kind of pleasure
as the art-producer himself derives out of his hard work. And whom, we must ask, is
the product itself finally to delight or edify?
If I might here proceed still further in this line of criticism to the sphere of the
writers on the Theory of Art, I should like to point to one fundamental fallacy, as
wide-spread as it is well supported by authority and readily accepted. I mean the
fundamental fallacy concerning the attitude in which we are to encounter works of art
for purposes of appreciation. It is the idea that we justly appreciate a work of art
from an artistic point of view, when we perceive, consider, and admire the perseve-
rance, honesty, skill, or even nobility of the work as work. In an artistic creation
we are told that we should primarily look for the design, for the personal element
underlying the work, or for the morality in the working. -
I hold that a work of art, as a work of art in contradistinction to a piece of
mechanism, ought in the first place to engross our attention with its own inner life
and harmony, so that we almost forget for the time being that it was ever made and
| did not always exist, and that it must call forth in us feelings corresponding to this
life and harmony of the thing of art. We may admire upon subsequent reflection
ſfacts connected with its construction or distant associations which spring secondarily
from the work of art, and this is a very important quality of such works. Yet we
must not mistake the cause of our admiration and ascribe it to the thing of art itself,
and still less must we make a retrospective inference and make this secondary cause
of admiration the essential aim of a work of art. An artistic production may
stimulate and satisfy our scientific and moral Eros; but we must not ascribe this to the
aesthetical qualities of the work, nor must we consider this stimulation and satisfaction
to be the primary aim of art. . -
Our admiration may even be of an artistic nature, immediately caused by some-
thing artistic, and still not be the result (as we may be inclined to believe) of the work
that is before our eyes. This is generally the case when in the work of art we admire
the worker and the honesty and perseverance of his labour. It is not the Adam and
Eve in the picture which call forth our admiration, when we think of the honesty or
the Germanic Renaissance sobriety of a Dürer or a Cranach. Let us not be mistaken
about what we admire. What produces in us the aesthetic pleasure in such a case, is
a drama or an epic poem. This moral story of work or historical epic of Nürnberg
is of our own making. It is we who construct this story in our own imagination and
sympathise with the character whom we picture to ourselves sitting in his garret,
toiling at and loving his lines, and strengthening and beautifying each stroke with the
chaste spirit of hard work. And a most beautiful story we may make it ! But it is
we that have made it, it is we that have inwardly written and acted a moral
drama and have painted pictures of Nürnberg. But where have we left the picture
of Adam and Eve 2 -
Surely a work of art has an aesthetic right of existence of its own, independent of
its happening to be a slight stimulus to inner, immaterial, self-made, and admired art-
productions. And this is as little the aim of the artist or the purpose of the work,
as the inner drama of the noble toilful life of a Spinoza, suggested to us by his
works, is the primary aim and scientific result of the philosophy contained in his
books. -
II.] THE SPIRIT OF THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. 83
Skilful construction and utility, morality in the act of creation, and augmentation
of knowledge, are as little the primary aim of a work of art, as the primary aim
of a railway-bridge is beauty, moral edification, and increase of knowledge; as the
Zmitatio Christi was immediately meant to bring worldly profit, to give aesthetical
pleasure, or to establish scientific doctrine; or as a treatise on biology is primarily
and immediately designed to be of practical use, to provide aesthetical edification,
and moral amelioration.
Ethical Aesthetics are in one way as absurd as Artistic Ethics. For both are
untrue, when they are meant to define the exact province of either of these spheres of
human thought. But let me in one word urge that this does not mean that art,
morality, and utility are opposed to one another. When immorality stares out of a
picture or brawls out of a poem, in so far these attributes counteract the effect
of beauty in us; nor indeed can we conceive of goodness as a thing ugly and
repulsive.
NOTE. C.
P. 63. “The fables concerning the guilt of Pheidias.”
Since this passage was in type there have appeared two papers bearing immediately
upon the life, death and works of Pheidias which bring forward views that are new and
in some points differ from those hitherto accepted. The one is by Dr H. Müller-
Strübing (Die Legenden vom Tode des Phidias. Fleckeisen's jahrbücher für class.
Philologie, Jahrgang 28, 1882, p. 289 seq.), the other by Lyr J. Loeschke (Phidias
Zod und Chronologie des Olympischen Zeus, Historische Untersuchung).
Dr Müller-Strübing in the course of his learned paper brings out some important
facts concerning the history of the age of Pheidias. According to him the life of
Pheidias extended from 495 to 428, and he ended his life highly honoured by the
Eleans in some part of their country. He compares with each other the various
renderings of the scholion to Aristophanes Pax, 605, and shows the absurdity of the
charge of embezzlement brought against the great artist. The charge of sacrilege
connected with the portraits on the shield of the Athene Parthenos as related by
Plutarch he thinks was a legend composed by the attendants of the temple who
showed visitors about. When we find that not only the later writers, but also
Aristotle, Cicero, Valerius Maximus, down to Ampelius allude to it, there seems, to
say the least, to have been little doubt in the minds of educated men in antiquity as
to the truth of the fact. Müller-Strübing's argument that Pliny and Pausanias do not
mention the portraits or even the shield, is of no weight to disprove the story con-
cerning the portraits. For if their silence concerning the portraits were proof that
these did not exist, the shield itself would on the same grounds have no existence,
which could hardly be maintained by any student.
Dr Loeschke's view seems the more probable one, that both these charges were
brought together, and were part of a general charge of profaneness (āoréfleta). Ac-
cording to him the building of the Parthenon would occupy more time than has
heretofore been assumed, and would come after the sculptor had completed the Zeus
at Olympia. It would then have lasted from 447 to 434.
6–2
84 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [II.
If, finally, R. Schöne (Zm AVeuen Reich, II. 297 seq.) is correct, the opisthodomos
at the west end would have been ready to hold the treasury transported thither from
Delos about 454 B.C., and there would thus be an interruption in the building. The
difference in the perfection of the western pediment as compared with the eastern, and
the growth in excellence to be noticed in the various works decorating the Parthenon
(as will become evident in the following Essays) would speak for this interruption
as well as for the longer time devoted to the building of the Parthenon.
ESSAY III.
THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON AND THE
LAPITH-HEAD IN THE LOUVRE.
Kega)\ºv rá paſtºp treuptéueffa dpuártovarav čtruffetvai roſs trpôa 6ev.
Let me try to provide the story with a head which fits our previous discoveries.
PLATO, Timaeus, 69 A.
ESSAY III.
THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON AND THE LAPITH-HEAD
IN THE LOUVRE.
THE transition from the round lines of the columns of a
Doric temple (see fig. 3), in the shaft and in the echinus of the
Fig. 3. Corner of a Doric temple (Penrose).
capital, to the straight lines of the entablature surmounting the
pillars, is made by means of a square slab called the abacus

88 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
(TAtv6os). This abacus seems placed between the weight-sustain-
ing echinus and the heavy mass of the roofing as a kind of inter-
mediate body to relieve the strain upon both main divisions, as it
binds together the two systems of lines. Over the capital and the
abacus, reaching from pillar to pillar, are oblong blocks of stone
which constitute the architrave (€rtatüMov). The architrave is
surmounted by the frieze, and the frieze by the projecting cornice
(yeſorov). This cornice is surmounted by a triangular space
enclosed by another cornice, and the gable thus formed is the
pediment (detós). The recess created by the enclosing triangu-
lar cornice has a wall at the back (Tiptravov, tympanum), which
is filled with a group of statues. -
In the Ionic and Corinthian orders the frieze forms one con-
tinuous band with an uninterrupted ornamentation. In the
Doric order the frieze is called Tpiy\vdov, because it is sub-
divided by means of small projecting rectangular pieces (higher
than they are broad), one above and one between each two
pillars. These projections are subdivided into three parts by
means of two grooves cut into the surface, and hence they are
called triglyphs (tpi)\vdos). The square space intervening be-
tween each two triglyphs is called the metope (ueróTm, metopa).
Originally this space between the triglyphs was left open and
served as a window"; but subsequently it was closed with a
marble slab which was decorated with painting or sculpture in
relief”. -
In the Parthenon” these metopes were of Pentelic marble and
were decorated with sculpture in high relief. There were ninety-
two of them, separated from one another by triglyphs, and
running round the whole of the temple: fourteen on either front,
and thirty-two on either side. Each was 441 ft. square, but
the top contained a projecting seam of O-45 ft. decorated with
a bead ornament (darpayaMos) which must be deducted from the
space left for reliefs. The figures in the reliefs project from the
background about IO in. This projection is never exceeded, and
* Eurip. Iph. Taur. I 13.
* The accompanying cut (fig. 3) is taken, by kind permission, from Mr Fergusson's
recent work on the Parthenon. It is reduced from Penrose's True Principles of
Athenian Architecture, Plate I. . . ;
* See Michaelis, Der Parthenom, p. 124 seq.
III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. 89
was therefore probably prescribed by the thickness of the slabs.
The relief was very bold, and frequently the figures stood forth
freely from the ground, in part almost as if in the round. The
heads are often finished quite as in the round; for instance, the
torso of the southern metope XVI (Michaelis) was only attached
to the background at the shoulder; the torso from metope XIV
has the back entirely finished, thus showing that the whole
upper part of the body stood forth freely. The light striking
these compositions from all sides, there was no fear that the
strong projections in the relief would produce disturbing sha-
dows'. If in some instances the lower extremities of the figures,
such as a foot, stood forth so boldly that the figure might
appear to be floating in the air, this effect, as Michaelis has
shown, would be counteracted by the fact that the metopes
receded slightly more than the architrave below them, and so
the feet, which would otherwise not be seen at all, appear to be
standing on firm ground.
Though there are at present no traces of colour to be found
on these metopes, there can hardly be any doubt that originally
the reliefs were supported by colour. A committee appointed
to examine this question in 1836° was unable at that time to come
to any definite conclusion. Faraday admitted the possibility of
colour having been destroyed by the soap-suds in taking moulds
of the whole series of the Elgin Marbles. Penrose” believed
in slight traces, though he leaves the whole very doubtful; while
Beulé, and the German sculptor Siegel", who, during a long
residence in Athens, has examined numberless fragments found
Žn situ, decidedly assert that they have seen distinct traces of
colour on the metopes. The frequent use of bronze accessories,
as well as the flat and smooth blocking of the hair, especially of
the Lapiths, without any ridges to indicate its texture, point to
the use of colour. There can hardly be a doubt that the ground
of the relief was coloured, and, as the triglyphs decidedly were
blue, this ground was most probably dark red. The brightness
of the light and the clearness of the atmosphere, which on the one
* This would have been the case in the frieze. See Essays VI. and VII.
* See Michaelis, p. 125, and Transactions of the R. Inst. of British Architects,
Vol. I., Part II., p. Io; seq.
* The Parthenon, p. 56. * Z'Acropole, &c., II., p. 136.
* Quoted by Michaelis, p. 56.
f
90 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
hand called for pronounced relief and for the support of colour
to render the designs visible in their distant position, on the
other hand counteracted the excessive prominence of colour.
As I have pointed out before”, the prescribed and limited
space offered to the sculptor in the metopes called forth his
skill in composing complete groups within each limited space.
In many of the metopes this is most successfully accomplished.
On the other hand it has been recognised that the several
metopes have a distinct relation among each other, and, though
separated by the intervening triglyphs, form groups of larger
compositions. These groups, as is generally the case in Greek
temples, are again fixed and defined by the different sides of
the temple; and so it is clear that on the east front the metopes
represent scenes from the battle between the giants and gods,
on the west they represent the battle between Greeks and
Amazons, on the north and south the battle between the Lapiths
and Centaurs. Within the compositions on the north and south
(being the longer sides of the temple) are introduced two smaller
compositions, the subject of which on the north has been made
out to be the conquest of Troy, while that on the south is
unexplained. With the exception of the metopes from the
south, representing the Kentauromachia, some of which are in
perfect preservation, the metopes have suffered so much from
the weather and the results of the destruction of the Parthenon
in the time of Morosini (1687) and subsequently, that their
interpretation and the study of their style becomes a difficult
task. -
For purposes of the comparative study of style, however,
the Centaur metopes present a most interesting series. It has
been noticed” that these metopes vary considerably in their
artistic conception and execution, and Michaelis has distin-
guished three noticeable stages: the first (IV, VIII, xxvi, xxx,
XXXI) still slightly archaic and coarse in character and treat-
ment; the second (VI, X, XXIX, XXXII) are free from archaism,
yet manifest a certain laxity of modelling and line, a wavering
weakness of intention, which makes them a kind of neutral
transition to the third (I, II, III, V, VII, IX, XII, xxvi.1, xxviii)
* See Essay II, p. 64. * See Michaelis, p. 127.
III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. 9 I
which are among the finest specimens of high relief sculpture
in existence. • * *.
These discrepancies have been noticed by many, and at-
tempts have been made to account for them". Visconti” and
Quatremère de Quincy” believe that various assistants executed
the designs. Beulé points to the influence of the older Attic
schools, and Brunn" definitely shows how in the head of the Cen-
taur in metope IV the Myronian type of heads, as in his Faun
of the Lateran Museum", is evident, in contradistinction to
the nobler character of the Centaur heads in metopes XXIX
and XXX.
The chief stress has been laid by these archaeologists upon
the fact that the different assistants whom Pheidias had to employ
belonged to the earlier schools such as that of Kritios, Kalamis,
and Myron, and were either too old and too strongly infused
with the traditional style of their masters to adapt themselves to
that of Pheidias, or had not yet been trained into a willing execu-
tion of their new master's design. But though this circumstance
may well have had some influence in the execution, the fact
remains, as Michaelis has pointed out, that there are also con-
siderable differences with regard to the design and composition
of these groups, differences in the skill of adapting this com-
position to the prescribed space, and in the life and nobility
given to the action. This, I believe, cannot be sufficiently ac-
counted for by the difference of school in the work of the as-
sistants. We must look rather to Pheidias himself, and ask
whether it be not possible that the change in the works is
concomitant with the development of the artist?
If we compare the character of the subjects represented in
these metopes as a whole with the compositions in the pedi-
ments and the frieze, we must feel that, in contradistinction
to these, with their peaceful subjects and their noble rest and
* Prof. Brunn is still at work at the metopes. Though I have no doubt that his
researches will surpass in importance and excellence all other work on the same
subject, I feel driven to exemplify at present by means of the metopes an hypothesis
arising out of the study of the life and development of Pheidias hinted at in Essay II.
* Memorie, p. 96. - * Lettres, p. 56 seq. -
* Z'Acropole, II., p. 133 seq. * Annali del” Znst. xxx., p. 381.
* Monum. dell Inst. vi., p. 23: .
92 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
simplicity of treatment, the metopes depict warlike scenes in
compositions full of violent activity. If we recall the subjects
represented in the metopes, we find that there are scenes from
the Gigantomachia, Amazonomachia, the Kentauromachia, and
the siege of Troy. These mythological conquests were, from
the earliest times down to the later periods of Greek art, the
types illustrative of the superiority of the Greek races .# the
Barbarians, and are always used to commemorate more or less
immediately the warlike spirit of the people or some signal
victories. So it is in the metopes and frieze of the Theseion,
the Parthenon, the temple of Apollo at Phigalia, the Mausoleum
of Halicarnassus, and the dedications of Attalos and Eumenes at
Pergamon. We must furthermore bear in mind that the life
and work of Pheidias have universally been divided into three
periods, the first of which manifests the immediate influence of
the heroic events of the Persian war, while the second period
merely manifests this spirit in an indirect way, in that it gives a
strong, elevated, and heroic tone to the artist's conception and
treatment of the peaceful aspects of the flourishing life of culture
at Athens. We must, finally, remember that, while the concep-
tion of Athene in the statue of the Athene Parthenos was that
of the peaceful though powerful virgin, and that the pediments
represent joyous incidents from the life of the Athenian patron
goddess, and the frieze the great pomp and ceremony of her
festival, the metopes are the expression in mythological form of
the victorious power of the Greek race. Thus, from the character
of the subject represented in the metopes, we must consider their
conception more in keeping with the character of the Athene
Promachos, the Athene Areia at Plataeae, and the thirteen
figures of Marathon at Delphi, than with the character of the
work belonging to the second period. -
So far the choice of the subject represented in these com-
positions points to the first period in the artistic development
of Pheidias. The more detailed our examination of these
compositions grows, the more do we become confirmed in
this hypothesis. In execution these conceptions, though fre-
quently instancing the dash and boldness of youth, are on the
* See Essay II., p. 67.
III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. 93
whole not possessed of the rest and monumentality which cha-
racterise the other works, and could not by themselves be
taken as fully representative types of Pheidiac art". The
violent movements and attitudes of the struggling Centaurs
and Lapiths would better suit the hand of a Myron than that
of a Pheidias, and there can be no doubt that in the com-
position as well as in the type of the figures and the character
of the modelling there are many instances in these metopes
that remind us of the work of Myron, besides the striking
coincidence between the head of the Centaur and that of the
Lateran Faun to which Brunn has drawn attention.
Yet, as has been stated before, these metopes in them-
selves present an advance and a steady growth in freedom
of composition and execution, and nobility of conception :
they manifest to us the evident process of a striving for and
a seeking after something which is ultimately attained. And
this progress is noticeable in all the different aspects of the
art.
In metope XXIX we feel that the artist has not yet gained
the power to adapt his composition to the space in filling out the
square, so that no blank flat surfaces shall remain. The attitudes
are forced, and do not appear so natural as to make us forget the
limits of space within which they are composed; the modelling
of the surface is either harsh and rigid or vague and uncertain,
while the types of the Centaurs, especially with regard to the
heads, are exaggerated in the attempted indication of their brute
nature. In others, however, the composition is so well adapted
to the space, the square is so well filled with “unneutral” lines,
and this unmechanical effect is so heightened by the natural flow
of the attitudes and the grouping, that we are never allowed
to feel that the artist had a limited space prescribed into which
he was to fit his composition. The action though vigorous
is so self-contained that, when there is added to this a perfect
flow of surface in the modelling and a type of Centaur in which
the brutal never merges into the grotesque, we feel that we have
a work which in kind is intimately related to the pediments and
the frieze.
* See Essay I., p. 31 seq.
94 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
When in addition to the justifiable first hypothesis we con-
sider the growth in freedom of composition and nobility of
conception together with the steady advance in the skill of the
technical handling of the material within the several metopes,
and when we bear in mind that in keeping with the natural
process in the construction of such a temple the metopes would
be the first executed of all the plastic decorations, we shall be
driven to infer that in these works Pheidias went through his
schooling in this sphere of his art, a phase in the development
of an artist which even genius has to live through, before its own
fire can shed forth warmth or light—before it really is genius.
, The supreme serenity of the artistic creativeness of Pheidias was
not infused into him in one moment of enlightened craving
and of idle receptiveness, but he had to conquer his place
as a hero of art, of which the claims lay dormant in his
innate genius, by the steady struggle of work and experience,
as the strong. Herakles and the bold Theseus made them-
selves heroes only after struggling through a series of toilsome
labours. •
It has been pointed out before, that in the metopes of the
Parthenon Pheidias was subjected to that inestimable regulator
of the development of genius, moderate compulsion, and that it
is here that we are most likely to find the turning point from
the growing artistic individuality to the fully formed and fixed
originality of his creative power. We only become thoroughly
possessed of our own originality when we have learnt and recog-
nised the work and methods of others, and have opened our-
selves to their influence. It is to the ‘storm and stress’ period
of his life, to the seeking for the means of expression that will
fully convey the meaning that is within his artistic imagina-
tion, that the character of the metopes points. No wonder that
there are Myronian elements in some of them, that their original
conception is instinct with the warlike character of the preceding
great events, that there is a steady growth towards perfection
in their composition and execution, and that from rigidity,
violence, and grotesqueness, we pass through wavering and
uncertainty into the freedom, moderation, and grace of the art
which is shed over the pediments and the frieze. For these
works mark the very transition from the first to the second
III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. 95
period, from the Athene Promachos to the Athene Parthenos,
and it is the first attempt of the artist to fit his art and his
inventiveness into a prescribed outer framework in the decora-
tive sculpture of the Parthenon, the result of which is to bear
fruit again in his works of pure sculpture such as the Parthenos
and the Zeus.
Though we have been dwelling upon the differences in the
various metopes when compared with each other, the fact re-
mains that the style of the metopes taken as a whole, in Com-
parison with the style of a similar class of works by the other
masters and schools, is marked and individual. The charac-
teristics of conception and workmanship that remain, after the
individual differences have been subtracted from the whole list of
their attributes, are of sufficient definiteness to enable an archae-
ologist of ordinary training, and a natural predisposition to this
class of observation, to recognise One of these metopes, or even
an important fragment from them when met with under sur-
rounding conditions that would of themselves not have sug-
gested the Parthenon. Such characteristics, presenting a varied
scale of definiteness for purposes of identification, are: (1) The
quality of the marble (Pentelic). (2) The dimensions of the
figures (two-thirds life-size). (3) High, bold relief, carved out
of the block itself (on the frieze of the Erechtheion the relief of
other marble was fixed to the background), with some peculiari-
ties noted above. (4) The subject represented, as far as these
subjects have been recognised in the composition of the Par-
thenon metopes, and if the work to be interpreted is a frag-
ment, so far as the figure of which it was a part is recognisable
through it. (5) The conception of the subject represented,
which, though bolder and fuller of action than known archaic
representations, is still more severe than those that have come
down to us in similar representations belonging to a period
subsequent to the Peloponnesian war. (6) The modelling of
the figures, though more marked, rigid, and angular than the
flowing modelling of even the figures from the pediments and
the frieze of the same temple, has none of the softness of the
later Attic schools, and is less hard and strict than that of
the figures of the Aéginetan School, as in the Aegina pediments.
96 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
In the later modelling of Michaelis's second class of metopes,
we never meet with the flabby undefined character of the figures
recently discovered at Olympia". (7) The peculiar types of
head, as in the three classes of Centaur heads, and the peculiar
way in which the hair is indicated in the head and in the
beard, the character of the mouth, cheek-bone, and eye (with
prominent orbs and straight cut eye-lids), and the definite type
of Lapith-head. (8) The nature of the mechanical working of
the surface (not polished as late marble), with traces of colour,
or indications of the past application of colour, from the pe-
culiar working of the marble, or rather, from the voluntary
Omission of the indication of texture by means of modelling
in Some parts. (9) The nature of the corrosion, whether
partial or entire, especially if the work under consideration
is a fragment. (IO) The site upon which the work was found,
if ascertainable. -
Now, it will be seen that within this list of characteristics
some of the above heads are of less importance in identification
than others; such for instance is (1): for there are very many
works of Pentelic marble. Others, such as (8), the traces of
colour, or indications of the past application of colour, may
not be present in a given specimen; but their presence would
be an important addition to the identification. One of these
characteristics alone is far from defining a given work as be-
longing to the Parthenon metopes; but the greater the number
of them found in a given work, the greater grows the probability
of its belonging to this class, until, if the work contains all these
characteristics in a marked manner, we are forced to consider it
as belonging to these metopes.
There are many reliefs, even high-reliefs, of Pentelic marble;
not so many representing the battle between Greeks and Cen-
taurs; still fewer in figures of these dimensions, and still fewer
* Compare, for instance, the Centaur carrying off a struggling female figure in
metope xxix with a very similar motif in the western pediment of Olympia (Ausgrab.
II. 23, 24; Overbeck, Plastik, 3d. ed. Fig. 9o, M. N.). Not only are the lines that
indicate the muscles of the Centaur vague and washed out in the Olympian figure as
compared with the Parthenon metope, but this difference is especially marked in the
drapery of the female figures as well as in the relation between the drapery and the
nude. . -
III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. 97
metopes of Pentelic marble of exactly these dimensions forming
part of a temple with certain proportions. But when we come
to the peculiar conception and representation of these scenes,
and the individual style of modelling and character of workman-
ship and an Attic provenance, we may step from the negative to
the positive, and with all but mathematical certainty we may
assign such a work to the Parthenon metopes.
This process and method of enumeration of individual cha-
racteristics is really useful, and is to be applied for purposes of
teaching, of archaeological discipline (which is to make archae-
ologists of students), and for purposes of testing the correctness
of the more rapid and organic inferences of the original investi-
gator. Discoveries, from their very synthetic nature, in this
department of research as well as in the discoveries of natural
Science, are not made by an immediate application of each
systematic step of the method in a given order, but are generally
brought to their first unsteady life by a rapid complex process
of thought or conception, almost intuition, which however es-
sentially differs from ordinary guess-work in that it is the fixed
system of method which has passed through a living and think-
ing being, has saturated and modified his mind, and has itself
gained from the individual mind life and organic applicability.
This unsteady life at the birth of truth in discovery can be made
vigorous and prolonged by the more analytical and sober ap-
plication of the test enumerated above, and not until then can
it really be considered to be a discovery. An archaeological
investigator may at one glance consider a given work to belong
to the Parthenon metopes, because one or more of the essential
characteristics of these works have stood forth very pronouncedly
in the work considered, or because the total effect of all these
characteristics combined in the one work impressed themselves in
their entirety upon his mind, which had been made appreciative
for this effect through a previous study of each of these charac-
teristics. However this may be, the investigator must test his
inference by a detailed application of all the known attributes of
the Parthenon metopes. .
In the corridor leading to the Cabinet des Bronzes of the
Louvre Museum at Paris, cases are placed against the wall which

W. - 7
98 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
contain temporarily fragments of marbles, generally newly dis-
covered or acquired. In passing through this corridor I was
struck by a marble head (Plate I.) placed at some height from
the eye line, and feeling in the first instance that this was
a work not Roman but Greek, and moreover of the great period
of Greek art, I stopped to study it more carefully, as well as
its distant position would permit. The conviction soon forced
itself upon me that here was a piece of Attic workmanship
of the period corresponding to the earlier works of Pheidias and
the works of the Theseion, and, though reserving the final verifi-
cation for the time when it would be possible to make a de-
tailed examination and comparison with the metopes, I was
morally convinced that this was the head of a Lapith belonging
to one of the metopes of the Parthenon.
Moreover, from M. Héron de Villefosse of the Louvre Mu-
seum I ascertained that the head in question was acquired from
a dealer in Vienna, who, again, had procured it at the Piraeus,
where it was said to have been found in the water.
When once the case was opened and I could examine the
marble in my own hands at leisure, what before partook of the
character of conjecture, was turned to a firm conviction that
I was right in my first supposition. -
The head of Pentelic marble is 17 centimetres (63 inches) in
height by 124 centimetres (almost 5 inches) in width from
temple to temple. The general character of the beardless head
presents a mixture of firmness and roundness which is given
to the heads of the Lapiths opposing the bearded and brutal
Centaurs, as a type of the cultured Greek opposing the brute
force of the barbarians. The treatment of the outline and of
the flesh is compact and firm without approaching the hardness
of the heads of the Aegina marbles, the works of which school
are spoken of by Quintilian as being duriora et Tuscanicis
proxima". In the treatment of the features we find that the
lines are firmly marked in a cruder and more abrupt manner
than we notice in the heads of the frieze of the Parthenon, or
than we should assume in the heads of the pediments, judging
from the comparatively softer modelling of the extant bodies of
* SQ- 420,
PLATE I, MARBLE HEAD IN THE LOUVRE MUSEUM, PARS,


III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. 99
the pedimental figures. This difference between the execution
of the metopes and the other marbles decorating the Parthenon
is not wholly to be referred to a prevalence in these metopes of
the more severe and archaic treatment which points to the
influence of the older Attic schools, of a Hegias or a Myron;
but also to the fact that the smallness of the dimensions coupled
with the height at which the metopes were placed above the eye
of the spectator, made it necessary for the sculptor to emphasise
and harden his lines. *-
The hair of the extant heads of Lapiths from the metopes, as
well as that of the head under consideration, runs in a regular
clear-cut outline over the forehead coming to a point in the
centre. The texture of the hair is not fully indicated by a
grooved surface; but a comparatively smooth layer, like a close-
fitting cap, seems drawn over the head. Colour was no doubt
called in to assist in producing the effect which would otherwise
have been obtained by means of grooves cut into the marble
itself’. The frontal bone projects strongly as in the heads of
the metopes, yet presents no rise and fall, but runs in one con-
tinuous curve from temple to temple. The expression of emo-
tion in the heads of the Lapiths, though more advanced than
in those among the Aegina marbles, is far less pronounced than
in the heads of the Centaurs from the same metopes, whose
passion, anger and pain are most manifest in the distorted
features.
It is a fact worthy of more general notice, that before the
end of the fourth century there is no trace of a monument of
a higher god or of a Greek in which an indication of passion
carries with it a contortion of features. With great freedom
this is put into the faces of daemons, monsters, and barbarians.
It is in these heads that the Greek sculptors practised the ex-
pression of passionate emotion. In the time in which the
general feeling for the more dramatic and pathetic forms of art
was strongest, statues of fauns and satyrs, river-gods, Centaurs,
giants, and other beings of a like kind, are most frequent. Though
these figures are, in the higher periods of Greek art, introduced
into reliefs or larger decorative groups, it is not until later (after
* See Michaelis, p. 124, seq.
IOO ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
the close of the fourth century) that they are made the subjects
of single statues. In these earlier friezes and pedimental groups
they are the only figures invested with the expression of passion.
We can almost trace, by means of extant monuments, how
the definite artistic method of expressing violent emotion was
transferred into the heads of human, heroic and divine figures
in later art from the forms which had previously and customarily
been put into the heads of these creatures. We need merely
mark as a noteworthy instance the history of the gradual growth
and exaggeration of the frontal bone towards the centre of the
forehead. The later the monument of Centaur or river-gods
the more does the frontal bone protrude; and the more in later
times passion is expressed or suggested in human or divine
heads, the more does the sculptor transfer to them this charac-
teristic feature, from the daemons and barbarians, into whose
heads it had been put in much earlier periods of art. Still,
even in later art, the sculptor seems to have exercised a com-
parative restraint, in expressing violent passion in the heads
of gods and Greeks. From the Centaur-battles of the metopes
of the Parthenon down to the recently discovered frieze from
the altar at Pergamon, representing the Gigantomachia, the
faces of the Greeks and of the gods are comparatively free
from the distortions of passion, while their adversaries manifest
all the signs of pain and anger : so strong was the feeling for
form with the Greeks, and so adverse were they to sacrificing
harmonious lines in the representations of their own race and of
their heroic and divine world.
The expression of emotion in the heads of the Lapiths is
limited to parted or firmly closed lips and to the peculiar in-
dication of a frown. In the Louvre head, as in the others, this
frown is indicated by means of straight simple lines worked
into the brow and the forehead, probably by means of a file.
In the Louvre head, as in the head of the fallen Lapith in
metope XXX (Michaelis), a simple horizontal line of this kind
is cut along the middle of the forehead. One shorter and
deeper line, again straight and simple, runs down between the
brows above the bridge of the nose; while, in the head of the
Lapith in metope XXX, who has fallen below his adversary
and is receiving a fatal blow from him, a stronger expression of
III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. IOI
emotion is brought out, in that he has two such perpendicular
ridges. - -
The eyelid in the Louvre head and in those of the metopes
is worked smoothly with one continuous curve. The chin is
round and firm, yet has some appearance of pointedness through
the deep curve worked into the space between the under-lip and
the chin. The under-lip is full and round, much more so than
in the Aegina marbles. Still the mouth is hard and somewhat
conventional in the perfectly symmetrical curve of the line
between the lips.
The right side of the head is much corroded, while the left
is quite smooth in its surface. As in all similar monuments
this shows that the right was the weather side and that the left
was protected. It is further evident that the left side was
not meant to be seen ; for it is not quite finished, the ear not
being at all indicated on this side. In pedimental groups
in which the inside of the figures in the round facing the
tympanum, are also not to be seen, this inner side, in the
Pheidiac period of art, is still quite finished. It is only from
the limits of space in high relief that the inner side does not
practically admit of complete finish. This head was thus evi-
dently part of a high relief corresponding to that of the metopes
of the Parthenon, in which the heads and limbs are generally
completely undercut and stand out freely from the ground of
the relief. This is still more evident from the fact that in the
attempt to work away the marble from the ground of the relief,
there must have been difficulty in properly getting at the inner
side; and thus strokes of the chisel are noticeable running from
the beginning of the hair at the left temple towards the back of
the head, and others running from the back of the head towards
the left or inner side. At one point where these strokes from
either side tend to meet, about at the boundary line between the
back and the left side of the head, there is a rough elevation, a
ridge, running from the top of the head to the neck. Evidently
this was the part of the head nearest the ground of the relief,
and the sculptor who had to work round from either side must
have experienced the greatest difficulty in cutting this part away
cleanly. *
As many of the Lapiths in the Parthenon metopes have
IO2 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
merely the heads broken away while the necks remain, I felt
that it was highly probable that the very metope, to which this
head belonged, might be found in the British Museum.
I had proceeded thus far in this investigation, when the au-
thorities of the Louvre Museum generously sent me a plaster
cast taken from the original marble. Upon taking this cast to
the British Museum, with the kind assistance of Mr Newton,
the metope to which it appeared to belong was soon found; and
after placing the cast upon the neck, it was found that it fitted
perfectly, each fractured projection of the one fitting into the
depression of the other. So for instance while there remained
a fragment of the neck on the outside of the head, there was no
indication left upon the inside; this cavity however was found to
correspond exactly to the curve produced by the rising left
shoulder, caused by the upraised arm of the advancing Lapith.
Finally, the rough ridge on the left side of the head where the
sculptor was not able to work freely with the chisel, was the
point nearest the ground of the relief when the head was placed
on the metope.
Plate II. is taken from the metope (VII. Mich, 6 in the B. M.
Guide) in the British Museum upon which the cast from the
Louvre has been placed, as well as the cast of a head of a Centaur
at Athens, previously recognised as belonging to this metope".
Even in its former imperfect condition this metope has been
greatly admired. Mr Newton” says of it: “Even in its present
mutilated state, this is, perhaps, the finest of all the metopes in
the Museum. The action is most spirited, and the modelling
very thorough and masterly.” *
With the head of the Lapith now supplied, and with the
help of Carrey's drawing", from which we learn the action of
the left arm of the Centaur, we are enabled to reconstruct the
whole metope without the loss of any of the details. .
The metope is thus one of the most complete, as it decidedly
is, in many ways, the finest. Its excellence consists chiefly in
the way in which the dramatic situation is represented and the
tension of the Supreme moment is brought out. The Lapith has
* In Michaelis, p. 141, this fragment R. is assigned to metope v11.I.
* A Guide to the Sculptures of the Parthenon (Brit. Mus. 1880), p. 36.
* Michaelis, Pl, III. No. 7, below, - -
PLATE II,
MEIOPE OF THE PARTHENON WITH IDUVRE HEAD ADDE, BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.

III.] THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. IO3
seized the Centaur by the throat with his left hand, while he is
drawing back the right hand to give the fatal blow with the
Sword. The onset of the advancing Lapith causes the Centaur
to rear in the attempt to free his throat with his left hand
from the firm grasp of his enemy. The attitude of pressing
forward on the part of the Lapith is most perfectly given, while
the head looking up at the rearing Centaur adds much to the
expression of this action. It is interesting to compare a photo-
graph of the metope, as it was before the head was added, with
the present plate. We can then realise how fatally the loss of
any one part impairs the appearance of the work of a great
artist, as we must also realise that a perfect work of art depends
upon the organic treatment of the artist's crude material, the
harmony and unity of all the parts of a work. There hardly
exists any more bold and superb action than that of the Centaur
rearing back in a last effort. The forelegs and hoofs do not
remind one of hands, and still they seem more sensitive and
fuller of designed purpose than the hoofs of a horse, as if the
human body above the animal had modified their power and
purpose while they retain their shape.
Finally, dramatic unity is given to this composition through
the clear localisation of a central point of interest. This is not
conventionally placed in the actual centre of the square metope,
but at the right upper corner at the neck of the Centaur.
It is to this point (also the moral centre of importance and
interest) that all the movements of the figures and all the
lines of the composition tend. It is also, physically, the point
of balance to the figures as represented. For if we were to
conceive this point suddenly to give way, both Centaur and
Lapith would fall forward. It is the meeting of forces at this
point that keeps both figures in the position in which the artist
has represented them, as it is the grip upon the Centaur's throat
that gives the Lapith the advantage in the struggle and is the
efficient cause of the other's speedy destruction.
But the greatest artistic merit and that which most fully
marks the advance made by Pheidias in the metopes, and the
result attained in the schooling period of the artist's career
marked by these monuments, lies in the fact that all this life
and action displayed with such freedom have been composed
IO4. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [III.
and executed within the limits of the prescribed square space
of the metope. It is here that the power of a great artist like
Pheidias manifests itself; it is thus that he adapts himself to the
physical conditions of the work to be produced, and makes us
forget the difficulties with which he had to struggle, by means of
the life which he puts into his figures and scenes, while adapting
the form to the material at his disposal.
ESSAY IV.
THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON,
AND THE VENICE FRAGMENT.
Tà è &rvatºev # IIogetöðvos trpós’A6mvāv čarly epis wrép ràs yºs.
In the pediment at the back of the temple is represented the strife between
Athene and Poseidon for the (Attic) land.
PAUSAN. I. 24, 5.
ESSAY IV.
THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON,
AND THE VENICE FRAGMENT.
AFTER the completion of the Parthenon and its final dedi-
cation to the virgin daughter of Zeus in the year 438 B.C., the
temple seems to have remained in its original condition for many
centuries, despite the effects of time, the sweep of historical
movements and revolutions, and the absolute changes of its own
destination and purpose. It was in the fifth or sixth century of
our era that, with the full establishment of the Christian faith,
the Parthenon was converted into a Christian Church. Such
is the strength and persistency of tradition, that, though the
ancient Greek and the Christian faiths were in direct opposition
to one another, the original pagan destination of the temple
reacted upon the nature of its dedication in Christian times.
The goddess Athene is both the goddess of wisdom and the
virgin daughter of Zeus, and thus the temple was at first
dedicated to Saintly Wisdom (St Sophia), and subsequently
to the Virgin Mary. The alterations necessitated by its new
dedication chiefly concerned the interior of the temple. The
entrance was transplanted from the east to the west, an apse was
built at the east end, and two niches were placed in the tympa-
num of the western pediment". On the whole these alterations
had very little effect upon the sculptured decorations.
1 See Penrose, True Principles of Athenian Architecture; Michaelis, Der Par-
thenon, pp. 45–76.
IO8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [Iv.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century it was converted
from a Greek Orthodox into a Roman Catholic Church, and
in 1458 it was turned into a Turkish mosque. The alterations in
this case were again chiefly in the interior, the Turks contenting
themselves with building on the outside the slender minaret
on the western portion of the southern wall, which can be
seen in several drawings that have come down to us".
Thus it remained in comparatively perfect preservation until
the latter part of the seventeenth century, when all nationalities
seemed to combine in destroying it. It was in September of the
year 1687, during the war between the Republic of Venice and
Turkey, that the Venetian general, subsequently Doge, Francesco
Morosini, after having conquered the whole of the Morea, ad.
vanced northwards and resolved to invest Athens, whither the
Turkish forces had retreated. His army consisted chiefly of
mercenary troops of all nationalities under the immediate
command of Count Koenigsmark, a Swedish General, born in
Westphalia. In the night of the 21st of September Koenigsmark
landed Io,000 men at the Piraeus, and finding that the Turks
had deserted the town and had withdrawn to the Acropolis,
he entered the town, laid siege to and began to bombard the
Acropolis. The firing was without much effect until, upon
hearing that the Turks had stored powder in the Parthenon,
on the 26th of September 1687, at seven o’clock in the evening,
a German lieutenant under the command of De Vannis suc-
ceeded in sending a shell through the roof of the Parthenon
which ignited the powder and rent the great temple asunder,
heaping fragments on either side.
Then and subsequently it was naturally the western pedi-
ment which suffered most among the great sculptured work of
the Parthenon. For, facing the entrance to the Acropolis, it
was naturally to a greater extent, the butt of the enemy's
artillery than was the case with the eastern pediment, and
furthermore it subsequently readily presented itself to the eye of
the despoiler, who saw it first upon entering the Acropolis
* See Comte de Laborde, Athènes au az’, acz'i" et aczii" siècles ; Papayannaki,
and F. Lenormant, Gazette Archéologique, 1875, p. 26, seq. Pl. 8; von Duhn,
Mittheilungen d. deutsch. arch. Inst, in Athen, 1877, p. 38, Taf. 2 ; C. Waldstein,
journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. IV. No. 1, p. 86, seq.
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. IO9
through the Propylaea. We know that the horses of the chariot
of Athene in this pediment immediately attracted the attention
of Morosini, who determined to carry them off to Venice. In
lowering them the ropes gave way and the marble horses were
dashed to fragments. Thus it is that, though several large
figures and torsos of the eastern pediment are still extant, there
is but one torso remaining in good condition from the western
pediment, with six more or less imperfect fragments of the
other figures. Still it so happens that records have come down
to us representing the pediments before their final destruction,
at a time when, so far as composition goes, the western pediment
was almost perfect; and these drawings enable us to study in the
western pediment to greater perfection than in the eastern
Pheidias's principles of pedimental composition.
But few years before the destruction of the Parthenon by the
Venetians, the Marquis de Nointel, the ambassador of Louis
XIV. to the Porte, stopped at Athens on his way homewards,
in November 1674, and was so much struck with the beauties of
the Parthenon that he bought from the Turkish Commander for
six yards of scarlet cloth and a quarter of a hundred-weight of
coffee the permission to have drawings made of this temple.
Luckily he had with him Jacques Carrey, a pupil of Lebrun's,
a clever and rapid draughtsman. Though Carrey laboured
under the disadvantages of a scorching sun, a distant view
of many of the monuments in their lofty position on the
edifice (the erection of scaffolding being forbidden), and limited
time, he completed in a fortnight twenty-one large sheets of
sketches, containing the two pediments, thirty-two metopes
of the southern side, the whole of the western and eastern frieze,
with the exception of the central slab of the eastern frieze,
fifteen slabs in the eastern portion of the northern frieze, and
seventeen slabs from the middle of the southern frieze. After
passing through several hands and disappearing on various
occasions, these drawings were at last (1797) bought for the
National Library at Paris and are now deposited there in the
reserve of the Cabinet des Estampes. Naturally the drawings
are sketchy and not always exact with regard to details; still
they are most instructive for questions of ensemble, and, as in the
case of the western pediment, are most valuable for the study of
I IO ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
N}
\|
composition. Fig. IV., representing the western pediment, is an
adaptation of Carrey's drawing supplemented by some of the
existing fragments. -
Unfortunately, even in the time of Carrey, nearly all the
hands and the attributes they contained were broken away, and the
important light which they would have thrown upon the inter-
pretation of the single figures and the groups is thus lost. What
is definitely known concerning the western pediment may be
summed up under the following five heads:
I. That the subject represented in the western pediment
was the struggle between Athene and Poseidon for the patronage
or supremacy over the Attic land".
2. That the pedimental group consisted of twenty figures,
of which ten were on either side of the centre, and of the chariot
and horses of Athene and Poseidon. r
3. That in the centre were the figures of Athene and Po-
seidon in attitudes of violent movement.
4. That the chariot of Athene was almost certainly driven
by Nike and that of Poseidon by Amphitrite.
5. That at the extreme angle to the right of Athene (our
left) the reclining figure is almost certainly a river-god, probably
Kephissos, and that the corresponding figures at the opposite
angle partake of the same nature.
Beyond this we have no definite knowledge concerning the
meaning of this pedimental group, and as is natural its interpre-
tation has been a favourite subject of conjecture to archaeologists.
In every science there are subjects providing a sufficient number
of fundamental data to instigate the inquiring mind to the attempt
to complete one's imperfect knowledge, and not enough to
enable the student to clench his theory by actual demonstration.
This will always be the favourite field for hypothesis, and this is
the case with regard to the interpretation of the western
pediment.
Until the year 1821 archaeologists mistook the west of the
Parthenon for the front, and were thus misled in their attempt
to interpret the pediment”. The outlines of the myth are as
1 Paus. I. xxiv. 5, rà è? §nia bev i IIoaetóðvos trpos'A6mvāv čariv ćpts jurép ràs yºs.
* For an enumeration of the various interpretations see Michaelis pp. 178—203,
and also C. T. Newton, Guide to the Sculptures of the Aarthenon in the British
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I I I
follows: Athene and Poseidon both claim the patronage over
the land of Attica ; their claims are to be decided by some token,
symbol or sign of their power; and, according to various
traditions, the judges who are to decide which of these tokens
contains the weightiest claim to the patronage are either the
Olympian gods, or Kekrops the hero-king of Athens with his
family, or the Attic people itself. The symbols of power are,
generally, for Athene the sacred olive-tree which she planted on
the sterile rock of the Acropolis, and for Poseidon the sacred salt
well which he caused to issue from the rock after striking it
with his trident. Other traditions refer to the creation of the
horse". Finally there is a further development of the myth,
according to which Poseidon, enraged at his defeat, attempted to
overflow the land and threatened the olive, but was defeated by
Athene. It is almost universally acknowledged that the olive
and the salt spring were the tokens by which the patronage was to
be decided, and that this myth was represented in the pediment.
Where the authorities chiefly differ is in deciding whether what
was represented in the pediment, was, in the first place, the creating
of the tokens themselves, the actual contest: or secondly, the
moment succeeding the contest, the tokens having been pro-
duced and the contest decided. In the latter case Athene would
in the pediment be either driving back Poseidon; or she would be
raising her arms in exultation as if clasping the land, while Posei-
don retires humiliated ; or, finally, Hermes having brought the
news of the Olympian decision to Athene on the one side and
Museum, published by order of the Trustees, 1882, in which all previous investiga-
tions are mentioned. -
* All the various traditions have been collected by Stephani, Compte-Rendu de la
commiss. imp. archéol. de St Pétersbourg, 1872, p. 64 seq. The introduction of the
Poseidon Vase at St Petersburg into the discussion with a view to the elucidation of
the subject represented in the pediment of the Parthenon appears to me to have
caused more confusion than it has done good. Its importance seems to me to have
been also exaggerated by Prof. Robert (Hermes, 1881, xvi. p. 6o seq.). The mistake
is continually made that, especially in works of the minor arts, the by no means incon-
siderable influence of the purpose of the implement which the drawing or the relief
is to decorate, upon the subject, character and composition of the decoration itself,
is not sufficiently recognised. I cannot at the present moment enter upon this wider
subject, but it appears to me that the destination of the vase in question may to some
degree account for the introduction of Dionysos into the contest and the peculiarities
of the whole rendering of the scene.
II 2 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [Iv.
Iris to Poseidon on the other, Athene would be retiring to her
chariot led by Nike, and Poseidon to his led by Amphitrite. It
will be evident that as one or other view is taken as to the par-
ticular form of the myth represented, so will the figures on
either side of the central group of the pediment be interpreted.
According to some, then, the act takes place in the presence of
the assembled gods, and we have, with the exception of the
river-gods at either angle, which all interpreters are agreed upon,
an assembly of great gods on either side, according to others the
Attic gods, or Kekrops with his daughter, or (the most common
view) the followers of Athene, were on the one side, and the
marine deities and the nymphs, the followers of Poseidon, on the
other. - -
But all these interpretations seem to me to fall to the ground,
when once we consider the laws of pedimental arrangement
followed by Pheidias, which I hope will be made clear in the
course of the present and next following essay. The view, to
which this consideration leads us, differs materially from all the
previous ones, and is that held by Brunn'. He considers the
conflict to be ended and the centre of the pediment to be
occupied by Athene and Poseidon with their chariots, their
immediate followers Nike and Amphitrite, and the messengers
from Olympus, Hermes and Iris; while the remaining figures,
distinctly separated from the central scene, are, as is acknow-
ledged with regard to the reclining figures at the angles (the
river-gods Kephissos and Ilissos), personifications of Nature,
forming as it were the landscape in which the great event takes
place. Though I cannot follow Brunn in insisting that each
one of the figures necessarily personifies so definite a district,
river, or mountain as he maintains that it does, I am forced to
accept the general principles of his interpretation for reasons
which will become more evident in the next essay. But the
interpretation of this pedimental group is not the aim of this
essay, and I must refer the more curious to the special treatises
upon the subject. It is sufficient for our immediate purpose to
know that Athene is here represented as asserting her rights to
the patronage of Athens in opposition to Poseidon.
* Sätzungsber. a. K. Bayr. Aéad, 1876, I., p. 25 seq.
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IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMIENT OF THE PARTHENON. II 3
This conception of Athene would alone be enough to lead us
to believe that of the two pediments this is the earlier one.
There can be no doubt that this narrower and more warlike
conception of the goddess corresponds, as we have seen", to the
spirit of the first period in the artistic career of Pheidias, just as
in the subjects represented in the metopes we have to a still
greater degree recognised this spirit in the choice of the subjects.
This surmise is still further strengthened when we come to study
the technical execution of the work, even in the scanty remains
that have come down to us. It is here, for instance, that we
notice considerable discrepancies between the execution of the
Kephissos (Pl. III.) and the fragment of the draped figure
(Pl. IV., and No. 1, to the right of the centre in the drawing
of the pediment on Fig. 4). While the Kephissos shows a
full mastery of the art of modelling, the power of rendering
the texture of various surfaces with perfect freedom, ease, and
continuousness of flow, and still with complete definiteness of
line, the draped fragment is, especially when compared with the
draped figures from the eastern pediment (see Plates VII. and
VIII.), vaguer, less defined, and with less depth in the working
of the folds. This definiteness and firmness of line possessed
by these figures from the eastern pediment, and not by the
fragment from the western, producing in their drapery a varied
play of light and shade, does not give less softness to the effect
of the figures as a whole. The other fragments too, such as
those of the river-god and nymph at the other angle of the
pediment, are when minutely studied, inferior, both in freedom
and in definiteness of execution, to the works in the eastern
pediment and to the Kephissos from the western”. On the
whole the fragments of the western pediment are inferior to those
of the eastern, and among each other they again differ in
excellence, manifesting, as far as they are concerned, more or
less uncertainty of touch on the part of the executing artist.
It thus appears to me, that while the eastern pediment and
the frieze are free from any traces of the immediate influence of
* See Essay II., page 67.
* A similar difference in point of artistic excellence has been noticed between the
eastern and western pediment in the Temple of Athene at Aegina and here the
western pediment is universally considered to be the earlier one.
W. f 8
II.4. FSSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
the warlike spirit which marked the first period in the artistic
career of Pheidias, and manifest a more confirmed unity of style,
there are some traces both of this warlike spirit and of uncertainty
of style still to be noticed in the western pediment, and still more
marked ones in the metopes. The chronological order of these
works then, which would also be the one suggested by the
construction of the building", would be, first the metopes, secondly
the western pediment, thirdly the eastern pediment, and lastly
the frieze. -
But if Pheidias had not yet attained the full mastery over the
technical execution of his art in the western pediment, he cer-
tainly had attained the highest perfection in the art of pedi-
mental composition.
The two chief distinctive principles which we find in the
pedimental composition of Pheidias are, in the first place sym-
metry far removed from monotony, and secondly, the most
forcible representation of the chief action by means of the most
perfect localisation of the centre of interest, and what might be
called a gradual, and dynamic, nay even an organic growth of
interest toward the centre.
As regards the symmetry in these compositions, we notice
that there are an equal number of figures on the right and left of
the pediment; that to the right and left of Athene and Poseidon
were their chariots led by female figures with two figures in the
background ; that after the charioteers none of the figures are
completely turned towards the centre ; that there are two
completely nude figures (numbered 2 r. and 2 1. on Fig. 4), a
boy to the right of Athene, a girl to the left, both in some
dependent attitude with regard to the older draped female
figures, against one of whom the boy is leaning, while the girl is
seated” on the lap of the other; and that at either end we have
reclining figures. -
* The new theory of Loeschcke alluded to in Note C on p. 83, which extends the
period of building the Parthenon over a larger number of years and introduces an
interruption in the building caused by Pheidias's absence at Olympia, would, if finally
confirmed, afford a most remarkable illustration of the conclusions brought out in the
text.
* I believe that the harmony in the character and attitude of these two figures
must also include some correspondence in the meaning. When Brunn, who considers
PLATE IV.
-------El ------can-En-Bric---
FRAGMENT OF A SEATED FIGURE
FROM THE WESTERN PEDIMENT.
-
_ - - -


Iv.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 115
Variety is infused into this symmetry, adding life and
avoiding all possibility of monotony, by the fact that Athene
and Poseidon are not placed at the same distance from the centre
of the pediment; that in the background of the horses on the
side of Athene we have a male figure, while on the side of
Poseidon we have a female figure; that behind Nike we have an
upright figure (No. 1, 1), while the corresponding figure on the
other side (No. 1, r.) is seated; that the nude boy (No. 2, 1.)
is moving, while the nude girl (No. 2, r.) is seated ; and that the
reclining figure at the angle of the one side (No. 7, 1.) is a river-
god, beside whom toward the centre is most probably a nymph
(No. 6, 1.), while on the other side we have a reclining nymph
(No. 7, r.) on the one side and a crouching river-god (No. 6, r.)
beside her toward the centre.
If we turn to the pediment of the temple of Athene at
Aegina", which is but one generation previous to Pheidias, we
find the feeling for symmetry in composition highly developed,
but the feeling for variety, or rhythm”, comparatively imperfect.
The scene represented necessitated a reclining figure immedi-
ately to the right of Athene, and a forward bending attendant
on the left; otherwise the figures are arranged in absolute
symmetry, the difference being merely the difference of dress
in the archers, to distinguish Teucer from Paris. On either
side of Athene, who is placed exactly in the centre of the
pediment, are two advancing warriors, a shield in the left
and a spear in the upraised right hand. Behind them on
either side are archers each kneeling on the right knee. Then
follow on either side kneeling warriors with shield and spear;
and finally at either angle we have reclining nude figures with
all these figures on either side of the more central group to be personifications of
nature, interprets the seated figure with the nude girl on her lap as Thalassa with
Aphrodite, there appears to me to be a marked inconsistency in his interpretation.
Aphrodite would then be counterbalanced by a boy on the other side, and this would
be incongruous even though one were to consider the boy to be Eros thus strangely
separated from his mother. Moreover the conception of Aphrodite in the times of
Pheidias was a far sterner one, as is borne out, among other things, by the Aphrodite
of the Parthenon frieze.
* Compare the plate of this pediment in Overbeck, Gesch. d. Griech. Plastić, Vol. I.
Fig. 19; Murray, History of Greek Sculpture, Vol. I. Pl. v.I.; W. C. Perry, Greek
and Roman Sculpture, p. 124, and any text-books on the subject.
* See Appendix I. -
8—2
IIG ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs, [Iv.
long hair, each leaning on one arm and with the other hand
drawing an arrow, the one from the breast, the other from the
thigh. The comparative want of life in this composition caused
by this absence of variety or rhythm will be felt when it is
put beside Carrey's drawing of the western pediment of the
Parthenon. - .
With respect to our second point, the perfection with which
the story is told in a group of architectural sculpture by local-
ising the centre of interest and in leading up to it in a gradual
way, we can further distinguish two striking characteristics,
among the means by which this is attained: in the first place,
the relation which the figures bear to the central story and
lead up to it by their character, position in the pediment, and
attitude; and secondly, the manner in which the lines themselves
drive the eye towards the centre, and assist in giving dramatic
point to the whole scene as displayed. - -- *
As regards the relation of the figures to the story, the chief
gods between whom the action lies are placed in the centre of
the pediment; they are colossal in dimensions, and fill a space
equal to that devoted to four figures at the angles. Towards
this great centre all the interest is to concentrate; and all the
figures in the pediment are to be more or less affected by the
central action. At either extremity the attitudes of the figures
have to indicate the attraction which the centre of importance
exercises upon them ; but the degree in which the figures par-
ticipate or are concerned in the central action is not to be
monotonously the same throughout the whole composition, but
is to be stronger in proportion as the figure actually comes
within the range of the central influence. In character as well
as in attitude we thus have a widening out of the centre up
to where, in Fig. 4, we have drawn a line on either side,
within which boundary the figures are, from their nature as
well as their attitudes, immediately concerned in the central
action, affected by it, and to a certain degree sharers in it. Beyond
this line the participation is of a more passive nature and, as a
matter of fact, we feel that the character of the figures is not on
the same level of weight and meaning with those immediately
in the company of the two divinities. In fact their position
in sculpture corresponds somewhat to that of the background
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 117
in painting. In this indication of the growth of interest towards
the centre of action by means of the attitudes of the figures
manifesting an increasing share in the action as they near the
centre, the Aegina pediment is entirely wanting as compared
with the western pediment of the Parthenon. With the excep-
tion of the two figures at the angles, they are all in full action
towards the centre". . º
The other characteristic that we have to notice under this
head is the power with which Pheidias drives the eye of the
spectator toward the centre of interest, not so much by the
growing participation of the figures in the central action nor
by their attitudes, as by the actual lines which these attitudes
present to the eye.
An inferior artist, in order to bring about this quality of
composition in which all the lines drive the eye towards the
most important point, would have simply turned all the figures
towards the centre, as a bad photographer makes all eyes look
at the lens. In the pediments of the temple of Athene at
Aegina this is the case; and, with the exception of the two
reclining figures, the lines of all figures drive immediately
towards the centre. This produces a monotonous effect and
an absence of the natural and organic flow". Pheidias how-
ever produces this effect not by presenting a straight, lifeless.
(geometrical) advance of lines towards the centre; but in break-
ing up the steady progression towards the centre by means of
weaker resistances in the opposite direction, a dynamical and not
a geometrical advance of lines, producing in us the effect of
a process which corresponds to the life and flow in nature and
not a mere direction of the dead mechanical world. In the
drawing on Fig. 4 I have indicated this process by means of
* This is an additional reason for believing that Brunn's general interpretation
of these figures as personifications of nature which surround the scene is the correct
one. Up to the line, the figures are all of the same nature as the Kephissos, while
after this the key-note of their nature is struck by Athene and Poseidon. These
points will become clearer in the next essay. -
* Among other reasons the inferiority in this respect of the composition of the
pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia as compared with the Parthenon
pediments makes it impossible for me to believe that the sculptors of the Olympian
pediments could have studied those of the Parthenon.
II.8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
small arrows showing the general direction towards which the
leading lines of the figures tend by their position. It will be
noticed that there is a continuous waving to and fro, to the
centre and away from it, centripetal and centrifugal, if we may
use these terms. But it will further be noticed that, if we were
to add up the centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, the balance
would be in favour of the movement towards the centre. If we
begin on the right, we find that the first figure at the angle
(No. 7), according to Brunn the nymph Kallirrhoë, is turned
towards the centre. Her companion (No. 6), the Ilissos, in his
crouching attitude is turned towards her, away from the centre.
Yet Kallirrhoë is turned more to the centre than Ilissos is turned
away from it. We have reason to believe that the figure missing
at No. 5 on this side would correspond in its direction to the
corresponding figure on the other side which is turned towards
the centre. The indistinctly drawn figure No. 4 has a slight
direction away from the centre. The next reclining figure,
No. 3, almost faces the centre, while the figure on her lap, No. 2,
is somewhat turned towards her. The figure nearest the centre,
finally (No. 1), completing as it were the sphere of the passive
participators, produces a momentary pause in her ‘static' at-
titude, balanced and made stable by the infants on either arm.
After this pause, as with a rush, the lines drive towards the centre
of interest. It is like the development of a thema in music with
a gradual crescendo, while before we reach the highest point
there is a momentary pause and gathering up of force which
then is set free at the climax. The same arrangement is notice-
able on the left side. First comes the Kephissos (No. 7), twisting
in his bed towards the event which has disturbed his quiet flow.
The figure which filled the empty space (No. 6), the nymph
corresponding to Kallirrhoë turning in the direction of the
Ilissos, would be turned towards the Kephissos away from the
centre. The next male figure (No. 5) is turned towards the
centre, and the female figure (No. 4) slightly away from it. The
seated female figure (No. 3) is turned towards the centre, and the
boy (No. 2) is moving towards her lap. The female figure nearest
the centre (No. 1) has her body turned in the lower half towards
* The figure has by some been called Ilissos.
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. II9
the boy whom she is trying to draw in the other direction, while
the upper part of the figure and the neck tend toward the centre,
and like the corresponding figure on the other side, is ‘static.”
After this figure all lines tend directly towards the centre.
Thus in the composition of this group the leading lines do not
suggest a mechanical movement towards the centre of interest;
but we have a rise and fall, a swaying to and fro, the greater
strength lying in the centripetal current, which suggests a dy-
namic or, still more correctly, an organic principle of motion.
The manner in which the figures are grouped in pairs, le
one nearest the centre generally overlapping the other', together
with the fact that the figures grow larger as they near the centre,
seems to suggest a form of perspective, throwing the central
group into the foreground, while the wings seem receding into
the background.
I can fully sympathise with those who are not in the habit
of looking closely into such matters, if they feel doubts whether
more thought is not thus put into the composition than was
really in the mind of the creating artist. But whoever is con-
versant with the way in which an artist composes his group,
builds up his statue, disposes his folds in the drapery, and models
his nude surface, whoever has but thrown a glance into the work-
ing of a genuine sculptor's studio, will be aware that a statue,
not to speak of a group, is not negligently flung into the soft
forms of clay with a burst of inventive genius, unaccompanied
by deep study and reflection. It is, rather, the result of long
and steady labour and thought for months, not to say years,
after the burst of inventive emotion has long passed away,
fixed perhaps by a hasty miniature sketch in clay or by a
charcoal outline on the wall of the studio. Before a statue is
put into life-size or over life-size, many a clay figure has been
modelled, studied on all sides in its various aspects, destroyed
and replaced by another which avoids certain harsh aspects. A
particular portion of drapery is found to disturb the harmony
of the lines, it is removed, a new disposal is made, until the work
is considered perfect in its most minute effects. And furthermore
study and thought are called forth to a still higher degree in
* Compare a similar arrangement with a similar result in the grouping of the
frieze, described in Essay VII.
I2O . ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. . . [IV.
groups, and above all in groups where a prescribed space of a
peculiar form is to be filled with graceful lines, absorbing the eye
of the spectator by the action or situation represented, and never
suggesting to his senses the primary exterior limitations which
were put upon the artist. Considerations like the preceding on
the laws of composition in the pedimental groups of the Parthe-
non are but the theoretical form in words of what the sculptor
has done in his work by the actual manifestations of his more
or less conscious study and thought. Pheidias did not mean to
evoke in the spectator these thoughts concerning the distribu-
tion of his figures. On the contrary he wished to avoid any
such feelings : for the better his work of art, the less will it
remind the spectator of the struggle it cost to put it together, or
of whatever might counteract the illusion of form in suggesting
the mechanical, manual or intellectual labour of fashioning it.
But in the present discussion, we are holding the analytical
attitude of mind for purposes of Science and archaeological in-
vestigation ; we wish above all things to know, and not to be
aesthetically moved or artistically productive. -
So far the extant drawings of the western pediment before
its final destruction are most valuable for the study of the com-
position. But this does not mean that the western pediment is
valuable only for the study of the pedimental composition of
Pheidias, and that the study of what remains of the single
figures is without profit. For though the scanty extant remains
do not afford such satisfactory material as those of the eastern
pediment for the study of the style of Pheidias, it must not be
assumed, because I have pointed to some discrepancies among
the single fragments when compared among each other, that they
are not all possessed of a marked style of their own; indeed, when
any one of them is compared with any other work of Greek art,
their marked individuality will stand out most clearly, and they
cannot fail at once to present themselves to the archaeologist
as belonging to the art of Pheidias. Any fragment of these
pediments ought to be recognised wherever it may be found.
I have on a previous occasion described and published the
marble fragment figured on Plate V., the lower portion of a
seated and draped female figure, in the museum of the Ducal
Iv.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 121
Palace at Venice"; and I there pointed out the resemblance in
the style of this work to that of the figures of the Parthenon
pediments, as well as the points of difference, and ventured to
assign to it a possible position in the western pediment. I dwelt
upon these points as fully as space would permit me, and leaving
the ground of conjecture and hypothesis, concluded with the
proposition, that, of all extant works of Greek art, none stands
so near to the sculptures of the Parthenon, as well in conception
as in execution, as does this fragment; and that, if it does not
come directly from the studio of Pheidias, it is at least a remark-
able specimen of Attic art at the latest of the period immedi-
ately following Pheidias. Though this is a definite conclusion, I
do not think that the possible arguments for attributing this
fragment to the Parthenon have been sufficiently exhausted, and
it is clearly our duty to face such questions, and not to turn
them aside by vague and off-hand affirmations one way or
the other. I have been confirmed in my views and led to re-
examine more thoroughly the claims of this work to be con-
sidered Pheidiac by the concurring opinion of fellow archaeolo-
gists in whom I have great faith. Among these Professor
Michaelis informs me that he feels convinced that the fragment
is the work of Pheidias or of his school, though he does not
quite see what position can be assigned to it in either of the
pediments. I therefore feel called upon to weigh carefully this
possible attribution, and to consider what speaks in its favour
and what against it. We are bound to feel the responsibility
resting, upon those who, facing problems which can receive no.
light from the literary sources and contain no clue to their
solution in the way of circumstantial evidence, endeavour to
solve a question solely by means of the comparative study of
style. The responsibility to which I have pointed at the end of
the first essay, binds us not to discredit the claims of this method
by hasty assertion, especially at this early period, when we must
be aware that we have not yet had the opportunity of applying
it as freely and thoroughly as subsequent archaeologists will be
able to do. I have therefore refrained from allowing myself
to be carried on to any positive and final statement, but must
remain content with setting forth the points which have struck
* Arch. Zeit. Jahrgang XXXVIII. 1880, p. 71 seq., taf. VII.
I22 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
myself most forcibly, leaving the reader to form his conclusions
in the light of further knowledge".
Let us first ask, what this fragment is, and to what kind of
figure it belonged 2 It is a marble fragment about two and a
half feet in height by a foot and a half in width”, belonging to a
seated female figure, draped in a chiton of thinner material, and
the himation or peplos of thicker stuff, of which the end,
generally slung over the shoulder, has glided down and sunk
into the lap. The figure could hardly have been a separate free
statue in the round; but, with the greatest probability, was
part of a pedimental group. Though in Essay II. (page 77) I
have dwelt upon the monumental and self-contained character
of the single figures of the pedimental groups of the Parthenon,
this did not mean to imply that they possessed these qualities
in absolutely the same degree as the works of pure sculpture by
the same artist. They remain works of decorative sculpture
however high a degree of plastic self-containedness they may,
have reached; and, in so far as they do, in contradistinction to
single statues in the round, form part of a larger composition, in
so far will they differ from such works with regard to the degree
of self-containedness. In the composition of this fragment there
is a comparative want of self-containedness which we should
not expect to find in a work of this character were it a single
statue. When we view the left side of the fragment, the side
with the leg drawn back, we notice a certain leaning over, an
indication of a movement towards some adjoining figure and
some dependence upon it. This would be disturbing in a sepa-
rate statue, but it is not so in an individual figure forming part
of a pedimental group, where the lines of one figure are, as it
were, taken up and supported by those of the adjoining one, and
where the figures are represented in movement and action.
Were the seated female figures from the eastern pediment (Pl.
VII. and sketch of pediment, Fig. 5) alone and single, there would
be the same comparative want of stability, especially in the lower
figure; but in the pediment we have not this feeling, because the
* Since this was written, Mr Woolner, the sculptor, informed me that he had
noticed the fragment at Venice, and that he had always considered it to have come
from one of the pediments of the Parthenon.
* The exact measurements will be given hereafter.
------
THE VENICE FRAGMENT
PLATE V
---------------


IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I23
overhanging and unstable lines of this statue are supported by
the lines of its neighbour, the reclining nude youth.
That it is a pedimental figure is furthermore proved by a
seemingly trivial fact: the fracture on the middle of the right
leg above the ankle. I have seen many statues that have been
discovered in a fractured condition, having fallen from pedestals.
The results of the fall have generally been a breaking off of all
projecting parts and much damage to the finer and thinner
work of the surface; or at the utmost, in some instances where
the fall has been very unfavourable, a clean splitting asunder
of the whole work, generally in the middle of the figure, the
weakest point on its surface, the waist or neck. But I have
rarely met with a fracture on the lower firm extremity of so
thick and solid a mass as that presented by the lower part of
our fragment; for the leg is not undercut and freely worked out
from the mass of the block or in any way detached from it.
Finally, I do not remember ever to have seen along with the
fracture a deep hole such as the one over the ankle of this
fragment in the front view, a clean piece of the marble being
dashed out of the smooth or solid surface of the body of the
block. Such a fracture can only be the result of a violent fall
from a great height, far above that of any ordinary pedestal
or sub-structure. What would correspond to the nature of its
fractures, the result of its fall, is represented by the pediment of
a temple. These facts make it most probable that the fragment
belonged to a pedimental figure; or at least they make it more
probable that it was part of such a figure than of any other kind
of statue.
The next question is: To what period and to what school
does the artistic style of this fragment point? In the paper
referred to I have dwelt upon the correspondence of this work
with the extant figures from the Parthenon pediments, especially
the seated female figures of the eastern pediment, both in its
general conception and its technical execution. It manifests all
that ‘life coupled with rest’ which Pheidias infused into his
statues; so that, despite its fragmentary and mutilated condition, it
bears the stamp of breadth and grandeur which, as we have seen,
characterise the works of that artist. As in the seated figures
from the eastern pediment (Pl. VII.), to which this fragment has
I24 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [Iv.
the greatest similarity, the legs are held apart, the right one
drawn behind the left; and this position, together with the
drapery hanging down on either side, presents to the eye a larger
mass and gives to the composition something broad and
monumental, which is lost when the legs are placed together.
And yet there is nothing clumsy or heavy about any of these
figures. At the same time this position gives a reason for the
transparency of the drapery and the shining through of the forms
that it covers, and produces this pleasing effect in a perfectly
natural way, without the disturbing obtrusion of the artist's
intention above all things to please the eye of the spectator
by this transparency of the drapery. Now, in later works, even
in those immediately succeeding the age of Pheidias, such as the
beautiful sandal-binding Nike from the balustrade of the temple
of Nike Apteros and the reliefs from the temple of Apollo at
Phigalia, the transparency of the drapery in female figures is
impressed upon the spectator to a degree unwarranted by the
attitude and action of the figure, and this compromise between
truth and the application of skilful modelling, in the direction of
sensuality, is still more noticeable in the works belonging to the
period of decline after Praxiteles. This position of the legs,
finally, produces in the drapery the change between the large
simple surfaces, where it is drawn tight, and the intervening
smaller folds, which gives to it that natural play and flow of
lines which are to be found for the first time in the drapery of the
Parthenon sculptures. It appears, then, from these facts, that the
fragment in question does not belong to a period subsequent to
Pheidias; and it will become more evident, as we proceed, that it
could not belong to a period previous to the time of Pheidias.
Yet with all this transparency the effect is not obtained to
the detriment of that quality in modelling, which, for the first
time in art, Pheidias put into marble—the indication of texture.
We are always impressed with the quality of the material which
covers the nude forms, with the textural difference between the
nude surface, and heavy and light drapery. This natural aspect
of drapery in marble Pheidias attained, through his peculiar
treatment of folds. I have elsewhere" dwelt upon the peculiar
* See Appendix II.
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I25
manner in which Pheidias gave the natural flow of life to
his folds in varying the depth and width of his fold-grooves,
a variety which gives such play of light and shade to the
whole surface. This quality in the modelling of drapery can
best be appreciated, when we compare individual folds in the
drapery of Parthenon figures with the folds of archaic figures
or of late Roman shop-work. In the latter the fold-grooves
are cut at equal depth and width from the beginning to the
end, and the grooves run almost absolutely parallel to one
another. In the drapery of Pheidias, on the other hand, the
fold-grooves, deep and comparatively narrow at the beginning,
vary their course as they proceed, gradually growing shallower
and wider until they run over into the broad and smooth surfaces,
while the grooves among each other run comparatively less
rigidly parallel. The Venice fragment is strikingly illustrative
of this quality of modelling.
Another characteristic which the pedimental figures and this
fragment have in common, is the general scale of depth with
which these folds are worked out and the sharpness of the edges.
This style of work was demanded by the high position of these
statues and by the strong light which they received. In some
parts of the fragment, to judge from the cast in the British
Museum, this depth and sharpness are not as pronounced as
in others. This is due to the fact that this cast (from which
the drawing was taken) is made of old plaster of Paris which
seems to have lost its firm adhesiveness; and also to the fact
that, so far as I can remember, the original at Venice bears
traces of having been tampered with, in being cleaned and
scraped to free it from its corrosions.
Finally, the fragment has in common with the Parthenon
figures a peculiar treatment of the thin under-garment where it
touches the ground. The system of modelling drapery here
introduced by Pheidias consists in subdividing the surface of the
clay by deep and wide grooves producing a series of ridges,
These ridges protruding between each two grooves are again
subdivided by two slighter grooves, less deep and wide, which
produce three small ridges on each one of the larger projections.
Without at all suggesting architectural stiffness, I have called
these drapery-triglyphs (Gewand-Triglyphen). In the frieze,
I 26 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
where the dimensions of the figures did not permit so minute
a subdivision, the larger ridges are merely divided into two
smaller ones by one groove in the centre. I need hardly say
that these ridges are not divided by absolutely parallel grooves.
There are however several points of difference between the
fragment and the figures with which it has chiefly been compared.
So, for instance, while the transparency of the drapery is great
in the seated figures of the eastern pediment, it is not as great as
in the fragment, in fact there is more restlessness of line in
the fragment than in the seated figures, a ripple rather than
a silent flow. Yet this greater transparency, this clinging
quality of the drapery, together with the restlessness of line, are
to be found in another statue of the eastern pediment, the reclin-
ing female figure drawn on Plate VIII. ; and this may possibly
indicate a similarity in the subject represented by the reclining
figure of the eastern pediment and by the statue of which this
fragment is a part. How these peculiarities of modelling are to
guide us in interpretation will become clear to the reader in the
next essay. Both these figures also have a certain limpness of
drapery which becomes especially pronounced in the end of the
cloak hanging between the knees of the fragment. The whole di-
mensions of the fragment, moreover, are smaller and thinner than
in the seated figures from the eastern pediment, and therefore
also the details of modelling will be reduced in scale. But I may
anticipate and say at this place, that the fragment could never
have come from the eastern pediment; but, if belonging to the
Parthenon, it must have come from the western pediment, where
the figures are throughout on a smaller scale, there being five
figures of the eastern pediment to seven figures of the western to
the same space. The same difference of dimension is to be
found in the eastern and western pediments of the temple of
Athene at Aegina. It seems to have been the custom in these
times to make the figures of the main entrance, the front of the
temple, larger in size than those of the back, the western side.
Finally we must bear in mind that, though the common
character of the Parthenon marbles is so pronounced that the
practised eye can distinguish them from all the known specimens
of other schools, yet, when compared among each other, there
are numerous shades of difference between the work of single
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I27
figures. As I have said before", the individual differences may be
traced back to the intention of the artist to indicate the special
character of the figure represented, or they may to some degree
possibly be attributed to the difference of workmanship of the
various sculptors who were engaged in executing the different
parts of the immense work designed by Pheidias. Now the differ-
ence in workmanship between the seated female figure nearest
the centre of the western pediment (Plate IV. and No. 1, r. on
Fig. 4) and the seated figures of the eastern pediment (Plate VII.),
is far greater than between the fragment and these figures. Nay,
the difference in the indication of folds between the figure (No.
I, r. Fig. 4) from the western pediment and the drapery of the
so-called Hygieia (No. 4 on the left), as well as the piece hang-
ing from the left arm of the Kephissos (No. 7, 1.) of the same
pediment, is greater than the difference between these latter
figures and the Venice fragment. Thus, judging from the style,
we should have been more inclined to consider the Venice
fragment part of the western pediment than the fragment no.
I, r. of that pediment, had the latter not been found in situ.
One more question now remains to be considered: Is there
any possible or probable position for the figure of which the
fragment is a part, in the western pediment? The extant figures
from this pediment are very few in number; in fact, besides a
few small fragments, there only exist seven torsos that can give
an idea of what the statues were.
We are thus driven to compare the fragment with the figures
from the western pediment as found in the drawings made
before its destruction in the year 1678. Now, valuable as we
have seen these drawings to be for the study of the composition,
they are, as has been pointed out by Michaelis”, too sketchy and
on too small a scale to be of value for the study of the style of
most of the individual figures. But we must not lose sight of
the fact that our aim is not to make the comparison between the
fragment and the sketch of the figures from the pediment the
positive and main test that the fragment belongs to this
pediment. All that we are bound to establish is an answer to
this question, does this comparison of the fragment with the
* See Essay I., p. 33. * ZXer Parthenon, p. Ioz.
I28 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [Iv.
drawings of the fragments in the western pediment, as far as it
goes, admit of the possible attribution of the Venice fragment to
the pediment or not? We have seen (1) that it more probably
formed a part of a pedimental statue than of any other work;
(2) that according to its style, especially when compared with
the style of the similar figures from the eastern pediment of the
Parthenon, it is either by Pheidias or closely related to his
School; and it now remains merely to show that a possible place
can be found for it in the western pediment, first, in comparing
it with the figures in the extant drawings, and secondly, in
studying its dimensions in their relation to a possible position in
the pediment.
I have therefore made a careful study of Carrey's drawing,
in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale at
Paris, of the copies in the Print Room of the British Museum,
and of the various early reproductions. The chief reproductions
are the following. The most faithful are those in the Comte de
Laborde's works on Athens". They had also been reproduced
in Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens" (from early copies
deposited in the British Museum), together with the drawings by
Pars, by Lusieri and Feodor, used in the Museum Worsleyanum.
Finally they are reproduced in Quatremère de Quincy’s Monu-
ments et Ouvrages”. Among the figures as drawn by Carrey there
is a seated figure on the left half of the pediment (Fig. 4, No. 3;
D in Michaelis, 4 in Laborde), and the attitude of this figure cor-
responds well with the position of the fragment. As far as we
can see in the drawing, the right foot is placed forward and the
drapery is tightly drawn over the leg, producing a smooth
surface to reflect the light. The left foot is here drawn back-
ward, though the drawing here is very imperfect and does not
clearly show the character of the drapery. Again, there is a
strong shadow on the drapery between the legs, the strongest
shadow in the drawing of the whole pediment, which might very
well be the indication of the full and small lines of the end of
Athènes au acy., azi., et a vii. siècles, Paris, 1854, and Le Parthenon, Paris, 1859.
* Antiquities of Athens, Vol. II. Pl. Ix, Vol. III. Pl. v. The work appeared in
the years 1790 and 1816, after Stuart's death. For the question, to whom the plates
are to be ascribed, see Michaelis, ibid. p. 99.
* Monum. et Ouvr., 1829, Pl. II, and III.
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I29
the cloak between the knees of the fragment viewed from below.
The size of the figure, as we shall see, would well correspond to
this position in the pediment. Furthermore there is a very
rudely indicated seated figure, the third from the right angle of
the pediment (No. 4, r.; Laborde 17, U in Michaelis), which might
be a sketchy indication of our fragment. From the imperfect
state of Carrey's drawings we cannot learn whether there is any
correspondence with regard to the details of drapery between
this figure and the fragment; we can only ascertain that a seated
figure of about the dimensions noticeable in our fragment
existed in this part of the pediment. Finally we must bear in
mind that figures were missing in the time of Carrey, No. 4, r.,
immediately beside the figure just mentioned, and No. 6, 1.
beside the figure of the Kephissos on the left side of the
pediment.
The vacant space on the left side, marked 6 in our sketch,
was most probably occupied by a seated female figure. We must
assume this from the laws of variety of composition which are
adhered to by Pheidias. If we begin from the left we have first
a reclining figure, the Kephissos (No. 7), then a blank space (No.
6), then a half-reclining, or crouching figure, generally known as
Asklepios (No. 5), then a half-standing female figure, commonly
called Hygieia (No. 4), and then a seated figure, commonly
called Demeter (No. 3). Now a fully standing figure is out of
the question in this low position in the pediment; a reclining
or half-reclining figure would be a monotony which Pheidias
avoids, inasmuch as one of these is on either side; nor could it
be a half-standing figure, which would produce three straight
perpendicular lines in succession and would make this figure
correspond to the Hygieia following immediately after the
Asklepios. Again, we must bear in mind that with all variety
there is still some approach to the regularity of symmetry
in the composition of the two halves of the pediment. Now,
while we have two distinctly seated figures (I and 4 in our
sketch) in the right half of the pediment, we have but one seated
figure in the left'. All this leads us to assume that there must
* Dalton in his Series of Engrazings representing Views of Ælaces, Buildings, &c.
in Sicily, Greece, &c., London, 1751–52, even puts 3 in a similar position to the
Hygieia, but this is evidently a mistake, and it appears most probable to me that he
W. 9
I 3O - ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
have been a seated figure in this place, and we shall see further
on that it must have been a female figure. True, the fragment
is somewhat high for this position, the shoulder of the Kephissos
being on a line with the second fold above the left knee of the
fragment. Yet we must bear in mind that the head of Kephissos
projects beyond part of the cornice of the pediment and that the
distance from the waist to the shoulder in the seated figure 4 is
but one-third the distance from foot to waist on the right side of
the figure. Again, if the seated figure to which this fragment
belonged were in this position, there would be an instance of the
harmony in the groups of the pediment of which Pheidias was so
fond, in that the two upright figures, Asklepios and Hygieia,
would be bounded on either side by corresponding seated figures
turned in different directions. Moreover, the direction in which
this figure would be turned, namely towards the Kephissos, would
harmonise well with the principle which we have before found
carried out in these pedimental compositions. Finally, the
figure occupying this vacant space would be, in correspondence
with the figures in the other angle of the pediment, a water
nymph coupled with the Kephissos. The peculiarities in the
modelling of the drapery of our fragment, the great clinging
and comparative restlessness which we have noticed above—
seem to me to point strongly towards such an interpretation".
Thus a comparison of the Venice Fragment with the figures
in the western pediment as drawn by Carrey shows that there
are two of his figures which may possibly be sketches of our
fragment; and a consideration of the probable nature of the
figure that must have occupied the vacant space at the left angle
of the pediment shows that our fragment may well have occupie
the place next to the Kephissos.
The last and most important point which must now be
considered before we can maintain the possibility of the attribu-
tion of the fragment to the western pediment, is the question
whether its dimensions allow of such an attribution. This can
only be determined by actual measurements.
considered one of the fragments which he found on the ground, perhaps the fragment
ascribed to the eastern pediment (J in Michaelis, Pl. VI.) to belong to this place, and
consequently included it. . - ... • - -
* This will become more evident in the next essay.
IV.] THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I3 I
Af
The measurements of the fragment are the following:
M. ft. in. li.
I The greatest width.................................... *67 = 2 2 2
2 Depth from beginning of foot to beginning of lap 59 = I I I I
3 Perpendicular height from left knee............... '67 = 2 2 .2
4 From left knee to drapery over foot ............ ‘54 = I 9 I
5 From middle of right knee to middle of left ... . .38 = I 3 o
The corresponding measurements of the fragment of the
seated female figure nearest the centre on the right half of the
pediment (Pl. IV, and Fig. 4, No. 1, r.; Q in Michaelis) are:
M. ft. in. li.
I The greatest width.................................... '67 = 2 2 2
2 Depth from beginning of foot to beginning of lap 56 = 1 Io o
3 Perpendicular height from left knee... ........... '79 = 2 7 I
4 From left knee to drapery over foot............... *63 = 2 o 7
5 From middle of right knee to middle of left ... '48 = 1 7 o
It will be seen that the greatest width and the depth are
about the same in both fragments. The drapery hanging down
the side of figure No. 1, r. is broken away while in the fragment
it is extant. The greatest width of the fragment No. 1, r. is in the
upper part of the figure which is holding an infant in either arm.
The depth of all the pedimental figures would be about the same.
The real difference appears in the general dimensions, and here
we find that the Venice fragment, while maintaining the same
proportions as the seated figure from the western pediment, is
throughout about one-seventh smaller than it.
Now taking into account the increase in dimensions of the
figures as they approach the centre of the pediment, the di-
mensions of our fragment would suit the fragment No. 4 on the
right, even No. 3 on the left, and decidedly a figure occupying
the vacant space No. 6 on the left. The vacant space is not
greater than the space occupied by the river god No. 6 on the
other half, and the width of the extant fragment of this river god
is 7o M. (2 ft. 3% in.), while the width of our fragment is .67 M.
(2 ft. 2% in.). The height would also correspond in this position,
as the top of the knee of our fragment would be lower than the
left shoulder of the Kephissos on the one side ('74 M. = 2 ft. 5 in.)
and on a level with the top of the thigh of the so-called Asklepios
9–2 .
I32 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IV.
on the other side (-67 M. = 2 ft. 2 in.). Should this be thought
too low a position for the figure to which our fragment belonged,
No. 4 on the right, and certainly No. 5 on the left, would be of
ample height. *
At all events, these measurements show that, according to
the dimensions of the fragment, the figure to which it belonged
might well find a place in the pediment.
Let usiºn up, then, the results to which these considerations
have brot ºf us. We have a fragment which is reported to
have come from Constantinople" to Venice, a route which
Athenian antiquities have often taken. This fragment must be
part of a pedimental figure. The style of the work corresponds
to the seated figures from the eastern pediment, while the
dimensions are those of the figures from the western pediment.
As there are two distinguishable stages in the works of the
western pediment, the one, to which belongs the Kephissos,
corresponding to the most perfect work in the eastern pediment,
the other, to which belongs the draped seated figure (Pl. IV,
and Fig. 4, No. 1, r.), of a less perfect and in so far earlier
execution, we must consider the Venice fragment in style to
belong to the later period of the western pediment. Further,
both the study of Carrey's drawings of what existed in situ in
his time, and a consideration of the kind of figures which would
have occupied the places which had then already lost their
statues, show the possibility of such a figure having been there.
Lastly, the measurements of the fragment itself are such as to
admit of its introduction into one or other of these portions of
the pediment. .
* I quote this from Gerhard, Arch. Zeit. xviii. p. 43, citing Mr Newton, who
was told this at Venice. It would be well to examine the registers of the Museum
at Venice, where perhaps some more definite note concerning its provenance might
be found. -

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FIG. 4. The Western Pediment of the Parthenon,
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FIG, 5. The Eastern Pediment of the Parthenon.

















ESSAY V.
THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON,
AND THAL ASSA AND GAIA.
y
wrávra és rºv 'A6myås exet yéveariv.
It contains all concerning the birth of Athene.
PAUSAN. I. xxiv. 5.
ESSAY V.
THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON,
AND THALASSA AND GAIA.
IN the first Essay I dwelt upon the fact that the careful and
earnest study of the character and style of extant monuments
and a comparison of the works among each other with respect
to their characteristics was the chief task of the archaeologist.
This we found to be the most important and most certain
method of arriving at an identification of unrecognised works
which would enable us to assign an unknown monument to the
time and place of its origin, to its school, and even to the
individual sculptor who created it. It is not however only for
purposes of identification that this method is of great use; but
also for the interpretation of works of which the meaning has
not yet become clear to us".
While a more or less methodical study of the style of
Greek monuments has sometimes been applied when it has been
attempted to ascribe a certain work to some definite school or
master, the careful consideration of the peculiar treatment of
a definite work has to my knowledge hardly ever been used
as the principal means of interpretation, that is, to determine in
unrecognised statues, complete or fragmentary, what god or
goddess, hero, or historical person, is represented, in what
situation or in what action. I now propose to offer an inter-
pretation of two figures belonging to the eastern pediment of
* See Essay I. p. 33.
138 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
the Parthenon (Plate VIII.), primarily based upon the peculiar
artistic treatment of these works.
A glance at the list of interpretations of the extant figures of
the eastern pediment given by Michaelis" and by Newton”
can but make us sceptical of the results attained by mythological
speculation in cases in which the literary notices are very scanty,
and the indications afforded by the attributes belonging to the
figures are wanting. There are no less than twenty-one separate
interpretations by distinguished archaeologists from 1821 to the
present day; and though it must not be supposed that each
archaeologist differs wholly from the other, and that there are not
certain definite lines which the greater number adhere to, still
the agreement has not grown of late years. Lately, especially
since Brunn" has opened a new basis of interpretation, the
question has been brought to that definite state in which we
are led to choose between two distinct alternatives from which
we are to select the general line upon which an interpretation is
to be founded. - - - . . .
The data concerning the composition of this eastern pedi-
ment (Fig. 5) which may be considered to be definitely certain
are the following: (1) There are five figures or fragments of
figures belonging to the left or southern angle of the pediment,
and four to the right or northern ; and these are rendered in
Carrey's drawing of the pediment. (2) Pausanias tells us that
the eastern (front) pediment contained a representation of the
birth of Athene, as the western represented the strife between
Athene and Poseidon for the Attic soil". (3) From analogies of
other representations by Pheidias, such as that of the birth of
Pandora on the base of the Athene Parthenos and the birth of
Aphrodite on the base of the Olympian Zeus', as well as from the
typical meaning of such representations in Greek art, it has been
universally recognised that in the head, arms, and shoulder of the
male figure rising at the left or northern angle and driving the
* Der Parthenon, p. 165. - - -
* A Guide to the Sculptures of the Parthenon in the British Museum, 1880, pp. 6, 7.
* Sitzungsberichte d. A. bayr. Akad, d. Wissenschaften, 1874, Vol. II. pp. 1–65.
• • I.xxiv. 5. €s 6é rôv vady čv IIapóevóva Čvorºſovou, És toūrov čovo0aw örðra év roſs.
ka)\ovpévois àero's ke?ral, trävra és tºw’Aówas Éxet yéveaw, rd: Sé &ntadev IIogetbévos
Trpès'A6mvāv éotiv ćpus inrēp tºs y?s. - ~ * -
* Paus. v. xi. 8.

v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 139
horses whose heads and necks appear before him towards the
centre, we have the sun-god Helios driving his horses; while in
the descending female figure, driving the horses whose heads
are just visible as they descend at the right or southern angle,
we have Selene, the moon-goddess, driving her horses. (4) It is
furthermore universally admitted that the centre of the composi-
tion, of which no complete figure is now extant nor was so at the
time that Carrey made his drawings, contained the chief gods
and goddesses, including Zeus, Athene, Hephaistos, Dionysos,
Apollo, Artemis, Hermes.
Here the facts end and what remains rests upon inference.
Of the whole of this composition but small portions remain,
and these portions are the least important part. These are the five
figures (more or less fragmentary) of the left or southern angle
of the pediment, and four figures of the right or northern angle.
The whole of the centre of the pediment, containing the most
important part of the composition, the action itself, is wanting,
except one torso of a male figure. I do not desire to enter
upon the hypothetical ground of a conjectural restoration of
the chief figures of the composition, nor even shall I attempt
a complete account and criticism of the conjectural restora-
tions that have been made by several archaeologists *. The
restoration of Mr Watkiss Lloyd has much in its favour, inas-
much as Athene occupies the centre with Nike to her right,
Hephaistos to her left (who, by the way, is incongruously small
in his drawing of the restoration), Zeus and Hera following on
either side. No doubt much can be urged against this as
against all others. Another noteworthy one is that by Prof.
Petersen : he places Zeus in the centre, with Hephaistos (who
* The most important of these appear to me to be: Quatremère de Quincy, in a
Dissertation (Restitution des deux Frontons du Zemple de Minerve à Athènes, &c.) read
in 1812, but not published till 1825 and reprinted in the Monuments et Ouzºrages, &c.
1829; Welcker, Zeitschrift für alte Kunst, I. p. 203, (1818); and Alte Denkmäler, I.
p. 67, (1849); Cockerell, Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in the Brit.
Mus. VI. Pl. 21, p. 13, (1830); Gerhard, Auserlesene Vasenbilder I. p. 18, (1840);
W. Watkiss Lloyd, Classical Museum, Part xviii (written in 1846); and Zºrans. of
the R. Soc. of Literature, 2nd Ser., Vol. VII., p. 1 seq. (1863); E. Petersen, Kunst
des Pheidias, p. 105, 156 (1873); Brunn, Berichte d. A. bayr. Gesell, d. Wissen., (1874).
Five restorations are figured in Schneider's Die Geburt der Athena in Benndorf
and Hirschfeld's Abhandlungen d. Arch.-epigr. Seminares d. Univ. Wien, I. Plates
II—v11. (1880).
I4O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
has just performed his part) and Athene (who stands fully armed
before the admiring gods) on either side, and then places the
chief gods in modified symmetry to the right and left. While
all these authorities agree in considering the moment of the
representation chosen by the artist to be the one immediately
following the birth of Athene from the head of Zeus', Gerlach”
and Brunn consider the moment represented to be that imme-
diately preceding the birth of Athene, with Zeus in the centre.
I see no evidence to uphold this view, and distinct artistic
reasons which make it more than unlikely. For the preliminary
stages of the birth from the head of Zeus could hardly be made
to suggest definitely the event that was to take place; and from
an artistic point of view Zeus seated in the centre without the
presence of Athene, would always suggest a temple of Zeus and
not of Athene”.
We may assume then that in the centre was represented the
moment immediately following the birth of Athene, in which
Athene stands fully armed before her father and the admiring
gods and goddesses. Whether she occupied the centre or
whether the centre was held by both (which does not mean that
they were placed at exactly the same distance from the point of
the pediment”), is a question which it would be futile to attempt
to answer. The correspondence to the western pediment gained
by having a centre consisting of two figures, is not, as has been
maintained, destructive of the distinct character of the scenes
* It is hardly necessary to refute the idea that the representation of Pheidias
in any way corresponded to the quaint scenes on several vases upon which Athene
is actually being born out of the head of Zeus. See Michaelis, p. 169; Petersen,
p. 146. s .
* Philologus (1872), p. 376. -
* The analogy of the composition of the eastern pediment of the temple of Zeus
at Olympia, which Brunn adduces, is really no analogy. Here is represented not the
chariot-race between Pelops and Oinomaos, but the preparation for the race. There
are many artistic reasons why Paionios should not represent the race itself; while the
chariots drawn up on either side of the centre with the grooms and charioteers
distinctly convey the meaning and contain all the peculiar and essential parts of the
action with the exception of the actual process of racing itself. In the scene represented
on the eastern pediment of the Parthenon, on the other hand, Zeus seated in the centre
is not suggestive of the birth of Athene as chariots and horses are of a race, and
the presence of a female figure on either side to represent a single or double Eileithyia
would not conduce to clearness. -
* See Essay IV. p. 115.
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I4I
(peace and strife) depicted in the two pediments. It would not be
the Pheidias whose power of plastic expression we have learned to
appreciate, if he could not indicate the friendly relation between
the two central figures by means of attitudes with convergent
movement and lines in the one case, as there is divergent
impulse in the Athene and Poseidon of the western pediment.
Moreover the psychical interaction between father and child
would be indicated in the more detailed composition. In all
extant pediments, a certain symmetry between the larger lines
of the composition in the two pediments is usually preserved,
and this would be in keeping with the general feeling of
Pheidias: to aim at symmetry not absolute, but modified and
varied into artistic rhythm. But we are here concerned with the
extant figures, which, following the method advocated in the
first Essay, we must strive to study in their simple artistic form
—the real means of expression in the sculptor's language—
free from all prejudice, and above all things, unbiassed by the
premature introduction of hypotheses derived from literature.
Beginning at the left or south angle, the first figure is the
upper part of the Helios, his head, neck, arms, and shoulders
rising out of the water (see Fig. 5). The action as expressed
in these limbs is that of energetic rising, fresh and vigorous.
This powerful ascending impetus is most forcibly expressed in
the upper part of this figure, in the necks and heads of the horses.
It is an illustration of the means by which the sculptor gives
organic life and unity of meaning and action to his figures.
Life is given by the indication of the organic interdependence of
all the parts of the body. A definite action or situation of such
a living figure is conveyed in that every part of the organism
tends to express the action and situation of which the whole
organism is the agent. The more each separate part of the body
is shown to be affected by the movement of the whole figure, the
more perfect will the work of sculpture be in this respect. The
torso of a perfect statue ought to relate the action of the whole
figure. Though Pheidias has merely given the upper extremities
of Helios and his horses, it is clear to the most untrained eye
that the action of the entire figures, of which merely this
small portion is seen, is that of a rapid ascent. And yet with all
this boldness, action and vigour, with all the life that is put
I42 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. * [V.
into the modelling of the surface”, this vitality and action is
never gained at the expense of largeness of treatment. The
outline is no restless one though it be bold, the arms and
shoulder though strong and muscular do not present a small
succession of lines as in a Farnese Herakles, the horses though
they are real and living, and as it were foaming, are not over-
individualised by small lines and wrinkles, but present relatively
large, restful surfaces within the movement of the whole. No
amount of action robs them of that monumental breadth of
treatment and firmness of modelling which we have seen” to be
the characteristic of the style of Pheidias.
The next figure towards the centre is that of a nude youthful
male figure (Plate VI.) half reclining half seated upon the skin of
some animal spread over a rock. . It is a perfect type of youthful
strength without any exaggeration, in which each part and limb
of the body stands in harmonious proportion to the other parts
and to the whole of the figure, and all give the picture of
harmonious physical life. This we have called the Type". The
skin upon which he is seated cannot be considered in the light
of an attribute, it is not the need ris, nor is it the lion's skin of
Herakles ; for, as Brunn has remarked", the head of the animal
would have been added if there had been any attributive meaning
attached to the skin. - *
Among the interpretations of this figure there are two dis-
tinct groups: (a) those that consider the youth to be a divine
personage, whether god or demigod ; and (b) those who see in
him a personification of nature of the class of Helios. Class (a)
again subdivides itself into two groups: those who see in him a
god (Pan" and Dionysos"), and those who see in him a hero or
* A small portion of the neck of Helios though browned by age still retains the
original surface (a similar portion is to be seen in the back of the thigh of Kephissos
from the western pediment), and these portions, small though they be, convey an idea
of the exquisite finish of these statues and of the “love” with which they were
worked, independent of the effect they would produce upon the spectator. For these
preserved portions of the original surface were not seen, being on the back of the
figures towards the tympanum, and it is thus that they were preserved from corrosion.
* See Essay II. pp. 78–80. * See Essay II. p. 51.
* Zbid. pp. 4 and 5. * Reuvens, Classical journal, 1823, p. 175.
* Wilkins, R. Walpole's Travels in various Countries of the East, Lond. 1820,
p. 409; Lloyd; Michaelis; Petersen. - - -
….….…… …….…
OLYMPOS FROM THE EASTERN PEDIMENT.
PLATE VI
…º… cael ..…….…………

V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I43
demigod (Kekrops", Herakles”, Theseus", and Kephalos"). Seve-
ral of the upholders of one or other of these interpretations
have entered upon a critical examination of the attributions
differing from their own. It is not my purpose to enter upon
such discussions here. - •
However, taking them as groups, I cannot help feeling that,
if a god, his position, thus severed from the main scene and
placed at the utmost end, would be out of keeping with the
method of clearly conveying the artist's meaning adopted in
such compositions. As we shall see presently, the side groups
are distinctly separated from the central scene, and the three
figures adjoining Helios and Selene at either end are, in position
and action, rather on a level with these than in the region of
the divine beings, the partakers in, or immediate witnesses of,
the central action. For Pan the figure is too youthful. And
for Dionysos, even if he were not represented as the bearded,
mature personality of the heroic and archaic age and the middle
of the fifth century, we should at least then expect some of the
softness both in attitude and modelling which we notice in the
figure in the frieze of this temple, considered by Flasch to be
Dionysos. The very comparison with the Dionysos from the
frieze of the Choragic monument of Lysikrates which is used as an
argument in favour of this interpretation, will show the essential
difference between the two figures in this respect. The Dionysos
on the frieze of the Choragic monument is softly and languidly
reclining; there is a waviness and relaxation in the whole pose.
which corresponds to the conception of the god of pleasure not
yet made a god of revelry or of dissipation. Só far as now
traceable, the same softness is carried out in the modelling of
* Falkener, Museum of Class. Antiq. I. p. 353, and Welcker in 1845 (in 1818
Jakchos).
* Leake, Zopogr. of Athens, p. 232; Weber, in Morgenblatt für gebild. Stände
(Kunstblatt, ed. Schorn), Stuttgart, 1821, p. 21.3; Visconti, Opere Varie, III. p. 91 and
p. 306; Cockerell, Br. Museum Marbles, vi. p. 18; Gerhard, Drei Vorlesungen über
Gypsagüsse, p. 29; Ronchaud, Phidias, sa vie et ses ouvrages, p. 249; Friedrichs,
Bausteine &c., p. 141. - - .
* Combe, Synopsis of the Contents of the Brit. Mus. ; Cockerell (does not decide
between Theseus and Herakles); Millingen, Annali del” Instit. &c., Iv. p. 198 seq.;
Overbeck. - -
* Bröndsted, Reisen und Untersuchungen, II. p. 11. seq.
I44. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
the figure. In the pedimental figure, on the other hand, without
exaggerated muscular strength, there is, at least, an absence
of softness which is positively marked. If a god at all, Ares
would appear to me the interpretation most in keeping with
the artist's mode of presenting the characteristics of this figure.
But in fact all such views seem to me untenable.
Against all the interpretations of this figure as a hero or
demigod I can but urge one objection which appears to me
all-important. I cannot conceive Pheidias or any great artist
committing a breach of good sense in a flagrant anachronism,
though the scene be in the regions of the wonder-working gods
of Greek mythology. How can the heroes and demigods whose
relation to Athene is that of enjoyers of her patronage be
present at her birth as full-grown men 2 Surely the absurd
cannot take shelter under the mythical and miraculous, and not
only a genius like Pheidias but also the clear-thoughted Greek
people would recognise its ludicrous face even under its hiding
of myth and religious faith. -
for reasons which will become more evident the further we
proceed, the identification of this statue with a personification of
nature appears to me more in keeping with the whole composition
and the treatment of the figure itself. This view was first put
forward by Brunn, who sees in this figure the genius of Mount
Olympos, upon whose side the rising Helios is driving his
horses, and on whose summit is the seat of the gods, and the
scene of the action represented in the pediment.
The artistic treatment of this figure is one of the best
instances of that characteristic combination of lifelike reality
coupled with largeness of line and breadth and ‘monumentality’
of treatment, which we have considered to be the vital principle
of sculpture and the element of greatness in the art of Pheidias.
Every line and part of the surface, every limb, the composition
of the parts, and the attitude of the whole figure, are replete
with the life of nature; and still there is an absence of all that is
accidental and savours of the individual, of all that is bound
down to what is ephemeral. We feel that the very life and rhythm
of such a figure will last for a period measured by the durability
of stone, and that in its large forms it is worthy of such massive
material. This breadth and firmness is carried out in the large
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 145
*
tranquil outline of the figure, in the broad lines of the attitude
not only in its profile view, but also in the front view". And all
this width in attitude is bound into the completeness of a
compact composition. Starting from the fixed point of the head
the wavy profile lines run in a large curve down to the feet and
radiate out into an elliptical form along either extended leg,
meeting at the feet, where all lines are again joined into one
point of unity. This breadth and firmness are especially notice-
able in the modelling of the surface: all half-tones and small
lines are avoided, the texture of the nude, though suggesting
aerºsº- ºr-- *** *
elasticity and suppleness, presents large masses, firm and compact
without being rigid, broad and large without being bare and
hard. It is in the modelling of the nude in this figure that is to
be found that largeness which I have referred to” as being the
outcome of the character of an artist, which is independent of
the immediate reproduction of nature or the actual dimensions
of a figure; it is the difference of character between the work of
a Pheidias and of the Pergamene sculptors, between that of a
Michelangelo and of a Bernini. But besides this general cha-
racter of Pheidias's treatment there is a marked accentuation of
the firmness of muscle in this statue, which Brunn has well
contrasted with the quality of the nude in the figures from the
pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia.
Adjoining this figure towards the centre are two draped
female figures seated side by side (Plate VII.). The first is
* For this attitude from the front view Dr J. Langbehn once used to me the
happy term “das auſgebrocheme Schema.” Compare earlier pedimental figures, as, for
instance, the Aegina marbles, and it will be seen that the rhythm or movement of the
figures is only in the direction from centre to angle and back, the view which the
spectator gets being that which corresponds to high reliefs. In this figure, however,
Pheidias seems to have been the first to give that plastic roundness and breadth
even to his pedimental figures, and to have widened out the lines of his figure
with regard to the depth. When we bear in mind that the depth of the pediment
was but three feet, we have here again an instance of the great technical skill of
Pheidias in accommodating his art to such strict limitations. No doubt the figures are
to be seen from the side, and this quality of the front view was not very noticeable in
itself. Yet though this point is not seen in itself, it adds to the broad effect of the
whole, even when the figure is merely seen in profile. As we shall have occasion to
notice in the frieze, this is a case in which careful and true work, giving full
consideration to the outer material condition of the limits of space, is made a means
of adding the highest artistic quality to the work.
* See Essay II. p. 8o.
W. IO
I46 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
apparently smaller than the other and is leaning her left arm
on the shoulder of her companion, who, with her right arm
uplifted, is turned towards the advancing messenger goddess.
They are clad in the sleeveless chiton of thin material, while the
heavier diploídion, hanging from the right arm, falls over the
knees, and in the case of the more central one has the one end
suspended between the knees. There is evidently a close
relationship between the two figures, the one resting upon the
shoulder of the other. The first from the angle is somewhat
lower than the second. This, as well as the fact that the first,
leaning upon the second, appears in a somewhat dependent posi-
tion as regards her companion, has been made a strong point in
the interpretation, inasmuch as the figures have not been con-
ceived to hold a coordinate position, but the first has been con-
sidered to be the younger attendant or daughter of the second.
|So the greatest number of archaeologists' call them Persephone
twith her mother Demeter. Leake holds the first to be Peitho,
| the second Aphrodite. While the interpretation of Hera and
Demeter would have much in its favour, if we considered the
angles of the pediments to be occupied by great gods, I do not
think the fact of the arm of the first being placed on the shoulder
of the second is a clear indication of subordination, be it in age
or in a relationship such as that of mother and daughter. Nor
do I think that the somewhat greater altitude of the second
figure as compared with the first is an important confirmation of
this assumption. For this difference of height in the two statues
does not point to a marked difference in the height of the
two figures if we were to consider them standing erect in life;
it is caused by the attitude given to them by the artist; the one
is seated further back on the seat and somewhat bent, as is
natural in such a position, while the other is seated forward,
or rather has moved herself forward from a previously more
restful position and is thus perfectly erect, corresponding to an
attitude of active attention. Pheidias has here, as in the central
slab from the frieze”, transformed what primarily was but a
1 Weber (who strangely considers the first to be Ceres and the second Proserpina),
Visconti, Combe, Reuvens (as Weber), Cockerell, Gerhard, Falkener (as Weber),
Ronchaud (as Weber), Michaelis, and Petersen, all hold this view.
* See Essay VII. - -
….….…………. …
TWO HORAE FROM THE EASTERN PEDIMENT
PLATE WIL
.…….…….….…！！！

v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 147
concession to the pressure of composition not incidental to
the meaning of the scene depicted, to a delicate but no less
essential contribution to the organic growth of the whole action
as it culminates in the centre of the composition. For the more
accidental pressure of formal composition was the triangular
space of the pediment. This he had to fill, the height growing
with every advance towards the centre, and thus the greater
height of the space occupied by the second figure had to be
filled up with a figure of the same class as the first of the two
female figures. What would thus be a mere outer condition of
space he turned into an instrument of plastically expressing
inner meaning, in manifesting by the more erect and advancing
attitude the growing interest and participation in the scene that
takes place in the centre on the part of one of the side figures
which are not immediate actors or immediate spectators of the
central drama. If the difference in height is to be a serious
ground for assuming that they are not coordinate, then this
might still more strongly be urged in the case of the two seated
figures at the other end of the pediment, where again the
difference of space has led the artist to seat the one figure
perfectly erect while the other is bending over the figure
reclining in her lap.
Another group of interpreters, those who consider the nude
male figure to be Kekrops, and the whole group of three figures
to be the family of the royal founder of Athens, hold that
these two female figures are two of the three daughters of
Kekrops, Thallo and Auxo". Bröndsted believes them to be
the Hours. Finally, Brunn sees in them two Horae (they were
worshipped in Athens as two, not three) who had charge of the
portals of heaven, on Olympos”. As Brunn's interpretation of
the nude male figure is the one which conveys the greatest pro-
bability to my mind, so his interpretation of these two figures,
in keeping with his central idea which we shall consider more
* Millingen, Welcker (1845), Overbeck, Lloyd (Karpo and Thallo), hold this
view. -
* /Z. V. 749 :
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IO-2
I48 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
closely as we proceed, has the greatest convincing power
OVer Iſle.
The pose of these figures is again large, broad and monu-
| mental. The outline is massive and the width of the lower part
of the group gives it a character of solid restfulness and stability.
This is attained in keeping the knees apart and in allowing the
drapery to hang down at either side". Within the variedness of
pose in the two figures the two together have a certain sym-
metry which adds to the feeling of stability”. For if, for instance,
the projecting outline of the knee on the one side were not
counterbalanced by a similar line on the corresponding side of
the other figure, the two figures as a whole would be one-sided
and suggest a speedy falling over. And still the symmetry is
not such as to make it an absolutely complete composition in
itself, for the turn and erectness as well as the upraised arm of
the upper figure drive the composition on towards the centre".
And though, as has just been pointed out, movement and
attention are suggested in the forward and erect movement of
the upper figure, still the whole attitude and composition are in
the artistic treatment of the figure above all suggestive of rest
and stability. This character is also maintained in the modelling
of the draped figures. The lines of the folds, though far from
straight or angular, are not rippling, but present large quiet
curves. So in the lower figure the cross folds from the right
ankle over the left knee present one long sweep from side to side.
This is also the case in the perpendicular, the quiet fall of the
, folds over the right knee of the upper figure beginning on the side
of the thigh and passing over the knee downwards between the
legs. And notwithstanding this largeness the natural texture of
the drapery in the smaller folds of the thinner under-garment
and the larger system of lines in the thicker texture of the outer
garment, as well as the change of texture between drapery and
nude are rendered with perfect truth. Never has truth to
nature as well in the modelling of the texture of the surface as
in the proportion and interdependence of the parts of the body,
in the pose and the individual action, been united with such
1 See Essay IV. p. 125. * See Appendix I. (Pythagoras of Rhegion &c.).
* See Essay II. p. 77.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I49
breadth and monumentality of artistic character as in these
works. They are replete with life; but it is a great life of form
which is worthy of being transferred to lasting marble.
The last of the extant figures on this side of the pediment is
that of an advancing female figure in drapery of heavy material”.
She wears the Doric chiton open at the sides and a diploídion
over this reaching below the girdle in front and a little lower at
the sides. A mantle of which but a part is remaining is blown
out by the wind in the rapid forward movement of the figure.
She is a youthful maiden, the form not fully developed, thin and
with long limbs (probably to indicate her swiftness of movement).
Her rapid advance is indicated by the driving back of her gar-
ment, especially between the legs, and in the large wavy folds of
the mass below the knee of the advancing leg, while the drapery
that covers the other leg is not so much affected by the wind.
The mantle flapping in the wind shows her swift course. And
still with all this movement there is a firmness in the whole figure
and in the lines of drapery, a largeness of outline, even in the
long folds caused by the rapid movement, which are not to be
found in other figures representing similar movement. The
figure which is nearest it in form and character, the Chiaramonti
Niobide”, has many cross lines of folds in the piece of mantle
flying over waist and thigh, thus cutting and shortening the long
wavy folds which here run from waist to foot in one quiet curve.
Even the smaller folds of the drapery above the waist join on to
the larger and longer ones below, and produce great, large, quiet
lines, though they are the means of indicating the violent move-
ment of the whole figure. With the exception of Welcker, who
calls her Oreithyia, and Brunn, who considers her to be Hebe
next to Hera, all authorities agree in calling her Iris, the mes-
senger of Zeus, who is descending from the dwelling ofJhe gods
to announce the great event, the birth of Athene. I préfer to
abide by the common interpretation. The news is received
and heard by the first of the two Horae; the remaining figures
are not yet affected by it. It must appear strange to those who
See great gods in the three figures beyond, and in this one Iris
bringing the news, that these gods should thus be severed from
* See Michaelis, Pl. vi. fig. G. * See Essay I. p. 32, note 2.
I5O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [v.
the great event; and though something may be urged in favour
of the chthonic character of Demeter and Kore, nothing can be
said in favour of Dionysos or Ares, who surely ought not to be
so distant from the action of the centre as to receive the news
through a messenger.
Nothing more remains on this side of the pediment. To the
right or northern half of the pediment six figures, more or less
fragmentary, are assigned. At the angle is Selene with her
horses, then come three female figures, one reclining and two
seated, and then two others, a female figure in movement and
the torso of a nude male figure (see Michaelis, pl. 6), of which
the attribution is not so certain, inasmuch as they were not
found in situ, as was the case with the others. The female
figure, I believe, belongs to the western pediment. The male
torso is evidently in an attitude of action. Both arms must have
been raised and the figure is retreating backwards. Its position
would be considerably nearer the centre than any of the other
extant figures. It has been assumed to be Hephaistos or Pro-
metheus, who, according to the various versions of the myth, cleft
the head of Zeus whence Athene was born, and would here be
retreating with wonder after having performed the act. The
strong muscles of the torso are well defined and firm and large
in their treatment. We are reminded of the fragment of the
Poseidon from the western pediment. His position would pro-
bably be on the right or northern side of the centre. But I
cannot in this place enter upon any discussion respecting this
figure.
It may be questioned whether the moving female figure, I
(in Michaelis), commonly called Nike, does not belong to the
western pediment, as has been held by several archaeologists".
Visconti tells us that the figure was found in the eastern pediment.
But as no trace of such a figure is found, either in Carrey's
drawings or in those of Nointel's anonymous draughtsman or in
Dalton, he seems to have meant the western pediment, which
for a long time was considered the principal one. If we bear in
* Woods, Antiq. of Athens, Iv. 22 ; Quatremère de Quincy, Zettres, p. 81 ;
Bötticher, Azch. Zeit, xxviii. 6o; Matz, Göttinger Gelehrt. Anzeig. 1871, p. 1948;
Michaelis, Arch. Zeit. 1872, p. 115; Brunn, Sitzungsber. A. bayr. Akad. 1874, II.
P. 24.
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I5 I
mind that the drawings of the pediments were but sketches, and
that, however valuable, they must not be held up as accurate
reproductions of details, we cannot but be struck with the entire
correspondence of this figure with the messenger on the right
of the centre of the western pediment corresponding to Hermes
on the left of the centre. If we compare this fragment with the
figure in the drawings of the western pediment (with Carrey in
respect of the treatment of folds in the drapery and with Nointel's
anonymous draughtsman with regard to attitude and the grosser
arrangement of the drapery as it covers the nude) we shall be
astonished that any doubt could have been felt. The forward
position of the right leg and the way the drapery leaves off above
the knee, the right arm (and the left in Dalton), the characteristic
triangular gathering of the drapery under the neck—all show the
drawings to contain the sketch of this figure.
The only serious cause for doubt is found in two holes
in the back, which served for the introduction of metal to
fasten, as has been assumed, the wings of the figure. And it has
fairly been assumed that some trace of these wings ought to
have been seen by the early draughtsmen on the figure in the
western pediment. It must not, however, be forgotten that the
tympanum of this pediment was altered when the temple was
turned into a Christian church, in that niches were placed behind
Poseidon, and that the wings would then be removed. --But what
has misled archaeologists, is the fact that fragments of wings
are really extant among the Parthenon remains. Now though,
as is acknowledged", these wings do not at all fit into the cavities
on the back of this figure, the fragments have unconsciously been
brought into connexion with these cavities, and ever since, wings
have been coupled with this figure, though these definite wings
are not ascribed to it. But it appears to me that these cavities
may equally well have served quite a different purpose. If we
remember the shallowness of the pediment (three feet) and bear
in mind that at this point there is a depth of two figures, namely
the Nereid driving the chariot of Poseidon, and behind her this
forward striding figure of which the upper part is leaning forward,
we feel that there was a need of some support to keep her in that
* See Michaelis, p. 173.
I52 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
position. No doubt there is also a double depth in the case of
the Hermes on the other side of the centre of this pediment; but
the Hermes is moving sideways and the weight of the figure is
borne longitudinally, while this is moving and leaning forward.
Thus the figure must have been fastened above by metal clamps
let into the marble. The traces of bronze which Mr Watkiss
Lloyd found on the left thigh show the use of bronze for
purposes of support.
From these considerations I am led to agree with those
who hold that this figure does not belong to the eastern pedi-
ment.
Corresponding to Helios with his horses we have on this side
Selene with her horses, of which but one head and neck are
remaining. As in the rhythm of the horses of Helios the
uprising movement is powerfully suggested, so here in this
grandly treated head we have the manifest descent with the .
marked suggestion of a certain resistance and shying back before
the wet element. Selene is leaning forward, the arms drawn
back holding the steeds, while the head must have been turned
backwards. Petersen's description is very characteristic: “Selene
turned back her head, as if wishing to cast a last glance on this
world before parting, without any fixed aim. Through this
checking of the onward movement, corresponding to the whole
composition and the individual nature of Selene", the representa-
tion receives greater connectedness.”
The remaining three female figures have generally been
Supposed to form one group, and have been interpreted accord-
ingly as either the three Fates”, or as the three sisters the
daughters of Kekrops” personifying the morning dew, or finally,
by Brunn, as the personifications of clouds. But it appears to me
beyond a doubt that the three figures do not form one group “,
* As compared with Helios Selene was considered less rapid in her movement;
she thus sometimes has mules or oxen instead of horses. .
* By Visconti, Combe, Welcker (1818), Wilkins, Reuvens, Bröndsted, Cockerell,
Millingen, Müller, Gerhard, Falkener, Lloyd.
* Welcker (1845), Overbeck, Michaelis who retains Pandrosos, but calls the two
others Thallo and Karpo.
* My views on this point have not been altered by Mr Watkiss Lloyd's paper (Zhe
Portfolio, April 1883, p. 79 sq.) which has appeared since this was written,
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I53
but that the seated figure towards the centre is distinctly sepa-
rated from the other two figures which belong together. Fried-
richs was the first to recognise the separateness of the upper seated
figure from the lower two. Michaelis (p. 168), though he admits
that the upper seated figure is separate from the other two
and is not closely related to them, considers it most probable
that they nevertheless form one group, “not so much because of
the same form of dress, the chiton with sleeves, as because of
the minor sequence of the motives.” Now to my mind the
motives are the very grounds that make it appear necessary to
consider them separated into a group of two figures and one
single figure.
In the first place, the whole action of the upper figure is
turned away from the two others, who, on their part, are not
immediately affected by the action of the upper one, nor is their
action (entirely centred within the two as it is) directed towards
the upper one.
But above all, in endeavouring to recognise and appreciate
such fragmentary remains of a great composition of the master-
sculptor, we are bound to hold before our attention the chief
features of the art of Pheidias, in this case, of his composition of
pedimental groups. One of these main features in the pedimental
sculpture of Pheidias is the manifest symmetry of composition.
obtaining between the two halves of the pediment. This sym-
metry however, as we have seen, is not absolute, as in the
purely conventional decoration of architecture; but is strongly
modified, in keeping with the life which such a work of sculpture
represents. The modifications of this symmetry correspond to
the essential inner character and the Outer constructive destination,
the combination of which makes a work of decorative sculpture.
A pedimental composition is a plastic work which is to fit into
and to contribute to the decoration of the architectural structure.
Both these elements, the plastic as well as the constructive and
decorative, have to be regarded and to receive due share in their
claims to consideration, and neither must obtrude itself to the
detraction of the other. The symmetrical correspondence of the
* Weniger wegen der gleichmässigen Bekleidung mit dem Aermelchiton, als wegen
der inneren Aufeinanderfolge der Motive.
I54 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
two halves of the composition must not be so absolute as to rob
the whole scene and the individual figures of the flow of actual
life and movement; and the rhythmical variedness of general
distribution and grouping, as well as the attitude and lines of
single figures within the two halves of the pediment, must not
be so pronounced as to suggest one-sidedness in the front of an
edifice in placing more figures, fuller lines, greater movement,
or even deeper moral meaning on either half of what is the very
brow of the structure.
I have attempted in the previous Essay to bring out the na-
ture of this “varied symmetry” in the composition of the western
pediment. We have there seen how, for instance, either extreme
angle is symmetrical in that it contains a river-god and a nymph;
but that this symmetry is varied and made rhythmical, in that in
the one angle we have the river-god first, followed by the nymph,
while in the other the nymph precedes the river-god. The same
principles are clearly manifested in the remains of the eastern
pediment.
In perfect symmetry we here have in either angle four
human figures together with horses, and the space they occupy
in either half of the pediment is the same almost with mathema-
tical accuracy. On each side we have some deity driving the
horses which complete the composition at either end; then
follow three figures on either side. Of these three figures on
both sides, one is reclining and two are seated. So far the
symmetry. The same obtains in earlier compositions, such as
the pediments of the Temple of Athene at Aegina. But here it
is that Pheidias makes a great step in advance of his predecessors,
in that he breaks in upon the absolute correspondence which
makes the Aegina pediments conventional, at least with regard
to the composition, and introduces, within the symmetry, ele-
ments of variety and change in distribution which give all the
flow of artistic life to his symmetrical and reposeful composi-
tions". In the left wing Helios is in the extreme angle with
1. It is here that symmetry becomes converted into harmony. All the arts that
deal with human emotions or even with organic life as life (not as the conventionalised
life of plants and animals in architecture and decoration) have harmony in contra-
distinction to symmetry as their fundamental principle. While symmetry consists of a
more or less absolute correspondence of the parts among each other, harmony is, as
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I 55
his horses in front of him. In the right wing the horses are in
the extreme angle with Selene behind them. In the next case
the reclining figure is a man, in the other a woman.
The next stage to these, on both sides, consists of three
figures; the one nearest the angles in each case reclining, the
upper two seated. But here again is variety within the symmetry.
On the left side the reclining figure is male, and independent of
the upper two female figures, which are associated together;
while on the right side the reclining figure is female, and rests
upon the lap of the nearest female figure above, and it is here
the uppermost figure which is independent of the lower two.
It may be noticed, too, that the very facts of the workmanship
point to the same view. On the right, the reclining figure forms
one block, and the two seated figures above are carved from
another; while, on the left, it is the uppermost figure which
forms one block, and the other seated figure with the one
reclining in her lap are together carved from another.
Thus, from the general composition of the pediment we are
driven, whichever way we look at it, to the natural conclusion
that, on the right hand side, with which we are at present more
immediately concerned, the uppermost seated figure is indepen-
dent, and that the lower seated figure and the one reclining in
her lap are in close relationship to one another.
When once we conceive of these three female figures as not
equally joined among each other in interest and attitude, but
subdivided, so that the two towards the extremity are more
closely and intimately connected with one another than they are
with the third seated one, all those interpretations in which a
mutual relation in meaning and weight between the three figures
is the essential idea, where the threeness is the basis of the
mythological personality of each one in the group, appear to me
to be untenable.
The authorities who, besides Friedrichs, do not consider the
three figures thus connected are Leake, Weber, and Petersen. The
even the ancient Herakleitos of Ephesus has put it, “the unity of difference,” of
different parts. The more such an art rises from symmetry into harmony, the higher
will it be in developement. Thus polyphonous music is a higher state of that art than
the mere unison and melody. The Aegina Pediment is monotone, the Parthenon
Pediment polyphonous.
I 56 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
two former were under the misapprehension that the eastern
pediment was the back of the temple and represented the strife
between Athene and Poseidon. Leake interpreted the figure
nearest the centre as Vesta, the other two as Ceres reclining in
the lap of her daughter Proserpine. Weber considered the whole
of this side to have some relation to Poseidon, and thus named
the first Rhode, the other two Thalassa reclining at the knee of
Amphitrite".
Petersen sees in the upper seated figure Hestia, the personifi-
cation of the human hearth, while in the two others he sees
Aphrodite reclining in the lap of Peitho, her subordinate com-
panion. Of all the interpretations given of the upper seated
figure this one of Petersen's (which is also Leake's) seems to me
to have most in its favour and to be most in keeping with the
firm stately and quiet attitude of the figure. And this is not
diminished by the fact that, as Brunn has pointed out, Carrey's
drawings disprove Petersen's restoration of the right arm leaning
on a staff. It appears to me likely that this was held in the
left hand of the figure; and a scooping-out of the marble on
the back of the neighbouring statue appears to have made room
for the hand so that the sceptre would become visible behind
and over the shoulder of the second figure.
In this figure again we have the characteristic firmness” and
breadth of modelling in the quiet large lines of the drapery;
the same style is also maintained in the seated figure below her.
Let us now turn to the two remaining statues of this pediment
(Plate VIII), and begin with the examination of the reclining
* The articles containing Weber's conjectures can hardly be found by means of the
reference under which they are usually quoted, namely Schorr's Kunstblatt, 1821,
p. 213. They were a series of letters written from Venice and appearing in the Art
Supplement (Beiblatt) of a daily paper which appeared at Tübingen called Morgen-
blatt für gebildete Stände Nos. 54, 55, 56, July 5, 9, 12, 1821. It will be seen that
the interpretation of one of these figures corresponds to the new interpretation I
propose to give. But I can hardly consider this a confirmation, inasmuch as Weber's
whole interpretation is founded upon the erroneous notion that this was the back
pediment representing the strife between Athene and Poseidon; besides which his
special grounds of interpretation are quite different.
* See Petersen, ibid. p. 142, who dwells upon the pronounced firmness of this
figure.
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v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I57
figure. In the composition and modelling of all the statues from
this pediment, so far as we have examined them, we have noticed
as the chief and most manifest characteristics, the firmness and
compactness of the figures, the quiet and large lines of the folds
of the drapery. This character has even been maintained in a
case where in later art the sculptor would have delighted in the
occasion granted him to represent a rippling and flowing fall of
drapery, namely, in the case of the messenger goddess Iris
hastening through the air. In the reclining female figure of the
right wing of this pediment, however, there is a marked exception
to this typical composition of the human figure and characteristic
treatment of drapery. And if we bear in mind, what has been
pointed out before, that a work of sculpture, especially such a
great composition, is not the immediate outcome of a momentary
artistic inspiration, but of long, careful, and thoughtful work, and
t
if furthermore we well consider that Pheidias knew and utilised ..)
all the scale and shading of form and composition as a means to
convey definite impressions and ideas, then we shall not be likely
to pass over such exceptional artistic treatment in studying the
meaning of this statue, but shall use these ‘lapidary’ letters,
words, and phrases as the Safest and most important guides to a
correct interpretation.
The whole body of this reclining figure appears elongated
and more lightly put together than that of the other female
figures in this pediment. I was pleased to hear this remark
made to me quite spontaneously by one who had no precon-
ceived notions concerning the special interpretation of this figure,
while standing before the statue in the British Museum. The
nature of the reclining attitude, the junction of the limbs, and
even the texture of the nude indicate a greater flaccidity than is
to be found in the other statues. But when further we examine
the drapery with regard to the lines of the folds, we notice a
distinct principle which is not to be found in the other figures,
one which no drawing can convey with the same clearness as
is to be found in the original. Instead of the large and compara-
tively straight lines of the greater masses of folds as they are to
be found in the upper seated figure, or the long simple curve of
the folds in the drapery of Iris or those that run over the
thigh and the knee of the upper seated figure in the left half of
/
I 58 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
the pediment (Pl. VII.), we have in this reclining figure complex
masses that intertwine restlessly and even in the larger folds
present a series of curves in various directions. Thus a line is
taken up in the drapery covering the breast, twines its way down
to the waist, is interrupted there by the girdle; slightly checked,
it resumes its course, till it is stopped by and merged into the
broader lines of the mantle that crosswise lead over the rounded
thigh to the other leg, where all the lines seem lost in a raised
mass, like the spray of a wave dashed against a rock. But this
peculiarly restless, surging, and fluent quality of the drapery is
chiefly manifest in the abundance of the smaller lines and folds
and their treatment. It is true that in the under-garments of
the other figures we have small lines, but they are comparatively
straight and simple. In this figure, however, they appear to
glide over the breast and ripple over the limbs in small undula-
tions that suggest the fluid. Nay, even in the thick material of
the cloth upon which she is reclining, with its larger masses,
there is a suggestion of the fluid rhythm as of the lapping of
waves. This general impression of the whole figure has been
best summed up by Petersen” in these words: “the body is full of
glowing life as fresh and warm as marble can be, and the folds,
the stronger ones of the mantle as the more delicate ones of the
under-garment, play about the forms with thousand-fold move-
ment, especially over lap and bosom, like Softly trembling
waves of limpid water over its clear and lucent bed.”
Recognising this marked character, which the Sculptor has
given to this figure by means of the language of his art, we must
not be blind to it when we desire to ascertain the meaning of the
representation as a whole. And if we wish to find the direction in
which we are to utilise these facts, we need but turn to a similar
case in the works of Pheidias and compare the nude reclining
male figure from this eastern pediment (Pl. VI.), with the re-
clining youth from the western pediment (Pl. III.). In the
attitude and modelling of the nude youth from this eastern pedi-
ment we have firmness and largeness of line, as in the figure from
the western pediment we have fluency and restlessness of line.
And it has ever been admired with what wonderful artistic skill
* P. 131.
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I59
Pheidias has been able to indicate in the treatment of the nude
figure in the western pediment the nature of a river-god in con-
tradistinction to the solid stability of the figure whom we
consider to be the mountain-god Olympos. I would maintain
that in the case of this female figure these indications are almost
clearer than in the case of the Kephissos, even as drapery is an
additional and more facile means of suggesting the personifica-
tion of the fluid element. What personification of the liquid
element this figure represents is determined again by the nature
of the whole subject represented in this pediment and the mode
of the composition of the scene as here adopted. It cannot be
prejudicial to the recognition of what is to be demonstrated in the
further course of our inquiry, to anticipate the results of this inves-
tigation in simply stating that I consider this figure to be the per-
sonification of the sea, Thalassa, leaning on the lap of the firmer
figure beside her, Gaia, the personification of the land".
From the indications in the extant figures of this eastern
pediment as well as from the principles of composition which we
have learned to recognise in studying the western pediment,
of which Carrey's drawings give us so fair an idea, we are able
to perceive the main divisions within this representation of the
birth of Athene.
Pheidias, the true artist, realises in his works the fundamental
principle of art, which leads to the production of works in
which there is perfect harmony between form and matter. How
this principle is realised in separate statues, we have seen in a
previous Essay”. In a combination of such figures as in the
composition of a pedimental group, the realisation of this
principle demands, in addition to these principles of pure plastic
art, that the disposition of the single figures within this definite
prescribed space should correspond to the meaning and the
spirit of what is represented in the composition as a whole.
The prescribed space which is to contain the scene depicted by
* This interpretation is not affected by the existence of the Madrid Puteal (Don
José de Villa Amil y Castro, Museo español de antiguédades, 1875, Pl. I; R. Schneider,
Die Geburt der Athena, Wien, 1880, Pl. I. 1). The composition of the Puteal is too
different to admit of any connexion between its group of three female figures and the
figures of the right angle of the pediment of the Parthenon.
* See Essay II. p. 44, seq.
I6O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
a combination of statues is that encompassed by a triangle,
in which the highest and most central part is that above the
perpendicular from the centre of the base, the space dimin-
ishing gradually towards either end as we leave the centre. The
most important part of the scene represented will therefore cor-
respond to the highest space and the most central position in the
pediment; and the less important or less closely connected with
the central action a part of the scene may be, the smaller will be
the height assigned to it, the more it will be removed from the
centre and towards either angle. So too, as we normally begin
with the less important and gradually rise to the more important,
we naturally here begin at either low angle and rise to the centre
of the pediment.
In the western pediment, according to Pausanias, was repre-
sented the strife between Athene and Poseidon for the Attic
soil. In the eastern pediment was represented the birth of
Athene. As in the western pediment the chief event is placed
in the centre, so in the eastern pediment the chief and immediate
participators in the action are also placed in the centre of the
composition; and the further the figures are removed from the
centre, the less immediately are they concerned with the great
event. Or, to begin from the ends (where there are no signs of
an immediate interference in, or even reflection of, the chief
event), we rise gradually and organically through the stage of
awakening and growing interest up to the participators in the
action and the actors themselves. And the organic growth of
interest and action, as starting from the angles we near the
centre, is manifested from the more technical side in that the
lines of the statues lead and drive directly to the centre the
further we proceed away from the angles', and in that the
personalities represented in the statues by means of their attitude
and action, as well as (when these were extant) by means of
their attributes which clearly showed their personal relationship
to the central event, manifest greater interest and more active
participation in the chief event the more we near the centre.
Within this gradual and organic growth in the interest of the
action, as borne out by the individual figures and their artistic
* See Essay IV. pp. 117, I 18.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I6 I
treatment, we can however distinguish broad and definite divi-
sions. It is well for us to examine these from the point of view
of the subject represented, and also the more purely artistic
features of the composition as such.
With regard to the subject represented, we find that in
the scene of the birth of Athene there are three main divisions:
first, the immediate participators in the action; secondly, the
passive participators, namely, those who are present at the
event and are affected by it, but do not immediately influence
it; and thirdly, those not immediately participators in the
event, who are not present at the action, yet, who, as they
approach the centre, become indirectly affected by it. Within
these three groups the most marked division, the one which
puts the greatest tax upon the imagination of the spectator, is
that existing between the third group and the two others. For
the first two groups, the actors and immediate spectators, are
strongly bound together in that the latter are immediately affected
by what they perceive with their senses, and in that they are all in
the same place. In the third group, however, the individuals do
not physically participate in the action, even passively, and they
are in a different locality. To produce any connexion between
these figures (which form as it were the background of the
composition) and the chief event, as well as to bridge over the
greater gap in this division and to make the meaning clear to
the spectator, intermediary figures had to be introduced on
either side. These figures, Iris and probably Hermes, bring the
news of the event from the seat of the gods to the figures at
either angle, thus assisting in producing the gradual shading off
of the prominent colours of the foreground of the action itself to
the gradually receding background, so that the scene, which the
first group acts, and the second group sees, dies away into
oral transmission of what has happened, to those affected
by the event merely through reflected speech. The mere pre-
sence of these messengers itself shows most distinctly that the
figures to whom they are communicating the news belong to a
different sphere from the gods in the centre. As we start from
either angle, which may be looked upon as the background of
the whole scene, the figures are comparatively indifferent to the
proceedings in the centre, until they are seen beginning to be
W. I I
I62 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, [v.
affected by the neighbouring figures, the highest of whom is
roused by the tidings conveyed by the messenger from the seat
of the gods. Here, as it were, we pause to hear the news, and
then, as in the western pediment, with a rush we are immedi-
ately brought into the presence of those who witnessed the
event, and we see the actors before us.
In the same way, in the more formal aspect of the composition
as such, these broader divisions within the whole group are
distinctly marked by means of certain pauses in the outline
rhythm of the composition, as well as in the change of line,
attitude, and inner rhythm, marking each of these new stages.
These indications of subdivision by means of the more formal
treatment in compositions of sculpture are analogous to the sub-
division in works of poetry by means of stanzas and changes in
metre; in music, by means of pauses and transitions from one
key or time to another; in books, by means of paragraphs and
chapters. All these subdivisions do not detract from the unity'
of the whole work, but, on the contrary, add to the organic
variedness and life of the work as a whole. I have indicated
these broader subdivisions in the composition by means of
perpendicular lines (Fig. 5), the finer ones indicating the less
marked, the thicker ones the more marked transitions. Though
the central groups are not extant in the eastern pediment,
Carrey's drawing of the western pediment enables us by analogy
to restore the missing group of the eastern pediment, at least
with regard to the broader disposition of the figures. And
this we are still better enabled to do when we remember that
the centre must have contained Zeus and Athene in the pre-
sence of the gods.
As in the western pediment there is a distinct central group
consisting of those immediately concerned in the action, namely,
Athene and Poseidon, and there is a distinct change of line on
either side of these two figures, so, in the eastern pediment, there
must have been a distinct central group, consisting of Zeus and
Athene with Hephaistos on one side and a corresponding figure
on the other. The space, below the Nike driving the chariot of
Athene to the angle of the pediment in the western, corresponds
* See Essay II. p. 77.
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 163
to the space from Iris to Helios inclusive in the eastern pedi-
ment; and thus the comparatively large space occupied by Nike
with her chariot and horses, and Hermes, in the western pedi-
ment, would in the eastern pediment amply accommodate four or
five standing figures in the corresponding space. This second
group would in action, interest, attitude, and general rhythm of
the lines be directed towards the centre, and would thus be
markedly severed from the next figure towards the angle, the
extant Iris", who is turned, and in her movements drives towards
the angle, away from the centre; while in outline and in the
rhythmical treatment of lines, this first erect figure, in rapid
movement coming from an opposite direction, is markedly
distinct from the restful and seated figure beyond her towards
the angle and belonging to the other division in the composition.
Here too, in the more formal aspect of the lines of the
composition, the figure Iris bridges over the chief gap between
the erect figures in action in the centre and the seated and
reclining figures in rest towards the angle. There is finally a
slighter subdivision corresponding to that between the most
central group and the surrounding gods, between the reclining
nude Olympos and the rising horses of Helios. Yet these
evidently belong to the same sphere, and the horses that are
shying back seem almost to do so before the powerful youth
reclining before them.
The result of the examination of the composition of this
eastern pediment shows that the figures on either side to whom
the messengers bring the news from the sphere of the gods, are, by
the very introduction of such messengers as well as by the formal
indications of the composition, severed from the gods in locality,
in action, and in meaning. They are, if we may say so, on a
different logical plane, and belong to a different species of
mythological representation. What this different sphere of
* I have purposely limited myself to the one half of the composition in here
dealing with both the eastern and western pediments, to avoid confusion in an
exposition, which, from the somewhat microscopical nature of the examination of
things generally considered and examined in a vague manner, requires such limitation.
Both in Carrey's drawings of the western pediment and in the extant figures of the
eastern pediment this half of the composition is more complete. And moreover
what, from our point of view, we can establish with regard to one half of these
compositions, also holds good for the other half.
II—2
I64 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
meaning is, is indicated by the Kephissos in the western pediment,
and by Helios and Selene that form part of this very division in
this pediment. Helios and Selene are here conceived purely as
personifications of nature, and not as Apollo and Artemis, who
must have been present among the gods in the centre; and the
figures that come immediately next to them are also thus con-
ceived as the personifications of the surroundings of the great
scene in the centre of the composition.
Thus, from the composition alone, we are led to expect in
the nude figure beside Helios some personification of the nature
of Olympos, and in the two figures beside Selene, some such
characters as Gaia and Thalassa. And this will more strongly
impress itself upon our mind when we consider the cosmic
character given to the event of the birth of Athene in the
Homeric Hymn to Athene, which undoubtedly also pervaded
the composition of Pheidias. In the Homeric Hymn
“...Wonder strange possessed
The everlasting gods that shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of aegis-bearing Jove.
Fearfully heaven was shaken, and did move
Beneath the might of the cerulean-eyed;
Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide,
And, lifted from his depths, the sea swelled high
In purple billows; the tide suddenly
Stood still; and great Hyperion's son long time
Checked his swift steeds : till, where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine. Wise Jove rejoiced to view 1.”
SHELLEY’s Zºranslation.
If we were to translate into sculpture this poetic description
in the hymn we should have the composition of the eastern
1 VV. B–16: oré8as à éxe révras āpāvras
d6avárovs' fi Öe arpóa flew Atós alytóxoto
éoravuévos (ºpovaev dir' d6avárow kapāvov,
gelarao' 6&v čkovra' pleyas 6' éAeAlier "OAvaros
devöv Útrö 8plums y\avkºrušos' dupl 63 yaſa
ouepúaxéov láxmorew' ékiv;6m 5’ dpa tróvros, -
Kºpaort tropºupéotoi Kukdjuevos' ékxuro [or &yxvrol 6' d'Aum
éčarivºs" arrºwev. 3 Treptovos dyMaās viðs
trirous dºctºroëas &mpöv xpêvov, elačke koºpm
etNet' dºr d6avárov quov 6eoetke Ma Teixm
IIa)\\ds "A0mvatn" )?0more 63 puntlera Zeiſs,
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 165
pediment. This does not mean that Pheidias slavishly followed
the poet, as little as he did so in his representation of the
Olympian Zeus, in which he was inspired, as ancient authority
has it, by a passage in the Iliad'. The description of the event
in the hymn is full of powerful violent action and movement.
But Pheidias was in practice too conscious of the essential
principles of his art to attempt at producing great effects by the
Same means as are used by the poet. He knew that while
poetry grew in the strength of its impressiveness with the
thrilling vigour of its action, sculpture was most impressive the
more it was monumental ; therefore his Olympos, his sea and
earth, are not trembling, quaking, and roaring with the violence
of a moment, but are softened down to a great rest by the
monumental treatment of the human forms given them.
The next important question to be answered before this
interpretation can be accepted or even deemed admissible as
one of the hypotheses, is: whether immediate personifications of
nature, and more especially those of Thalassa and Gaia were
familiar to the Greek people, so far as we can judge from their
occurrence in art and in literature ? Yet I would here remark
that though, as will be shown, this class of ideas is not foreign
to Greek literature, the frequency or unfrequency of its occur-
rence here is not at all of the same vital importance for the
question as its occurrence in art. And I would lay especial
stress upon this fact, because I have often noticed in the treat-
ment of such questions the disturbing and distorting influence
of the “philological" character which clings to archaeological
inquiry, and to which reference has been made in the first
Essay”. Frequently a host of apparently learned quotations,
which might have strengthened the results of unbiassed and
sound archaeological method, have been adduced in formidable
array to prove, quite by themselves, some specifically archaeolo-
gical point, even though the unprejudiced observation and study
of the monuments themselves would have run counter to the con-
clusions thus arrived at. Even a limited amount of reading of my-
thological passages in Greek literature will often make it possible
to adduce a considerable number of instances that will speak for
* See Essay II. p. 58, and p. 7o seq. * See Essay I. p. 30.
166 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
or against any assumption, especially when theogony and cosmo-
gonic conceptions are introduced in which one divinity is either
male or female, parent or offspring, friendly or inimical to others.
It must be borne in mind that as Pheidias did not slavishly
follow the poet, so Greek art, in its mythological representations,
did not closely and servilely follow the mythology of Greek
literature and religion, but often, out of the constructive charac-
ter and the inner nature of its own mode of expression, intro-
duced new types into mythology, modified old ones, and brought
less important ones into prominence, thus vitally reacting upon
the mythological system of religion and literature. And if this
independent development of mythology in art is manifest
throughout the whole history of Greek sculpture, it is essentially
so with Pheidias, who, it has been remarked, was gifted with
the innate independence and originality of genius, and was the
child of a time which in itself marked the great change and
advance in life and thought, religious, social, political, and
domestic". If we depended upon mythological literature alone,
we could hope for but little support for the well-founded inter-
pretation of figures in mythological scenes, like Helios distinct
from Apollo, and Selene from Artemis, like the river gods
Kephissos and Kladeos, and many similar personifications, who,
nevertheless, without a doubt form prominent parts in the scenes
representing the birth of Athene, the strife between Athene and
Poseidon, the race between Pelops and Oinomaos. Still, without
entirely basing our interpretation upon this, it will be an
important support for us to show that such forms of ideas were
not foreign to Greek literature. But above all it will be of conse-
quence to show that such personifications were with frequency
represented in ancient art.
Gaia in contradistinction to Demeter (who is a later modifi-
cation of this earlier nature-goddess) was most commonly
worshipped by the Greek people”. She had a throne and was
worshipped in Eleusis", in Messenia, in Patrae”, not far from
Boura, and Aigai and the river Krathis", in Tegea", in Sparta",
* See Petersen, as quoted above, pp. Joo-Ioa.
* Arist. Metaph. I. 7; Plut. Sympos. VI. x. 3. * Paus. Iv. i. 4.
* Paus. VII. xxi. 4. * Paus. VII. xxv. 8.
6 Paus. VIII. xlviii. 6. 7 Paus. III. xi. 8; III. xii. 7.
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 167
in Cyrene", and in Kos”. She had ancient seats in Samothrace,
Delphi, and Attica. In the pre-Thesean Athens, south of the
Acropolis, Thucydides” mentions beside two other temples, only
the temple of Zeus and Ge. On the Acropolis, where Pausanias"
describes an ancient wooden statue representing Ge supplicating
Zeus to rain, Erichthonios founds an altar to Ge Kourotro-
phos”. In the same city she had a sanctuary, together with
Demeter Chloe, under the temple of Nike", and according to
Pindar" there was a contest at her feast. She was also wor-
shipped on the Demos Phlya, where she was called the “great
one **'. -
The importance of the testimonies to a worship of Gaia and
the personal character in the imagination of the people does not
consist for us in the purely mythological aspect of the question,
but lies in the fact that the personification of the earth as such
was firmly established in the minds of the people, so that the
personal goddess and the plastic symbol” for the actually visible
earth constantly mingled in the minds and the speech of the
ancient Greeks. When the Aeschylean Prometheus calls upon
Air, River, Sea, Earth, and Sun as witnesses, he invokes them,
though he probably merely thought of nature as Welcker" has
admirably put it: “Readily the poets commingled the personal
and the material earth, as for instance Sophocles in the
Antigone”. The feeling of the worship of the native soil was
also blended with the acquired doctrines of the theogonic Gaia,
as when Sophocles makes the pious CEqipus invoke in parting
Gaia and the Olympian gods”.
In mythological literature Thalassa is less common than Gaia.
She is sometimes more narrowly conceived of as the Mediter-
ranean Sea in contradistinction to the Ocean”, but is generally,
together with other names, such as Amphitrite, Galene, a
personification of the sea corresponding to the male personifica-
1 Pind. Pyth. Ix. 60.
* Antonin. Liber. xv. Compare Welcker, Griech. Götterb. I. p. 323.
* II. 15. * I. xxiv. 3. * Suid. Kouporpoqos; Etym. M. Kopecónval.
* Paus. I. xxii. 3. 7 Pyth. Ix. 1.
* Paus. I. xxxi. 2; IV. i. 4. See Welcker, as quoted above, III. 21, 22.
* See Essay I, p. 15 seq. * Ibid. I. p. 328.
1 * w t p * 37 s w 3. f
in 338. 6eów re rāv Útreprórav Tav, dºpówrov drauárov dirotpilerat.
1° O. C. or O. Z. 1653. * Herodot. I. I.
168 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. - [V.
tions such as Pontos, Nereus, Thaumas, Phorkys, and others";
and in so far as Gaia is the mother of the Naiades” and of Pontos,
a relation to Thalassa would also be of a maternal nature.
Thalassa also indicates the salt water in contradistinction to
the sweet well, and so the sacred well in the temple of Athene
Polias on the Acropolis, which was beside the sacred olive-tree,
was called Thalassa. In the combination of these symbols
sacred to Athene we have the peaceful union of land and water,
as in the Tritogeneia, the epithet of Athene, we have an indica-
tion of the intimate relationship in Attica between Athene and
Poseidon. Both these divinities were specially worshipped in
Attica, and though Athene was essentially the patron goddess
of the Athenians, she also had a close relation with the sea for
this sea-faring and sea-loving people. It is only in that
individual myth, represented in the western pediment of the
Parthenon, that Athene and Poseidon are brought into opposition,
that the one, as the protectress of the olive, and the other, as the
ruler of the sea, are brought into discord. The gods and their
symbols were in the devotion of the people firmly united on the
Acropolis”.
The other female personification of the sea, Galene, the calm
sea, is often conceived of in literature in a fully personal form.
So Kallimachos” calls Galene a great goddess; with Euripides”
she is used as the sea in general. In one of the Anacreontea'
she is even called “soft-haired '.
As has already been stated, the facts that are really impor-
tant evidence for our proposed interpretation of Thalassa and
Gaia in the eastern pediment are the instances of definite
* Preller, Griech. Mythol. I. iv. 54. * Pindar, AEyth. Ix. 16.
* The origin of the myth represented in the western pediment doubtless goes
back to some one individual event. The miracle of the olive, here symbolical of the
fertile land, which is being warred upon by the salt well, no doubt refers to an
individual flood in which the advancing sea was checked by divine interposition in its
course endangering the fertile land. At the same time I cannot doubt that Pheidias,
moved by the recent victories over an aggressive foe from over the sea, who threatened
the favourite land of Athene, had this political event more or less directly in his mind
when, by means of mythological forms, he commemorated the indigenous strength
given to the Athenian land by a patron goddess.
* In an epigram quoted by Athenaeus VII, p. 318.
* Hel. 1450. * Ed. Bergk, 56
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 169
personification of nature in general, and of Thalassa and Gaia in
particular, in the works of Greek art. I shall draw attention to
several among the numerous works of Greek art of this kind
that have come down to us in literary records or ancient
remains. Some of these instances quoted belong to the best
period of Greek art, some even to the archaic period, while the
greatest number of monuments (as in the case with all classes of
works of ancient art) belong to the later or Roman times. Yet
even these last throw valuable light upon figures like those of
the Parthenon pediment. For, as has been shown, for instance,
with regard to the Capitoline gods in their relation to the
Parthenon pediment", there is some influence of the one to be
noticed upon the other; and, as Petersen has put it, “the later
artists depended upon and clung to the types and compositions
of the great old masters.” We shall begin with works mentioned
in ancient authors and seen by them, and proceed to the extant
remains.
The personification of physical nature in ancient art was not
only limited to the broad and great phenomena, but even dealt
with definite localities”. Aeschylus” allows Europe and Asia to
appear on the stage, and in one of the pictures of Polygnotos
Marathon appeared as a hero". Philostratos" describes a picture
in which Lydia collects the blood of Panthia in a vase. Kithai-
ron mourns and Megara plants a sepulchral pine". The river-god
Andros is represented on a bed of grapes and thyrsuses grow
about him". The river Melas is represented in youthful beauty".
The river Phasis is reclining in deep reeds, and from his whole
body water streams". The island of Skyros is painted in a
bluish dress, crowned with reeds, and holds vines and olive-
twigs. The river Alpheios jumps out of his bed to offer the
victor's wreath to Pelops". Battos is crowned by Libya". Alci-
biades is represented as being crowned by Olympia and Pythia,
* Jahn, Arch. Beitr. p. 79, seq.
* See Wörrmann, Der landschaftliche Matursinn der Griechen, p. 33.
8 Aers. I 86. * Paus. I. xv. 3.
* Eik. II. 9. * Philostr. I. 14.
* Zbid. I. 24. - 8 Zbia. II. 8.
* Philostr. jun. VIII. 1° Philostr. I. 17.
11 Paus. X. xv. 6.
17o ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
or resting on the knees of Nemea’. The mountain-god Olympos
is represented as the chief figure in a beautiful picture described
by Philostratos”, while in another, described by the same author,
he is represented as being delighted at the theft of Hermes".
All these instances bear witness to the general anthropomorphic
turn of the Greek mind which carried its humanity into the
things of nature. And it is this turn of mind which was so
favourable to the development of their art.
These personifications are often grouped together. So the
river-god Titaresios is represented as lying upon the Peneios
because his water was considered lighter". The river-god
Oropos, forming the boundary between Attica and Boeotia,
is accompanied by sea-goddesses".
Both sea and land are often personified in a general or
more special character by single figures or by groups of figures.
On vases representing the battle between gods and giants the
upper sphere of the gods is separated by a line from the lower
sphere of the giants. The upper sphere is more definitely in-
dicated by the personifications of the stars, the lower, where the
giants are, by Gaia". On many vases, in contradistinction to
heavenly spheres, the earthly spheres are represented by
Okeanos and Gaia': Glaukos Pontios is personified in a pic-
ture described by Philostratos” while at the beginning and the
end of his description he names ‘Orpheus with the Argonauts,
Pontos, and the charming Thalassa,' so that the latter appears
to have been here personified. Most interesting is the same
author's description of the picture of the harbour Palaimon?:
“the isthmus is represented as a divine being (év eiðel Saiuovos),
leaning with her back against the land (Tº yi), nature placed
her between the AEgean and Adriatic like a bridge. On her
1 Athen. XXII. 534 D. * I. 21.
* I. 26. * Philostr. Ii. I6.
* Ypáqet & Kat rôv 'Qpwirów veavlav čv YXavko's yuvaiots td. 5’éarl 6&Xatra. Phil.
I. 26.
* Jahn, Annale, 1869, p. 186 seq.; Stephani, Comptes Rendus, II. p. 39.
7 Cf. Beger, Thes. Brandº. III. p. 439; Bartoli, II. 9; Jahn, Arch. Beitr. pp. 86,
169, and Bericht, d. k. Sächs. Ges. d, Wiss. 1849, p. 158.
* II. 15.
* II. 16. Several of the quoted instances have been quoted before me by Brunn, l.c.
v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I7 I
right is a young boy, I believe Lechaion. To the left a young
girl, probably Kenchreai. These seas, fair and gay, are seated
beside the land which forms the isthmus'.”
Pausanias makes definite mention of single statues of Tha-
lassa. So at Corinth” he tells us “that in a temple of no great
dimensions are bronze Tritons, and in the pronaos two statues
of Poseidon, one of Amphitrite, and also one of Thalassa.” In
a later temple (Herodes Atticus) there is Thalassa holding the
infant Aphrodite on high. Finally, in the same book he tells us
that “there are here also statues of Galene and Thalassa.”
But the most instructive and really important data for Our
purpose are the extant monuments containing personifications
of nature. Of the numerous monuments of this class it is only
necessary to quote a few that bear more directly upon the
subject, and will most strongly support the statement, already
well founded, that the personification of nature and localities,
by means of human figures, was a common practice in Greek
sculpture. • .
Such are an altar” of late work, containing the head of Selené
in draped bust surmounting a crescent. This crescent rests upon
the colossal head of the bearded Okeanos. This class of repre-
sentation is most frequent in ancient art, for as Froehner says,
“the moon disappearing in the waves of the Ocean was one of
the favourite subjects in ancient art.” It is worthy of remark
that the hair of Okeanos is ornamented with claws of crabs
(xexaſ). These claws or sea-animals served as distinctive attri-
butes to the maritime personifications of nature, and are gene-
rally placed in the hands of reclining male or female figures;
they thus take the place of the simple attributes of the Olympian
gods (sceptre, lyre, thyrsus, &c.) which contributed so much
to clearness in imparting to the spectator the individual nature
of each work of Greek sculpture. .
A small bronze relief of good Greek work in the British
* 6&\arrat 5' attai kakai kal ikavós eiðuot tº Töv to 600V &ropauvoiſon yi, trapaká-
6mviral. -
* II. I. - -
* Froehner, AVotice de la Sculpture Antique du Musée Mat, du Louvre, Paris, 1878,
No. 429, p. 399; Jahn, Zeipziger Berichte, 1868, p. 203; Clarac, Cat. No. 214,
Musée, Pl. 170, 74, 75; Müller-Wieseler, Denkm., t. II. pl. 17, 190. * *
172 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
Museum", noticed by Brunn, represents an aged man who,
snake-like, encircles several female figures, of which two half-
draped are reclining in an attitude very similar to our two
figures in the eastern pediment. These are supposed to be
Nereus with the Nereides. It may also represent Okeanos, who
encompasses the various terrestrial elements”.
Another late Roman relief” represents Helios in his chariot,
Thalassa, a half-nude reclining figure with a vase, and an old
man with a veil spread over his head in a semicircle, a type
of the personification of heaven, Ouranos. Four Olympian gods,
among whom Athene, Zeus, and Hera are distinguishable, are
also figured. • *
A diptych from Sens" represents Selene in a chariot drawn
by oxen; above her are small figures, probably constellations,
and below her Thalassa reclining, with sea-plants and animals
in her hands.
But of the greatest interest in its bearing upon our interpre-
tation of the figures in the eastern pediment of the Parthenon
is a relief representing the fall of Phaethon, formerly in the
Borghese collection and now in the Louvre". The relief has
been restored in many places; but, as far as it can be seen
from below (its position being high in the wall), the chief parts
are untouched. The whole of the slab seems divided into two
sections corresponding to two separate scenes of the one drama".
The greater part of the relief is taken up by the immediate fall
of Phaethon : the rash youth with chariot and horses is hurled
from above through the air, with winds and constellations
* Cat. of Bronzes, p. 38, No. 14.
* See IZ. XIV. 200 ; XVIII. 607; Hes. Theog. 242.
* Millin, Gal. Aſyth. E. 8o, Pl. xxv.
* Millin, G. M. 12 I, Pl. xxxIV, +.
* Froehner. ibid. No. 425, p. 389, seq.; Millin, E. 83, Pl. xxvi.I; Bouillon, T.
2, Pl. xvi.I; Clarac, Cat. No. 732–766, Mus. Pl. 210, 42; Wieseler, Phaethon,
p. 29, seq. Pl. I, Goettingen, 1857. -
* The representation of two successive stages of a story on the two halves of the
same slab of relief was not at all uncommon with this class of works. So on some of
the sepulchral reliefs representing the story of Endymion, referred to below, Artemis
is on the one side descending from a chariot and advancing towards her lover, while
on the other half of the same slab she is retiring on her chariot. The various stages
of the fate of Prometheus are represented in the same way on some of these slabs.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I73
above; while to the left the locality where Phaethon is falling
is indicated by the river-god Eridanus reclining on the ground
with an urn out of which water is streaming. And at the left
corner, leaning against trees, are his hapless sisters, the Heliades,
lamenting his fate. The other half of the relief shows Zeus and
Hera advancing towards two reclining female figures, the one
with an oar, the other with a cornucopia and infants clinging
about her (Kourotrophos), in whom without any doubt are to be
seen Thalassa and Gaia. As in the myth Phaethon is thrown
from his chariot by the thunderbolt of Zeus, yielding to the
supplication of the earth, disturbed and burning through the
revolution in the course of the sun, so here Zeus announces
to earth and sea that the disturbance in the great course of
nature is over. To the right, above these figures, is a half re-
clining youth, who indicates the locality from whence the gods
came, namely the mountain-god Olympos. That he it is who is
represented in this manner has been admitted by every archaeo-
logist who has noticed this monument, but it is really not con-
firmed finally until we run through the whole of this class of
relief-representations and compare it with similar figures.
We thus find that in the greatest number of this class of relief-
representations there are small figures, placed above the larger
figures that make up the scene, in a typical attitude and with attri-
butes that show them to be personifications of the locality. They
are either male (if mountain or river-gods) or female (if nymphs
FIG. 6. Personifications on Mountains on ancient Reliefs.
of fountains or streams). The accompanying cuts (Fig. 6) taken
from reliefs quoted further on, are specimens of mountain gods

I74 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
placed above the figures composing the main scene and indicating
the locality in which the action took place. If compared, it will be
found that, though they vary, they point to some one archetype
of a nude youth reclining with one leg drawn up, the other more
extended, and it will further become evident that this archetype
is to be found in the nude youth of the eastern pediment of the
Parthenon (Plate VI. and Fig. 5).
We are brought still nearer to this archetype from which
this class of figures is copied in the mountain god here rendered
(Fig. 7) from the mural painting of the Esquiline (Woermann,
Die Antiken Odyssee-Zandschaftem vom Esquilinischen Hügel 8te
Aom, Pl. I, p. 5.). This picture represents the arrival of Odys-
Seus in the country of the Laistrigons according to Homer (Od.
FIG. 7. Mountain from Mural Painting.
x. 80–132). There are the ships, the harbour, the mountain at
the foot of which the followers of Odysseus (with their names
inscribed) have landed and are received by the daughter of
Antiphates. There is a male personification of the shore, with
the inscription Aktat, and a reclining nymph at a well, with
the inscription Kpmum, and above on the mountain is their
mountain god. It can hardly be doubted that the painter of
this picture had as a model the figure from the Parthenon
which had probably become the traditional type for such
figures in all subsequent periods. There is not only the most
striking correspondence in type and attitude (especially when we
bear in mind the difference of rendering and dimension); but
even an accessory, such as the skin upon which the youth is
seated recurs in both. It will be seen how this confirms Brunn's

v.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I75
interpretation of the figure in question, and how it further goes
to show that the reclining female figure corresponding to it on
the other side of the eastern pediment must also be a personifi-
cation of nature".
A careful examination of the composition of a large number
of mythological scenes on ancient reliefs will not only go to
support the interpretation which I propose to give to the extant
figures of the eastern pediment of the Parthenon, but will in
itself manifest how, ever since the introduction by Pheidias of
personifications of nature as a framework to the central action of
a pedimental composition, Greek art, down to the latest Roman
period, clung to, developed, and modified this typical represen-
tation of mythological scenes in sculpture. To put the matter
briefly: this typical form in which an individual mythical action
was placed, consisted of Helios and Selene on either side, ac-
companied by personifications of nature, whether general and
elemental, or definite and local. -
It is true that most of these representations belong to the
late Greek, Hellenistic, or Roman period. But their evidence is
none the less weighty and important if we but bear in mind
the following facts: first, that comparatively very few works
of this description dating from the best period of Greek sculp-
ture have come down to us. Among these few works we at
least know with certainty that all the great compositions of this
1 I cannot here enter further into the question of such personifications, especially
those occurring repeatedly on ancient mural paintings. I must refer the reader chiefly
to Helbig’s Untersuchungen über die Campanische Wandmalerei (Leipzig, 1873). Nor
can I dwell upon personifications of nature and localities in statues and on coins, such
as the statue of Antiochia with the Orontes at her feet by Eutychides, or the coins with
the Corinthian isthmus, Lechaion and Kenchreae, Mount Argalos, the river Ister, &c.
I should like, however, to draw special attention to the Arcadian coin with a nude
male figure seated on a mountain (Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, Pl. VIII.), and to
call for a comparison between this coin and the mountain gods figured above, as well
as the ‘Olympus’ of the eastern pediment. The mountain is inscribed with the letters
OAT, which were formerly considered to stand for Olympos but are now by many
considered to be the artist's name. I believe that the comparison of these figures with
the types of mountain gods would call for a reconsideration of the meaning of the
inscription. An exhaustive work on the personifications of nature in Greek art is still
wanting. It would no doubt show that the consideration of them has been neglected
in the attempts at interpreting ancient monuments, that many a figure formerly con-
sidered to be a god or hero is in reality such a personification. -
176 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [v.
description attributed to Pheidias did contain some personifica-
tions of nature. So the Helios and Selene from the eastern
pediment of the Parthenon ; the river-gods from the western
pediment. Through Pausanias we know" that the representa-
tion of the birth of Aphrodite on the base of the statue of the
Olympian Zeus also contained Helios and Selene. Helios and,
most probably, Selene were also present in the pedimental group
of the temple at Delphi described by Pausanias”. Finally, in,
the recently discovered pediment by Paionios of the temple of
Zeus at Olympia the scene was bounded on either angle by the
reclining river-gods Kladeos and Alpheios.
In the best period of Greek art reliefs were only used for two
definite purposes, either for architectural decoration or for small
sepulchral slabs and the embellishment of public inscriptions and
votive offerings. On none of these could a compact composition
of some mythological scene corresponding to the typical form of
pedimental composition find its place. For the architectural
reliefs were either frièzes running round the whole of the temple
or metopes. The friezes were too long to admit of one definite
scene or action, and thus generally represented pageants, pro-
cessions, and battles. The metopes on the other hand, though
separate slabs, still being organic parts of one great structure,
manifested this constructive continuity, in that each formed part
of one great representation, such as a Kentauromachia or a
Gigantomachia. If this was not the case the space was too
limited for the complete representation of a scene, and herein
they correspond to the other class of reliefs in the best period,
the sepulchral slabs and the decorations of public and votive
inscriptions. Yet even here we have instances of direct personi-
fications of localities, and these instances are the more interesting
inasmuch as through the inscriptions (mentioning the names of
historical archons) we can fix their date to the best period of
Greek art. So on the inscription containing the account of
the treasurers of Athene under the archonship of Glaukippos
(410 B.C.), now in the Louvre", on a similar inscription under
the archonship of Laches (400 B.C.)”, on another during the
* v. ii. 3. * X. 19, 3.
* See Essay IX. * See Essay IX.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 177
archonship of Euthykles (398 B.C.)", we have the city of Athens
represented by a bearded male figure, the Attic Demos, ad-
ministering an oath to the goddess Athene. Another relief
surmounting an inscription” can be dated to 375 B.C.; the
inscription records an alliance between Athens and Corcyra,
and the relief represents Athene witnessing the agreement made
between a female figure, Corcyra, and a seated male figure, the
Attic Demos. Another similar relief” from the year 362 B.C. sur-
mounts an inscription recording an alliance between Athens on
the one side, the Arcadians, Eleans, Achaeans, and Phliasians on
the other. Zeus is here the witness; before him appear Athene
and another female figure in whom Koehler sees the personifica-
tion of the Peloponnesus. -
These instances will suffice to show that even in the best
period of Greek art definite personifications of nature and
localities were common. But for personifications and composi-
tions such as we are dealing with, we must not look to early
Greek reliefs. From technical and constructive reasons we shall
only expect to find them in pedimental groups. Early Greek
temples with extant pediments however are very few in number;
we shall therefore have to direct our attention to Roman pedi-
mental composition. -
Here, however, from purely constructive reasons, another
group of monuments comes into existence, which from its
material outer form" requires decoration similar to the pedi-
mental compositions, and thus furnishes a strong reflective light
through which we can distinguish much of the dim contours of
1 Foucart, Bulletin de Corresp. Hell. 1878, p. 37 seq. Pl. Io.
* Corp. Inscr. Att. II. 49b ; A, Dumont, Bulletin de Corresp. Hell, 1878, p. 560,
Pl. II. -
* Mittheil. d. Deutsch. Inst, in Athen, i. p. 187; Corp. Inscr. Att. II. 57"; 'Affivatov,
v. p. Ior ; Bulletin de Corresp. Hell. ibid.
4 The value of a systematic consideration of the outer constructive form and
immediate destination of objects, edifices, and their parts that are to be decorated
with forms of the graphic or plastic arts, for purposes of the study of the artistic
qualities, and even the spirit of these decorative compositions, cannot be over-
estimated. The light that is thrown upon the development of painting and sculpture
in general and special departments, such as mural painting and relief, can be replaced
by no amount of reading of ancient authors and study of texts. It is part of the same
comparative study of style which I hold to be the main support of the study of
ancient art. . . .
W. I 2
178 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [w.
the partly or wholly destroyed Greek pediments. This is the
Roman sarcophagus.
The sides of a Roman sarcophagus present an oblong longer
than any metope or sepulchral slab, and not so indefinitely con-
tinued as the frieze of an edifice. If decorated it demands some-
thing more than one or two figures separate or in interaction, and
is yet too limited and defined to admit of a long sequence of
interdependent groups with a final unity and summing-up in a
most important and central frieze, such as the front of a temple.
It therefore demands some complete scene or action which admits
of the introduction of surrounding figures—in short, a scene such
as those represented in the pediments of temples. The available
space on the slab of a sarcophagus corresponds to the elongated
space of a pediment. It is true the one has the great advantage
of being triangular, thus naturally intensifying as it rises towards
the centre, while the other is rectangular. No doubt the scenes
on sarcophagi are inferior in composition to those in the pedi-
ments. But that there was this primary similarity is evidenced
by the fact that one of the above-mentioned compositions of
Pheidias which corresponded in its formal distribution to those
of the pediments was on the footstool of the Olympian Zeus,
which was decidedly not triangular in shape, but would exactly
correspond to the rectangular outline of the side of the sarco-
phagus. This it is that makes the Roman sarcophagi so important
for the light they throw upon pedimental compositions. It has
been shown by Raoul-Rochette‘, O. Jahn’, and others, how the
compositions on several sarcophagi are borrowed immediately
from the pedimental group on the Temple of the Capitoline
gods, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.
Here we must furthermore draw attention to a second point
which must be borne in mind in considering the weight of the
evidence afforded by these Graeco-Roman monuments in support
of the interpretation of the pediment of the Parthenon. For it
has been recognised by Raoul-Rochette, Jahn, Petersen and
others, that the pediment of the temple of the Capitoline gods
was dependent upon the eastern pediment of the Parthenon for
* Monum. inedit. p. 393 seq.
* Arch. Beitr. Exc. II. p. 79 seq.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 179
its general composition, at least with regard to that arrangement
of figures which places the chief gods in the centre and frames
the whole group by Helios and Selene at either angle. This
appears to have been an invention of Pheidias, which was
repeated and copied by all later artists who had to represent
similar groupings.
What has here been said will suffice to show the value of
, these late Roman works, in which, in many cases, the figures are
definitely recognisable through their extant attributes, in at least
throwing light upon the general interpretation of the similar
early Greek composition, however degenerate and full of man-
nerism the late Roman works may be with regard to the artistic
conception and execution of these figures. I shall thus point
out for comparison a number of works in which occur (a) Helios
and Selene, (b) in addition to these, personifications of localities,
and (c) in addition to these again, personifications of Thalassa
and Gaia.
(a) Helios and Selene". .
On all the representations of the above-mentioned Capitoline
gods. Some of these are fragmentary and therefore merely
present the one side, containing either Helios (Sol) or Selene
(Luna). - -
In representations of the story of Prometheus”, they are
generally placed on either side above the main figures.
In numerous representations containing the story of Artemis
and Endymion". This shows how definite the conception of the
personification of Nature is in the artist's mind. It is not the
personal goddess Artemis who appears in the centre of the scene,
but the pure personification of Nature's Moon".
In the story of Mithras, in which he is sacrificing the bull in
a grotto, while, above this scene, Helios is ascending on the left
and Selene is descending on the right".
* See Jahn, Arch. Beitr. Exc. II. p. 79.
* Gerhard, Antike Bildwerke, Pl. LXI. ; Piranesi, De Romanorum Magnificentia
et Architectura, p. 198; Millin, Galerie Myth. Pl. 93, No. 383 ; Mus. Cap. Pl. 25.
* Gerhard, A. B. Pl. xxxvi. xxxvi II; Galleria Giustiniani, II. I. Io; Braun, Amt.
Marmorzwerke, I. 8, &c. -
* See above, p. 165.
* Müller-Wieseler, I. Pl. 72, 406; Froehner, AVotice de la sculpt. ant. du Zouvre,
p. 490, &c.
I 2–2
I8O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. . . [V.
(b) Helios and Selene together with personifications of
localities. • - w • * *
Among the numerous reliefs which contain personifications
of localities but do not, from the nature of the subject repre-
Sented, include Helios and Selene, I would above all draw
attention to a relief in the Vatican" representing the labours of
Herakles. This appears to me particularly instructive, because
it gives such local personifications in a series of instances, male
and female, corresponding both in attitude and type to the types
which we have before recognised to be such personifications.
They are generally half-reclining figures, smaller in dimensions
than the chief acting figure or figures the site of whose action
they serve to indicate, and are generally placed above them on
the upper part of the relief, or in some cases at either extremity.
The first scene represented is the capture of the Oenoean stag,
and above this is represented a female figure, most probably the
nymph of the stream Ladon. The second is the shooting of the
Stymphalian birds; and above Herakles is a bearded figure with
a branch, probably the river Erasinus. The next is the conflict
with the Erymanthian boar, and above is a youthful male figure
with a branch, most probably the mountain-god Erymanthos.
The next is Herakles washing his hands, after the cleansing of
the Augean stables, at a cascade, the nymph of which is seated
above. On the other slab but two of the feats are illustrated by
local personifications: the one, the struggle with the Nemean
lion and the personification of Nemea; the other, the Cretan
bull, with the personification of Argolis. . . . . .
Among the reliefs” representing the story of Artemis and
. 1 Visconti, AMus. Pio. Clementino, Vol. IV. Pl. 4o, 41. -
* Such reliefs with personifications of nature are Clarac, Mus. de Sculpt. Pl. CLxx.
No. 236; also Pl, CLXV. No. 437. There is also a mountain-god probably as shepherd,
Pl. CLXX. No. 38. In Gerhard, Ant. Bildw. Pl. 37, a mountain-god is represented as a
bearded figure with branch. On this relief three successive stages of the story and three
aspects of Artemis are represented. At first where the mountain-god is seated she is
visiting Endymion as Artemis. To the left she is again represented as leaving the earth
in her chariot (half the personality Artemis and half the personification of nature's
Moon), and on the top of the relief which represents the celestial sphere she is seated
on a crab (purely an astronomical personification). On Pl. 39 of the same work, a late
and poor work, the mountain-god is accompanied by a nymph. Butari, Mus. Capito-
Aino, Pl. 29, contains a mountain-god of the Herakles type. Visconti, Mus. Pio-
Clementino, IV. Pl. 16, has a nymph, a mountain-god, and other figures.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. I 8 I
Endymion, some have not an additional representation of Selene
and Helios, but contain personifications of the locality, generally
in the form of the mountain-god Latmos, and in a few instances
the nymph of the locality. These mountain-gods (see one of
them reproduced, fig. 6) are in a few isolated cases bearded
men, but most frequently are a distinct type of youth, nude, or
partly draped, generally holding a branch in one hand, in a half-
reclining position, with the right leg drawn up higher than the
left. The similarity of these figures leads us to conclude that
they form one type, and if we but bear in mind the modifications
which such a type will undergo through the difference of age of
the Roman as contrasted with the Greek influence, of a small
private slab of a sarcophagus by an inferior craftsman as com-
pared with a pedimental statue by Pheidias, we can but be struck
with the resemblance of the broader representations of type
between these figures and the reclining male figure from the
eastern pediment of the Parthenon. He occurs also in the story
of Prometheus'; also in the story of Aktaion”.
On most of the above-quoted scenes containing Helios and
Selene we also have the youthful mountain-god. They also
occur in paintings”. -
(c) Helios and Selene, together with personifications of
locality, and Thalassa and Gaia.
The greatest number of the above-quoted reliefs, if the story
and scene represented have in any way not merely a local but
a cosmical significance and association, also contain, in addition
to Helios, Selene, and the mountain-god, the personifications of
the Earth and the Sea, or both together. In the representation
of the Endymion-myth, as Jahn has pointed out", the horses of
the retiring or advancing Selene rise over a reclining female figure,
generally holding a cornucopia or fruit in her lap, Gaia (for it
is on earth that the scene takes place). In fewer instances the
same figure with a sea animal, Thalassa, is represented. And
finally also a male figure with a shell or urn, Okeanos.
* Clarac, Pl. 215, No. 29; in Pl. 216, No. 31, there is also a nymph.
* Clarac, Pl. I 15. º
* Philostratos, l.c.; Pompeian paintings, Zahn, II. 30, 43; Müller-Wieseler, Denkm.
der allen A unst, II. I 7, 183.
* Arch. Beitr. p. 60.
182 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
Both Sea and Land personified on the same relief occur on
the above-quoted representation of the fall of Phaethon, and on
two of the reliefs representing the myth of Prometheus. In
these cases, the myth is of a wider significance than the story of
Endymion, for it concerns gods and men, the celestial and
terrestrial spheres. On the relief given by Gerhard' we have on
the extreme left Cerberus with his guardian, indicating the lower
regions; above him Selene in a chariot drawn by oxen rises out
of the realms of darkness over a reclining female figure on a sea-
monster, Thalassa. On the right is the reclining Gaia with a
cornucopia, and over her Helios in his chariot drawn by horses.
Hephaistos is applying hammer and tongs to the reclining earth,
and in the centre is the main scene in the presence of the gods.
In the Capitoline relief.” Vulcan and his assistants are repre-
sented as forging chains under the earth, while the mountain-god
is peering over from the top, and above on either side Helios
advancing towards Gaia and Selene towards Okeanos, who is
represented with an oar and as seated on a sea-monster. -
As has been stated by Visconti” a distinctly cosmical cha-
racter is given to the Capitoline gods in the pedimental groups
representing them. These three Capitoline gods, the rulers of
the world, were, even in the very earliest times, worshipped
jointly on the Capitolium Vetus, and in the temple of Jupiter on the
Capitol three niches were dedicated to them. They are repre-
sented on numerous reliefs, vases and coins, with a certain cor-
respondence throughout them, so that we must infer that these
representations go back to some well-known prototype. This
prototype is shown to be the pediment of the (Capitoline) Temple,
which pediment is clearly indicated on the fragmentary relief
published by Piranesi" and on another by Righetti". Further-
1 A. B. Pl. 61. * Mus. Cap. Iv. Pl. 25.
* Mus. Pio-Clement. Iv. p. 154. Toutes les divinités représentées sur ce bas-relief
rare, ont entre elles deux rapports différens d’analogie, chacun desquels a pu servir de
motif a l'artiste pour les rassembler toutes dans le même tableau. Le premier motif
est que ce sont toutes des divinités protectrices de l'empire romain, le second que ce
sont aussi toutes des divinités cosmiques, ou qui se rapportent au système de l'univers.
Ces deux analógies pourraient étre placées dans les temples oil cette sculpture parait
avoir €té faite. -
* De Romanorum Magnificentia et Architectura, p. 198; and Müller, Denkm. d.
alten Kunst, Pl. 2, 13. Descrizione del Campidoglio, I. 168.
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 183
more on coins published by Ryckius' representing the Capitoline
Temple itself. In all these works, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva
are represented in the centre of the pediment, and several have
the distinct personifications of nature surrounding them. In the
relief published by Piranesi and Müller the gods being in the
centre are surrounded on either side by Helios and Selene (or
rather Sol and Luna), and these are followed by reclining figures
in either angle, evidently, from analogies to be considered later,
the two great personifications of terrestrial nature. There are
also figures above the cornice. On smaller representations, such
as coins, the whole scene is very much curtailed, the main features
of the pediment being recorded. So on the reverse of a bronze
coin” struck under Antoninus Pius, we have a circular rim contain-
ing the signs of the zodiac, and in the centre Jupiter enthroned,
and below his feet on the right Gaia, and on the left a figure
which may be male or female on a sea-monster, with what appears
a sickle in one hand, either Pontos or Thalassa. Above these
and to the right and left of Zeus are Helios and Selene in chariots.
The same coin is figured by Mionnet”. A medallion relief in
the Villa Albani" at Rome, which appears to have been restored
after the coin, differs from the coin in that Okeanos with an oar
is here on the right and Gaia with a cornucopia is on the left.
An analogous representation still more curtailed is on a coin
from Pergamon". Here Helios and Selene are cut down to the
busts of these figures, the one with a crown, the other with a
half-moon, while below on the left is Thalassa with an oar leaning
on an urn from which water is streaming, and on the right Gaia
with a branch.
The above-quoted relief in the Vatican is fragmentary and
merely contains the centre, together with the left wing of what was
represented in the pediment". The centre contains the three gods,
accompanied by Fortuna (who in Roman mythology seems to
take the place of Nike in the Greek as a symbol of the success and
power of the gods). At the angle, Helios preceded by one of the
* De Capitol. Ch. XIII., also Monum. inedit. d. Instit. II. 33, 34.
* Müller l.c. II. Pl. 76, No. 26. * Descript. de Medailles &c. Suppl. v. p. 78.
* Hirt. Bilderbuch, Pl. 2, No. 3. * Morelli, Specimen Rei Mum. I. 3.
* We can hardly err in assuming that the other wing contained Selene and Gaia.
184 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
Dioskouroi is advancing with his chariot over a half-draped
reclining female figure leaning on an urn from which water is
streaming, in whom Thalassa has been recognised by all. Next
to her is a male figure half rising out of the ground with drapery
flowing like an arch above his head. I agree with Visconti, who
sees in this figure the personification of heaven, the Roman
Coelus, and that this is a higher region is indicated by the
attitude of Minerva, the figure placed next, who is looking
down into the lower regions. Just as on the one side of the
Parthenon pediment the figure of the reclining Olympos, towards
whom the sun is ascending, indicates the regions of the gods, so
here Coelus introduces us into the sphere of the three principal
Roman divinities. However great the variations of the theme,
it is manifest that in these Roman compositions we have a faint
echo of the principle of pedimental composition introduced by
Pheidias in his decoration of the Parthenon, and so the light
which is thrown by these Roman works upon the general signifi-
cance of the figures in the Parthenon pediment is none the less
important, however inferior in artistic qualities they may be.
We started our examination of this class of monuments
merely for the purpose of discovering whether personifications
of nature in ancient art were sufficiently common to justify us
in adhering to the interpretation of two of the figures from the
eastern pediment of the Parthenon as Gaia and Thalassa, the
interpretation having been founded upon a study of the indica-
tions in the works and the composition themselves. The result
has been that we find not only that these personifications are
most common, but also that the typical form of the composition
of a mythological subject which, like the birth of Athene, has
any cosmical significance, is that the central scene should be
closed by Helios and Selene at either end, followed by personifi-
cations with earth and sea in reclining figures ; and, if the scene
be localised more definitely, this is done by a reclining mountain-
god or nymph or by a figure like Coelus. -
Let us now again attempt to complete the interpretation of
the eastern pediment. As in the Homeric Hymn, the birth of
Athene is conceived not only in a purely mythological but also in
a cosmical signification, so that it affects not only the personal
gods, who wrapped in wonder are the immediate spectators, but
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 185
also the whole of the universe, the celestial spheres, the earth
and the sea; so in this plastic expression of the same event, we
shall expect to find besides the witnessing gods the personifica-
tions of nature, whose presence is undoubtedly warranted by the
extant figures of Helios and Selene. -
The whole composition evidently has its beginning at the
left angle of the pediment, and its end at the right. This has
been most clearly and forcibly indicated by the sculptor in the
arrangement of the figures at either end : Helios turned towards
the centre, and ascending at the one angle, and Selene, whose
horses are turned away from the centre, descending at the other.
This is not the case in the western pediment, which contains a
scene not cosmical but definitely local. Here there is no single
point of beginning, but both ends, with equal force, drive towards
the centre. In the eastern pediment, then, the sculptor has most
distinctly indicated that our eye is to begin at the angle con-
taining Helios, and the direction of the movement of the compo-
sition is again most clearly given in the action of Helios and the
impulse of his horses. It is an upward movement, one of ascent
towards the higher regions where the scene takes place and the
gods dwell, the summit of Mount Olympos. The first rays of
the sun strike the mountain, the horses of the sun-god's chariot
rear and start back at the great scene of the birth of the clear-
eyed daughter of the sky which takes place on the summit. But
the mountain-god is still unaffected by the great event which is
just being transmitted to one of the two Horae who watch at the
gates of the heavenly abode. Here Iris, the fleet messenger of
the gods, has just imparted the news of the birth of Athene; she
has come from the centre of action where Hephaistos has just
dealt the blow, and the virgin-goddess, fully armed, swinging her
spear, stands before her father, the king of the gods, and the
assembled deities, and all are wrapped in wonderment. Hera
and Poseidon, Apollo and Artemis, Aphrodite and Ares, Diony-
sos and Hermes, all are there. We have reached the highest
point, the centre of action, the abode of the gods, and we now
descend (as is indicated by the movement of the figure which
bounds this side of the composition, Selene) to the lower cos-
mical spheres. Not only to the wonderment of gods is Athene
born, but also to the welfare of mankind, the whole of the
186 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [V.
terrestrial sphere, earth and sea. So a messenger of the gods
(probably Hermes) brings the news to this terrestrial sphere, to
Hestia the personification of the human hearth, the first of the
seated female figures, and then to the Earth and the Sea reclining
within her lap. And far at the end where the last lines of this
composition die away like the finale of a great symphony, Selene
turns back to give one more look over the sea and land to the
heights where the beautiful scene has taken place, and by the
sea her horses descend into the lower realms of night.
We have more than once drawn attention to the fact that the
scene in the eastern pediment is cosmical in import and character,
as the western pediment contains a local myth; and so we must
also expect cosmical personifications in the one, as we have
local personifications in the other. It is interesting to note how
in the above-quoted relief, representing the fall of Phaethon, the
whole slab is divided into two compositions, the one representing
the local aspect of the myth, as the other conveys the broader
physical significance. So we have in the one composition the
personification of the river Eridanus, while in the other half
Zeus and Hera have descended from Olympos, personified by
a youth, and are advancing towards the earth and the sea,
personified by two reclining female figures. In the same way,
guided by the clear indications of the treatment of the figures in
the eastern pediment, by the description of the birth of Athene
in the Homeric Hymn, and by the customary representation of
this class of subjects in ancient literature and art (so far as it has
been preserved) which corresponds to the distribution, succession,
and typical representation of the figures in the pediment, we are
led to see in this work, besides Helios and Selene, in the extant
figures in the angles Olympos, Gaia, and Thalassa.
The grandeur of the surroundings in which Pheidias has
placed the central scene of this great event in the history of the
universe, is unrivalled for the depth and width of the conceptions
coupled with the clearness and simplicity of expression. There
are Time and Space, the celestial and the terrestrial sphere, gods
with mankind, and all put into recognisable, tangible form, no
less grand and monumental than they are graceful and har-
monious. The whole scene is bounded by the ascending Sun
and the descending moon, fixing the time and indicating the
V.] THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 187
limits of the universe, and the infinite course and duration of
nature".
If to some it may appear that we attribute to Pheidias
thoughts and works too philosophical, we would but record
the fact that all great and deep thought, whether in common
life, in art, or in science, may be termed philosophical, simply
because it is great and far-seeing: and that all great men either
have great thoughts, live great thoughts, act great thoughts, or
create them. In so far they might all be called philosophers.
And we might furthermore call attention to the fact that
Pheidias lived in a community and in an age which was not
chiefly characterised by partition of labour and specialisation,
so that the artist, no less than the statesman Pericles, was the
friend and pupil of a philosopher like Anaxagoras, and studied
and was conversant with the higher pursuits of philosophy and
literature. And still further we must remember that the time
in which Pheidias lived was one open to the introduction of new
ideas into the religious no less than the political life of the
people, so that his highest conceptions of things divine and
human were spontaneously introduced into his religious works.
But here is the chief distinctive feature of Pheidias as a Greek
and as a sculptor. His thoughts as a Greek, and still more as a
sculptor, immediately took plastic shape and form, and were
not mere theoretical “philosophical” speculations. He lived
and felt with his inner and outer eye as much as with his in-
tellect. Whosoever has stood on the Acropolis and has seen
the sea resting in the embrace of the gulf, clinging to the land
which clasps it round in its embrace, and has seen the moon
rise over the water, can vaguely feel how in the imagination
of a Pheidias, standing on the same spot, the scene of the birth
of Athene took shape, sun and moon, and the earth and sea,
and all they tell us, grew into the harmonious forms of visible
and tangible human figures. For to such a mind thought and
sight, form and matter, become one in the harmony of art.
Much harm has been done to good and useful sugges-
tions in that they have been overstated. Whoever brings for-
ward a new theory or establishes a new fact becomes so en-
amoured of the new aspect disclosed before his eyes, that he
* See Essay II. pp. 75, 76.
188 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, [V.
is apt to overstate its importance and its claims to complete ac-
Ceptance. The result is that others are stimulated to opposition
by the element of excess in the overstatement, and, on their side
again, are carried away by opposition, to the destruction of any
moderate or modified acknowledgment. Thus artificial anti-
theses and parties are formed with purely negative impulses and
aims to the detriment of truth. What is extreme in the statement
as well as in the denial becomes stereotyped, and the normal
progress towards the recognition of truth is suppressed until the
violence of opposing forces is spent, and time has so far erased
the harshness of the extreme view as to allow the main questions
to become again visible in their true importance and usefulness.
In offering this new interpretation of the two figures from
the eastern pediment of the Parthenon, I have no desire to bring
about a similar state of discussion.
Though personally I feel that this is the most probable of
interpretations, I am not blind to the fact that, as matters now
stand, we cannot hope to solve the question conclusively and for
all time. We can merely hope to find that interpretation which,
from the nature of other extant monuments and the general
spirit of Greek art in the time of Pheidias, is most in keeping
with that spirit and with the limited amount of undoubted data
which we possess concerning that individual composition.
While writing this essay, I have not held before myself the
probability that all authorities will or must straightway relin-
quish all previous notions and accept my explanation. But
I have felt strongly that, at all events, this view is one which,
at least, has much in its favour, that it is one without which the
list of possible interpretations is incomplete, and, above all, that
it will explain many of the peculiarities in the artist's work itself,
both in composition and in detail of execution, which would
otherwise be unexplained. And I hold firmly that, of all things
to be considered by the interpreting archaeologist, the recogni-
sable indications of the artist’s work by means of his peculiar
language, is of primary importance. -
I believe, therefore, that of the many interpretations offered,
this is one worthy of consideration and one which, in scientific
duty, required to be published when recognised by the archaeo-
logist.
ESSAY VI.
THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE
- AND THE LOUVRE PLAQUE.
"Avagalvövrtov Šē röv Épyw Jirepºpávov pèv peyébel popqºſ, 5 duºpºrov kal xàpuri,
röv Šmuloupyöv duxAwuévov Útrep3á\\er6at rºw &mutovpylaw rii ka?\\trexvig, AdMorra
6avuáatov v rá ràxos. -
While these works were rising, immense in size and inimitable in form and grace,
the workmen striving emulously that the workmanship should be preeminent in
artistic finish, nothing was more wonderful than the speed with which they were
brought forth. -
PLUTARCH, Life of Pericles, XIII.
ESSAY VI.
THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE
AND THE LOUVRE PLAQUE.
THE Parthenon Frieze formed a continuous band of sculp-
ture in low relief which ran round the outer wall of the cella
with its two smaller halls in front and back, the pronaos and the
tamieion. Like every peripteric temple the rectangular temple
proper, with its halls closed in by walls on all sides, was sur-
rounded by a colonnade which supported the roof and pro-
jected over the walls of the actual temple. The distance
from the walls to the columns (exclusive of these) varies
from 296 to 3’57m. (97 to I I-7 ft.). This space was paved
with white marble and afforded shady walks to the visitors
to the Acropolis. The plain wall is bounded above by a
slightly projecting band (Tatvia) under which are small
blocks, called by Vitruvius regulae, which in the Doric order
to which the temple belongs would lead us to expect above
them the triglyphon, a frieze subdivided by metopes (uerotrai,
metopae) and triglyphs (rplyNvibot)". Instead of this triglyphon
however we here have a continuous frieze ($opópos, Suáčopia),
which ran round the four sides of this outer wall like a belt, or
rather like a band uniting its two ends on the forehead of a victor.
It was 11.9 m. (39ft) above the pavement of the colonnade, and
* See Essay III. p. 88.
I92 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
above it a painted ornamentation after the manner of a cornice
completed the decorations of the wall, which was joined above to
the entablature of the outer colonnade
by a ceiling just as below the marble
pavement joined the base of the co- - ... ........
lumns with the wall. The length of the ºlº" º,\\\
frieze was 159'42m. (522.8 ft.), of which tº . .
21-18m, (69.5 ft.) covered each of the **
narrower walls of the front and back,
while 58:53m. (1919 ft.) decorated each
longer side of the rectangular building".
It consists of numerous slabs carefully
joined together, almost exactly I m.
(3 ft. 395 in. according to Stuart) in
height.
The subject represented on this
frieze is generally acknowledged to be
the procession on the occasion of the . . see tº
Panathenaic Festival. The ancient fes- Fig. 8. Corneroftherarthenon.
tival of the Panathenaia”, which was b, metopes ; c, in
supposed to have been founded by Erichthonios in mythical
times, when he also dedicated the carved wooden image of
Athene Polias, and is said to have been renewed, receiving a
political significance, by Theseus, was celebrated once every year
during the last ten days of the month Hekatombaion (ending with
the birthday of Athene, the 28th day of the month, about the
| 12th of August). It was in honour of Athene Polias, and along
with the sacrifice it consisted of gymnic and hippic games, and
the dedication of a peplos or cloak, in which maidens bearing
offerings and men carrying olive-branches are mentioned as giving
solemnity to the ceremony. Peisistratos gave greater splendour
to this festival in making numerous additions to the ceremonies
once in every four years, the third year of every Olympiad,
and thus created the distinction between the lesser, or yearly,
Sº-
»
** as: s
*º-
M
lº.
| Wºn
A T \\
* See Penrose, Principles of Athenian Architecture. , *
* Since Meursius's Panathenaea (Leiden, 1619) an extensive literature has
accumulated on the literary and artistic records concerning this ancient festival.
It is beyond the purpose of this essay to enter into the numerous details of this wide
question. The reader will be best directed by Michaelis for further study.


VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. I93
and the greater Panathenaia or Penteteris (IIeutermpis). These
festivals in many ways served the Athenians as a division of
time similar to the use that was made of the periodical re-
currence of the Olympian festivals by the whole of Greece, and
thus in Athens the term of public office was often determined
from one of the Panathenaia to the other. The Peisistratidae
increased the splendour which had been given to this festival by
their father in adding to the gymnic and hippic games a literary
contest in which the Homeric poems which had been collected
under Peisistratos were recited by rhapsodists. Finally Pericles
gave still greater splendour to the festivities in adding further
literary contests.
The celebration of the 'greater Panathenaia differed from
that of the lesser ones, chiefly in that all the ceremonies were
carried out on a more brilliant scale, and so for instance, while
in the yearly festival the old peplos was merely restored and
re-dedicated to the goddess, on the greater festival she received
a new peplos, saffron or purple in colour, with an embroidered
border representing scenes from the battle between the gods
and giants, the work of maidens chosen for this purpose from
the Athenian nobility as a great mark of distinction. The
festival lasted for several days, during which religious sacrifices
and the various games were performed, the hippic games with
the horse races being nearest the last day, the literary on the
first. On the eve of the last day (êoptſ) there was a great
nocturnal feast (travvvyſs), with torch-races, dances, and songs.
The climax of the whole feast was the procession which started
at sunrise on the last day, the birthday of Athene, from the
outer Kerameikos, passed through the Dipylon, the Dromos, and
the chief street of the inner Kerameikos, to the market-place,
then to the Eleusinion, to the north-east corner of the Acro-
polis, to the west, and through the Propylaia to the Temple of
Athene Polias, upon whose altar the hecatombs offered by Athens
and its dependent states were sacrificed, and a great festive
meal concluded the whole festivity. No doubt the dedication
of the peplos formed an important part of the ceremony, yet
there is no evidence to show that it was carried in the pro-
cession before the beginning of the 4th century". At this
* See Michaelis, ibid. pp. 212 and 329, No. 165.
W. I3
I94 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
period there is no doubt that it was placed like a sail on
the mast of a ship which was rolled through the street on
wheels, very much as is the custom now at Palermo during
the procession of Rosalia. This custom, in keeping with the
maritime character of the Athenian people, contained a re-
ference to Athene as the inventor of the sail and the pro-
tectress of ship-building; a regatta at the Piraeus also formed
a part of the celebrations during the festival. At that time
the peplos had to be taken from the ship before reaching the
steep ascent of the Acropolis, and was carried to the temple
by the chosen maidens.
Almost all archaeologists are agreed that the frieze of the
Parthenon is a representation of this procession. The objec-
tions which individual archaeologists, such as Bötticher', Chris-
tian Petersen”, and August Mommsen”, put forth against this
assumption appear comparatively without weight and have not
met with any further support. They are all grounded upon one
line of argument, namely, on the deviation from the rendering
of the procession in sculptured relief from the detailed descrip-
tion of the elements of the procession in the classical authors.
The great artistic merit of the composition of the frieze, in
which life and variety take the place of the monotonous rank
and file of a solemn procession, and the graceful proportion of the
heads in their relation to the body is maintained instead of a
monotonous series of top-heavy figures, with their heads
covered with wreaths, this very artistic merit is made the
chief antiquarian" reason for doubting about the proper archaeo-
logical interpretation. But these arguments have not as yet
been of sufficient strength to alter the opinion held by most
modern authorities that the frieze does represent a procession,
and moreover the procession of the Panathenaic festival.
* Erbkam's 2eitschrift für Bauzºesen, 1852, 1853; Arch. Anz. 1854, p. 426 seq.,
1858, p. 175 seq., 1859, p. 66 seq. &c. It would lead us too far from the immediate
aims of this Essay to enter more closely into the discussions of this point. The reader
must be referred to Michaelis, Der Parthenon, p. 206 seq., and to Eug. Petersen,
Die Keenst des Pheidzas, &c., for a further statement of the discussion and for reference
with regard to further reading. -
* Arch. Zeit. XIII. p. 19 seq.; Zeitschr. ſºir die Alterthumswissenschaft, 1857, pp.
193 seq., 308 seq., 385 seq. ; Arch. Anzeiger, 1859, p. 89 seq. -
* Heortologie, p. 116 seq. * See Essay I. p. 26.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE, 195
Within the freedom and variety that marks this composition
there is still a certain symmetry and order in the distribution
of the various parts of the procession over the four walls of
the temple as they are decorated by the relief. While the
front and back contain the beginning and end, the longer sides
represent the actually moving parts of the procession. The
western frieze shows us the start and the preparations for it,
It is that face of the temple which the visitor first meets when
entering the plateau of the Acropolis through the Propylaia.
At the north-west angle is the single figure of a herald, who,
through his attitude and action, joins the west side of the
frieze with the continuation along the north side. Along the
whole of the western frieze towards the south, are seen groups
of horsemen, many of them already mounted, others in the act
of mounting, another forcing the bit into the mouth of his
restive horse, another drawing on his boots, another again
trying to hold back a rearing horse, and so on. All are
characteristic scenes which, without an attempt on the part of
the sculptor to encroach upon dramatic art, still give action
to what would otherwise be a monotonous disconnected se-
quence of figures. At the south-west angle there is again a
single figure who, looking to the right, yet moving with his
uplifted mantled arm to the left, again forms a link between
the action of the western and the southern frieze.
Starting then from the west, the north and south friezes begin
with the famous procession of riders.
The first figures of the northern frieze are still in the act of
preparing for the start: a boy-servant is tying the girdle of his
master at the back, over which the chiton will be pulled in
projecting folds, his horse is beside him, a rider in front of him is
not yet mounted. But in front of these figures all the horsemen
are mounted and are in full procession. The endless variety of
action in the horses and of attitudes in the riders is subdued by
a certain order which we can discover in the arrangement of the
various groups: they are represented in lines of three and four
abreast by means of the overlapping in part of one horse over
another in the relief. Preceding the horsemen are the four-
horsed chariots (āppara réðpºrtra, quadrigae) accompanied by a
marshal who keeps them in order, and besides the charioteer, by
I3–2
I96 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
the apobates, a warrior in full armour, whose function of mounting
and dismounting from the chariot during the fight is here indicated
in that he is generally behind the chariot or in the act of mount-
ing. The charioteers are preceded by a group of elderly men,
in the long kimation, advancing in a dignified and reposeful
manner; they correspond to the Thallophoroi, according to ancient
authors elderly citizens who carried olive branches in the
Panathenaic procession. These are preceded by kitharists and
flute-players. The musicians are preceded by men carrying
vases (hydria; or amphoreis) which may be the Spondophoroi of
the procession, while they again are preceded by men carrying
trays (orkdqm) with cakes as offerings to the goddess. The
Metoikoč whose duty it was to carry these trays in the procession
were called Séaphephoroi; they are preceded by a marshal, and
he by the offerings of three sheep and four cows, either quietly
led by the attendants or checked in their violent progress. As
the Athenian Colonies contributed each a cow and two sheep
to the festival, it is most likely that on the northern frieze the
7%eorož sent by the Colonies are indicated. -
The scenes on the southern frieze, though they are far from
being an actual repetition of what is represented on the northern
frieze, correspond in the main distribution of groups to the one
which we have just enumerated, only here, while there is a much
larger offering of cattle, there are no musicians. As there are no
sheep here, but only cows (oxen were offered to male gods and
cows to goddesses), it has been concluded that this is a represen-
tation of the hecatomb offered by Athens itself, which consisted
solely of cows. There is also a greater number of attendants
accompanying this offering. The offerings bring the northern
and southern friezes to an end at the east, and we now turn the
corner from both sides to the eastern frieze, which runs along the
front wall of the temple and is the culminating point of the
procession as it is of the composition of the whole relief.
The procession is here represented as arriving on the
Acropolis, collecting (according to a truly Greek idea) in the
presence of the assembled gods and goddesses. From the
northern and southern angle of this eastern frieze, preceding
the offerings that end the northern and southern frieze,
are maidens solemnly advancing and carrying sacrificial vessels.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. I97
The two foremost have just handed over to a magistrate
the dish (cavoſīv) in which the corn, the fillets, and the knife
used in the sacrifice were carried. Hence they were called
Kanephoroi. In front of the maidens on either side are groups of
the chief Athenian magistrates standing together and conversing,
evidently awaiting the arrival of the whole procession, upon which
the sacrifice will begin. Thus the representation of the proces-
sion itself ends; the magistrates on either side frame and define
that which is the central portion of the frieze and of the whole
composition, the assembly of the gods (fig. 9).
The line of gods and goddesses (fig. 9 A, 9 C) is interrupted
and broken into two halves by an independent group of five
standing figures (fig. 9 B) placed by Pheidias in the actual
centre. This last will be more closely examined, and the cause
of this interruption of the continuous assembly of the gods ac-
counted for, in the next essay. The gods, taller and more stately
than the human figures of the frieze, are seated to the right and
left of the central group of four figures, seven on either side.
Authorities have differed with regard to the interpretation of the
gods". Of all the interpretations that of Dr Flasch", the latest
authority, appears to me to have most in its favour.
The first figure to our left, No. 1, a bearded man seated on a
throne, the arms of which are supported by Sphinxes, the upper
part of the body nude while the lower is covered by the himation,
is considered by the latest authorities and by twenty-six out of the
writers on the frieze to be Zeus. The figure at his side, No. 2,
turning towards him and raising her veil, is again almost univer-
sally conceived to be Hera. In the winged female figure, No. 3,
standing beside Hera, Flasch sees Iris, while other authorities see
in her Nike or Hebe. A youthful figure, No. 4, full of strength
and grace, negligently nursing his knee, is held by Flasch, E.
Petersen, Brunn and others to be Ares, while other authorities,
among them Michaelis and Conze (in accordance with their
interpretation of No. 5 as Demeter), consider him to be Tripto-
lemos. Flasch considers Nos. 5 and 6, who from their position
* See Michaelis, p. 262 seq., and the excellent short guide to the sculptures of
the Parthenon published by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, by
C. T. Newton.
* Zum Parthenomfries, Würzburg, 1877.
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2OO ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
are evidently closely related, to be the sister and brother, Artemis
with her torch and Apollo; others, as we have seen, see in No. 5
Demeter. No. 6, according to Flasch Apollo, is Dionysos
according to Michaelis and Petersen, while most of the earlier
authorities see a closer relation between figures 6 and 7, and
thus consider them to be the Dioskouroi, Castor and Pollux.
No. 7, a figure with boots, short chlamys, and traveller's hat
(petasos), is held by all later authorities to be Hermes. º
In the three figures to the right of the central group, Nos. 8,
9, IO, nearly all the latest authorities are agreed in seeing
Athene, Hephaistos and Poseidon. The most prominent place,
corresponding to that of Zeus on the other side, is appropriately
given to Athene, in whose honour the festival was held, and, as in
the Attic tradition she is closely associated with Hephaistos
whose worship was often combined with that of Athene, as in
the Erechtheion and at the feasts of the Chalkeai, he is repre-
sented as sitting beside her, leaning upon his staff as an indica-
tion of his lameness. The type of the bearded head of No. IO
is the well-known one of Poseidon, whose position, according to
Attic tradition, is appropriately after Athene and Hephaistos.
No. 11, the well-preserved figure turning the upper part of his
body towards Poseidon, so that he appears to us three quarters
turned towards us, is characterised by a certain softness in the
surface of the nude and in the fulness of the face, which lead
Flasch as well as Conze to see in him Dionysos, while the later
authorities, who consider No. 6 to be Dionysos, see in him
Apollo. So too the latest authorities who saw Demeter in No.
5 consider No. 12 to be Peitho, associated with No. 13, Aphro-
dite, while Flasch makes No. 13 Demeter, who would appro-
priately be seated beside Dionysos. All the later authorities
agree in seeing in 13 and 14 Aphrodite and her son Eros. The
conception of Aphrodite is here the earlier and nobler one, and
she is represented as fully draped, pointing out to her winged
boy the procession as it advances towards them. tº
According to Flasch's interpretation we have then: on the
left, Zeus followed by Hera, with Iris, Ares, Demeter, Apollo
and Hermes; on the right, Athene followed by Hephaistos,
Poseidon, Dionysos, Demeter, Aphrodite and Eros.
So much for the subject represented. Let us now turn to an
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2OI
examination of the manner in which this subject is translated
into relief and first consider the technical character of the
work, and then the more artistic or spiritual qualities of this
great composition.
Throughout all the works of Pheidiac art which have come
down to us we notice that, however lofty their spiritual qualities,
however great and ideal their artistic conceptions, they manifest
to the student one simple and almost humble (yet none the less
important) element which is essential to their great effect, namely,
the due and sober regard which the sculptor paid to the physical,
almost mechanical, conditions which surrounded each individual
work. With all his loftiness and ideality, this great artist never
lost his firm footing on the actual ground of his work, never
expected that all the surroundings should be fashioned in keep-
ing with his own great ideas, never neglected such seemingly
paltry considerations as the limits of the space that was to be
filled by his composition, the material to be used, the conditions
of light in the position of the work, and the possible point
from which the spectator would view it. As we learn from a
careful study of this frieze, Pheidias seems to have asked himself,
first, how can I make my figures visible and distinctly visible
secondly, how can I relate the story I wish to represent in
marble so that it may be clearly understood and may maintain
its unity, though carried along the four walls of this temple?
And, when he had solved these questions by dint of sober
thought and hard work, he set free from its fetters his lofty
imagination, and conceived a great composition which he had
the power to execute and make real.
The main technical points which we notice in the frieze are the
exceeding lowness of the relief, the peculiar working of the edges
of the outlines, and the increasing height of relief towards the
top. All these idiosyncrasies of the relief-work must be referred
to the peculiar way in which this frieze received its light, and to
the conditions under which the spectator could gain sight of it.
As has been stated before, the frieze ran along the outer wall of
the cella at a height of 39 feet, and this wall was joined by a
ceiling to the entablature surmounting the colonnade which ran
round the temple and supported the roof (see fig. 8). The frieze
2O2 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
could thus receive no light from above; and, moreover, the
entablature surmounting the columns descended I; metres
(4.75 ft.) lower than the level of the frieze, so that the light
could not come directly from the front. It therefore received
only a diffused light from the front, between the Columns, and
a stronger one reflected upwards from the white pavement of
the colonnade. The spectator, moreover, could not gain sight
of the frieze if he stood outside the temple much beyond the
columns; he had therefore to stand either between them or
within the colonnade itself. The distance between the wall and
the inner circumference of the columns (it is about 4% metres
including the columns) was, as we have seen, 2.96 to 3’57 metres
(97 to II’7 ft.); so that the spectator, to have any view at all of
the frieze nearly forty feet above him, would have to stand very .
close to the wall and nearly under the relief itself.
The first result of these conditions is that Pheidias had to
execute his work in very low relief. For, in the first place, if
he had worked his figures in bold and high relief, the spectator
necessarily standing so close under it, the lower edges of the
relief, the feet of men and horses, the tire of the wheels, would
not only have been the most noticeable features and have pre-
sented ugly lines, but would have hidden from view a great part
of the composition above.
A positive evidence in the work itself, that Pheidias duly
considered the special position of the spectator, to whom the
lower side of the projections were most visible, is to be found in
the fact that while, as we shall see, the other edges of the relief
are straight cut and not modelled, the lower surfaces of the
edges that can be seen from below, such as the bellies of the
horses, are more carefully modelled and more highly finished
than any other surfaces in the whole frieze. In the second place,
the light being received from the front upwards between the
columns, and reflected from immediately below, a strong relief,
especially in the lower parts, would have thrown shadows
upwards, and would thus have made the upper parts less
visible, or entirely hidden them from view. - -
We thus have presented to us the master-piece of technical
skill : layers of figures one upon another, sometimes two or three
horses and riders, in a relief rising from the background but
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2O3
44 centimetres (175 inches), and in the highest parts, namely,
the heads of horses and men, 54 centimetres (2:25 inches). Our
wonder at the technical skill must grow still greater when we
consider that the several layers of figures put into this exceed-
ingly low relief were worked with such definiteness that the
outline of each figure, forming a part of a great mass, such as
the procession of horsemen, became distinctly visible to the
spectator at a distance of over 39 feet in spite of the imperfect
light and the unfavourable point of view.
The second result of the peculiar physical conditions of the
Parthenon frieze is the method of dealing with the outlines of
the figures, and the edges of the outlines. As the relief was kept
so very low and the light was so imperfect, the outline, in order to
be visible, had to be clearly cut and set off from the ground in an
abrupt manner". In a low relief, which is placed on the eye-line
before us, we avoid a harsh perpendicular edge which interrupts
the flow of rounded lines, and we allow the relief as far as
possible to run gradually over into the ground. In the Parthenon
frieze, on the contrary, the edges of the outlines, with the excep-
tion of those that are seen from below, are cut straight and
sharp to the background, often at a height of 3 and even of 4}
centimetres perpendicular to the ground, and sometimes even
slightly undercut, the edge slanting inwards. In some instances,
especially where there are several layers of figures projecting over
one another, they are made more visible in that the layers are
not parallel to one another, but the one layer has a more slanting
plane. Another device is that of cutting a groove near the edge
and thus heightening the relief away from it. This is especially
noticeable at the feet of the horsemen. Finally, a more project-
ing relief is obtained in the upper and most distant parts of the
relief, especially in the heads of men and horses, by somewhat
sinking the ground of the relief as it nears the outline of
the head.
Thirdly, we notice that the variations in the height of the
relief are only to be found in the upper part of the frieze which
reaches the extreme height of 5% centimetres, while the lower
parts uniformly remain within the limits of 4% centimetres.
* See Michaelis, p. 204.
2O4 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
This treatment is due, in the first place, to the fact, that while,
from the peculiar lighting, high relief in the lower parts might
have thrown disturbing shadows over the upper part of the
relief, there was no fear of such a disturbance in the upper part,
and the artist was free to make this more strongly projecting.
Secondly, it is due to considerations which we know Pheidias to
have studied", as we have noticed in his treatment of the pedi-
mental figures. It is because of the fore-shortening which is
the result of the spectator's point of viewing the composition.
These considerations on the part of the artist are manifested in
the way the lower portions of the bodies, for instance of the
seated gods, are proportionately shorter than the upper parts,
because, to the spectator viewing them in their original position,
the lower parts would appear larger. The lower parts also
appear more projecting and the upper parts more receding
when viewed immediately from below”.
To avoid this effect and thus to keep the figures in drawing,
the upper parts of the frieze had to be projected more strongly
than the lower parts. Only then would they appear to the
spectator from below as being of the same height in relief.
From the point in which it was seen in its original position, the
variation in the height of the relief produced the same appear-
ance that a relief of equal height throughout presents to the
spectator, when placed on the eye-line.
Besides the conditions which demanded the consideration of
Pheidias for the actual technical working of the relief, there were
further conditions of space the consideration of which had to be
introduced into the arrangement of the scene represented on
the frieze. It was not merely a continuous band which had to
be decorated with sculptured figures, but it was a band running
round the four walls of the temple. These four walls differ
from one another, the front and back being the same, yet
differing greatly in length from the two long sides which are
again the same. It was therefore naturally suggested by the
construction, first, that the chief bulk and mass of the procession
should be represented on the long continuous lines of the sides;
* See Essay II. p. 79 and Footnote.
* See Note D at the end of this Essay.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2O5
and, furthermore that a certain symmetry and harmony of
composition, some accordance between the two representations,
should obtain between the two sides of the frieze that correspond
to the two equal parts of the edifice. This symmetry of compo-
sition should not consist in the monotony of actual copied
reproduction, but within the freedom required by decorative
Sculpture it should still add to the harmonious effect of the
architectural structure which it was destined to adorn". This
greatest possible symmetry of composition, however, would only
apply to the friezes decorating the two long sides of the temple;
for they are not only identical in dimensions and parallel in
their course, but they are of equal importance and perform the
same function in the whole edifice. Not so the two shorter
sides. Though they run parallel, and though they are of the
same dimensions, they differ completely in importance and con-
structive function, the one being the back, the least important,
the other the front, the most important, part of the temple.
Thus while the main bulk of the procession itself is represented
with rhythmical symmetry on the two long sides, the eastern
and western friezes, though manifesting a certain symmetry in
completing the procession of the two other friezes by the
beginning and end of the ceremony (just as these two walls
limit and join together the long walls), still differ from one
another. At the back (the west end) is represented the least
important part of the ceremony, the preparation; while the front
(the east end) contains the culminating point of the whole
procession, the arrival on the Acropolis in the presence of the
assembled gods. Dramatic unity is thus given to the story as
related on the four walls of the temple by means of the greater
importance which the architectural construction assigns to the
east front. Instead of a mechanical unvarying movement round
the four walls, as if they were equally important, without growth
of interest, the east front became the chief side toward which all
the others were to lead, upon which the climax of the action was
to be represented. The action will begin at the back, will proceed
along either long side, and, like the band of a victor, the two
ends meet and the dramatic knot is tied at the brow of the temple,
the east front.
* See Essay II. p. 77 and p. 8o.
2O6 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
Furthermore the west end of the temple faced the Propylaia
and was the first to be approached by the visitor. It was thus
again naturally suggested to the artist, that the beginning of
the scene depicted on the frieze should be placed on that part
of the temple which was first seen by the visitor.
Finally, though the four walls of the temple demanded a sys-
tematic distribution of the subject along the parts of the frieze, the
great task remained, to maintain and impress upon the spectator
the unity of the scene thus distributed over the four walls. This
impression was achieved by the treatment of the corners or angles
of the frieze. Pheidias did this in making the figures at the angles
links which bound the frieze of the one side with that of the other.
Thus, at the northern and southern angle of the western frieze,
as well as at the angles of the other friezes, he places single
figures of heralds or magistrates, who, by their expectant attitude
or forward action, point to a continuous connexion with the
figures round the angle. He does this also by taking up the
theme or subject of the one frieze and carrying it over into
the beginning of the next, just as in music a theme is some-
times taken over from the one movement into the beginning
of the next. So for instance, as has already been stated, the
northern frieze, which contains the procession in full motion,
begins at the western end with a slab containing a youth standing
beside his horse, whose boy-servant is tying his girdle at the
back, over which he will pull his chiton in graceful projecting
folds, and then mount his horse. The figure in front of him
has also not yet mounted his horse, but after this all the riders
are mounted and are galloping forward. This scene at the
western beginning of this frieze is still a part of the scene of
preparation represented on the western frieze. But these
characteristics, based upon the purely technical tasks which
Pheidias set himself, lead us to the consideration of the more
artistic and spiritual qualities of this great composition.
We have already (in the second Essay) pointed to the spirit
of Pheidiac art as it manifests itself in the frieze. It is to
be noticed chiefly in the variety within the harmony, the rhythm
within the symmetry, the movement and life within the rest and
monumentality of the composition taken as a whole or sub-
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2O7
divided into the four friezes, or into smaller groups of figures,
or finally into the single figures.
The composition of the frieze is such a complete unity that
most visitors to the British Museum who gaze upon these re-
mains will carry away with them a vivid general impression
of a splendid procession full of life, to the extinction of any of
the details of the composition. This is chiefly due to the
artistic quality of harmony in composition, by which all the parts
are made subservient to the central idea and conception, and
a certain similarity of “tone” is cast over all the parts of the
work. The riders and their horses are so like, each to his
neighbour, that the spectator hardly sees any difference between
them, and easily passes before them without being arrested by
any abrupt sensational feature (such as the modern French artist
would delight in), the whole conveying to his mind the impres-
sion of a living procession of cavalry. This is exactly what
Pheidias intended to express. If the spectator had stopped at
every single horse and rider with an exclamation of wonder, he
would never have received the impression of a continuous
procession of cavalry. This similarity of tone, or rather this
harmony of composition, is very far from being sameness. If
the visitor's attention is drawn to it, he will see that no two
horses, no two men, are really alike. If the figures were really
the same, the general effect would not be at all that of a
procession. Assyrian and Egyptian reliefs are instructive in
showing us what effect such sameness produces. On the con-
trary, I would venture to say, that no other work of sculpture
containing even ten horses and riders will manifest such variety
in action and pose as is to be found in this most varied compo-
sition. Though the whole frieze has such unity of composition,
we have still seen how it is naturally subdivided into its four
friezes.
But each of the four friezes is a complete composition in itself
and could be appreciated singly even if the adjoining ones
were completely destroyed. Each of them has one subject
which it illustrates clearly and simply: the western frieze, with
its two single figures as borders at either end, tells most clearly
its story of a preparation and start, the northern and southern
of a procession; while the eastern frieze, with the maidens
2O8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
advancing from either side towards the group of magistrates
who are assembled before the seated expectant gods, is one
of the most harmonious and complete compositions in relief
which the history of art has to show. Yet, while it would not
occur to the general spectator, who would be right in allowing
himself to be impressed by these complete compositions without
analysis, it is nevertheless a fact that each of these friezes
naturally falls into smaller groups.
The effect of the continuous life as manifested by the whole
frieze is chiefly due to Pheidias's treatment of these smaller
groups, complete in themselves, but closely linked to one an-
other, each having in itself elements of onward movement that
suggest an advance towards some increasing interest and drive
the eye forward toward the culminating centre, the eastern
frieze, where the scene ends. Each of these smaller groups
has a completeness and roundness of composition in itself, and
still each is naturally and organically joined on to the other.
Take for instance the riders of the northern and southern friezes:
they form a compact whole with a beginning and end; and
still they are as naturally joined on to the scene of preparation at
the western angles as they naturally carry the eye on to the chariots
in front of them. And within these there are smaller subdivisions
of horsemen similar in their completeness to the whole, as they
equally suggest a continuity of movement in their connexion
with one another. Take further the two groups of magistrates
on either side of the eastern frieze, they again form a complete
composition of dignified elderly men in varied poses; and yet
at either side one is advancing towards the procession of
maidens, receiving from them the sacrificial implements or
beckoning to them to take their proper position. Take finally,
the assembly of gods, grouped symmetrically, yet rhythmically,
on either side of the central slab. Full of life and variety
in attitude and type, there is still an active relation maintained
among them, and, in keeping with the different world to which
they belong, they are completely defined and hedged off from the
human figures on either side who see them not. And still they
are not lifted completely out of relation with the surrounding
scene: they are spectators of the festivity in their honour and
are affected by it. Yet this is manifested in a mode peculiar
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 209
to Pheidias, it is done with a varying degree of rhythm and
interest which gives life to each scene and idea by means of
a certain composition of figures which suggests organic growth.
In this case he conveys this impression in varying the degree
of manifest interest of each figure in accordance with its
proximity to or remoteness from the scene of which the gods
are represented as being the spectators. It is interesting
to note that the divinities who are thus brought into closer
proximity to the human members of the procession, and are
manifestly affected by the scene, are the gods, in one sense,
lowest in the scale of divinity, nearest to the terrestrial sphere
and most closely connected with human life: Hermes on the
one side, Aphrodite and Eros on the other. As we progress from
either end towards the centre, the gods increase in dignity, or
at least in the importance of relation which they hold to the
festivity, which is the subject of the whole composition of the
frieze. The manifest interest" of each god grows towards
the surrounding scene, the further we proceed away from the
centre towards either side of the frieze; while the weight and
importance of the gods themselves grow the more we approach
the centre. All this points to what we might call dynamic,
in contradistinction to geometrical, composition, a characteristic
of the composition of Pheidias which we have already had occasion
to notice in the pedimental groups of the Parthenon*. Instances
of the introduction of this element, which gives actual life with
the suggestion of an underlying force in contradistinction to a
tame and mechanical progression, can be noticed throughout
the whole of the frieze. It consists in the indication of a certain
reactive current which apparently checks the onward movement,
but really adds to the impression of impetus on the part of the
forward current. So, for instance, in front of the horses, the
riders, and the chariots, and interspersed between the groups of
advancing men and maidens, heralds are placed who check the
horses, or urge on the stragglers, or arrange the ranks. This
interruption of standing single figures among the groups of
* This is traceable even in the chief line of the figure as expressed by the attitude.
See Essay I. p. 13, footnote 3.
* See Essays IV. p. 117, and V. pp. 159 seq.
W. * I4
2 IO ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
advancing men and horses really adds to the continuity of
movement among the groups, as it gives life and flow to the
composition as a whole. The more we study this work the
more do we see how every single figure has its function in the
whole artistic organism, and adds to the general effect of the
whole work. In fact the secret of the great total effect will
be disclosed to us if we but examine the frieze, as it were,
microscopically, and study the substance and composition of
each single figure. *
If we thus study the single figures whose harmonious compo-
sition forms the Parthenon frieze, we shall have manifested to
us the realisation of the laws governing decorative sculpture as
we have endeavoured to enumerate them in Essays I. and II.”
Each figure, as we have just seen, has its function within the
whole composition, as the whole frieze adds to the decorative
effect of the architectural structure. We could not conceive of
any one figure that might be more appropriately replaced by
some other figure in another attitude. It was just that figure
that was wanted in that place and it was just that place which
suited that figure, and their relation cannot be disturbed without
impairing the harmony of the whole work. And still this effect
has been produced without any sacrifice of life and nature in
the representation of each figure, as is often the case in later
work, where life is subordinated to decorative effect to such an
extent that the convention becomes fully established and a new
“decorative” life fixes its position in the artistic world. Each
figure is composed and modelled with truth to nature. Above
all we must be struck by the fact that the continuity of life and
action which is suggested by the attitudes of the figures in their
manifest relation to one another, is not attained at the cost of
the plastic qualities of each single figure, to the detriment of its
monumentality. In this frieze a sculptor might find hundreds
of motives for great single statues.
To none does this apply more than to the gods of the
eastern frieze. Though, as we have seen, they form such a
complete unity among themselves and, as a whole, they are so
organically joined to the rest of the composition, forming an
* Essay I. p. 32 ; II. p. 77.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2 I I
integral part of the whole scene as represented, they are each of
them so self-contained in their construction, so full of inner rest
and lasting harmony, that we need but translate them into the
round and increase their dimensions to make of each a great
monumental statue. To none of these again does this apply
more than to the figure of Athene.
Athene (Plate X. and Fig. 9, No. 8) is seated erect on the
stool which has neither back nor arms, the right leg drawn back,
the left sandalled foot placed forward. Though the attitude is
simple, bordering on severity, yet her pose is so free and natural
and without constraint, that we do not for a moment receive the
impression which is given by the seated figures of inferior
artists, that they were placed in that position by the artist
and did not naturally seat themselves. Rivet-holes in the
marble on the side of the chair under the right hand, at the
side of the right wrist and on the right arm, make it probable
that there was a bronze spear which she listlessly held in
her hand". It may be that the aegis was on her lap, and
that the two snakes which seem to be indicated on her left
wrist belong to this. Besides spear and aegis there are no indi-
cations of her sterner and more warlike character. She has no
helmet, nor does she wear the mantle or peplos. The homely,
kindly, humane and maidenly character of the virgin goddess is
brought out in this figure. She is clad in the sleeveless chiton,
the under garment, over which the himation or peplos of thicker
material was placed when women showed themselves in public.
Athene is here in peaceful community with her own people.
The chiton is fastened as usual above the shoulders by a brooch,
leaving the arms, shoulder, and neck quite bare, and, opening
out at the side, displays a triangular portion of the uncovered
surface under the right arm. The thinner material of this under-
garment manifests itself, just as it does in the pedimental figures,
by its pliability, clinging to the figure and suggesting to the eye
the forms which it covers, the rise and fall of which it obediently
follows. This transparency and thinness of folds are not carried
to the extent in which they appear in one figure of the eastern
pediment”, and which were produced with preference, and often
* Michaelis, ibid. pp. 31, 257; Conze, Philologen-Pers. zu Hannover, p. 186.
* See Essay V. p. 158.
I4–2
2 I 2 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
|
without meaning, by artists of the later periods. Though the
figure is in very low relief the fold-grooves (pteryges) show
the characteristic depth of the work of Pheidias, and at the
same time they have the marked features which we do not meet
with in earlier work, of varying in depth and width during
the whole course of each groove. This gives to drapery that
play of light and shade, that movement in variety which infuses
the inorganic stone with the semblance of the life of nature. At
the same time there is that degree of regularity in the disposition
of the folds which restricts this variety and movement to the
form and harmony which are most pleasing to the eye and
suggest monumentality and rest.
Athene with helmet, fully or partly armed, was represented
by Pheidias in the statues of Athene Promachos and Athene
Parthenos. Equally famed in antiquity was his bronze statue of
Athene without helmet (iva duri kpávovs jarð Towtov Tijs 6eoû to
káA\os TpóTrotto") which the Lemnians dedicated on the Acro-
polis, whence she was surnamed the Lemnian". She was espe-
cially famed for her maidenly grace and pure beauty. As has
already been suggested by Overbeck", it is highly probable that
in the Athene from the Parthenon frieze we have the traces of
this type of Athene unarmed.
All the high praise which has ever been given to the Athene
from the Parthenon frieze has been based upon the figure only,
the modelling of the drapery and of the nude, the pose and
composition of the work. It has always been a matter of deep
regret to archaeologists and lovers of art that the head of
Athene has been so completely mutilated that we can barely
guess at the Outline, and can discover no traces of the actual
features.
When, in January 1881, I was examining the numerous
terra-cotta fragments in the Museum of the Louvre at Paris with a
view to investigation based upon the comparative method of the
study of style as put forth in the first Essay, and, in justice to
* Overb. SQ. 761 (Himer. Orat. 21, 4, p. 736, ed. Wernsd.).
* See Essay II. p. 69. -
* Geschichte der Griech. Plastik, Vol. I. p. 256.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2 I 3
this method I must add, without the faintest thought of the art
of Pheidias in my mind, I came upon a fragment of a terra-
cotta plaque (Pl. IX.) which fascinated my attention. The frag-
ment is 19 centimetres (7% inches) in height, I4 centimetres
(5% inches) in width, and 4} centimetres (1% inches) in thick-
ness: the colour of the terra-cotta is a faded reddish brown.
The relief-work of Pheidias was most evident, and the whole
corresponded so completely to the figures of the Parthenon frieze
that I could not help expressing on the instant my conviction
that it was a fragment of a replica of one of the gods from the
eastern frieze of the Parthenon. A hasty sketch made on the
spot, when subsequently compared with the original frieze in
the British Museum, confirmed my belief that the Paris terra-
cotta was a representation of the Athene from the Parthe-
non frieze. And when finally the Directors of the Louvre
Museum, among whom M. Léon Heuzey tendered me most
generous assistance, kindly sent me a plaster cast taken from
the terra-cotta in the Louvre, there could be no further doubt
as to the absolute identity of the two figures.
When once I had the cast, taken from the original terra-cotta
at Paris, I was in the position to make a careful comparison
between the plaque and the marble relief in the British Museum,
which resulted in establishing the identity of the two reliefs, not
only in the general outline and the larger folds of the drapery,
but also in the minute details of modelling and even in the
peculiar working of the low relief with regard to the edges and
their relation to the ground of the relief. -
I have placed the two plates (Plates IX. and X), the one of
the Louvre plaque, the other (greatly reduced) of the marble slab
in the British Museum, side by side, to enable the reader to make
the comparison for himself. Yet I would remind him that two
points render a careful comparison of the works by means of
these plates somewhat difficult. In the first place he must bear
in mind that while the engraving of the plaque is not far removed
in size from the original terra-cotta, that of the slab from the
frieze greatly reduces the original size (almost exactly 3 ft. 4 in.
in height), and that thus the details of the figure in the frieze
appear much more compressed. In the second place, while the
plaque could be placed immediately opposite the photographer's
2 I 4 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
lens, the position of the frieze on the wall of the British Museum
necessitated a different point of view from that held with regard
to the plaque.
The peculiar working of the edges of the relief in the
Parthenon frieze to which attention has been drawn is main-
tained throughout in the terra-cotta, nay, it even acts dis-
turbingly when we view it closely. The edge of the arm is
worked straight down to the back-ground perpendicular to it,
sometimes even slanting inwards. The outline of the face,
especially the line of brow and nose, has the same straight
cut edge. The head is highest in relief, and therefore the
hair has suffered most from friction, being most prominent.
So close is the resemblance of workmanship to that of the
Parthenon frieze, that as there, so here, the stronger relief of
the head is attained in adding to the actual greater height
by sinking the ground around this upper part. The châtone is
fastened in the same way above the shoulder, the brooch being
more distinct in the plaque than in the frieze where it is more
rubbed away. From this point the chief folds of the drapery
radiate, two running above the right breast under the upper
seam of the garment, which projects in a similar manner above
the left breast in both instances. From the shoulder, running
between the right breast and the opening at the side, there
are five fold-grooves, the upper ones running towards the centre
of the figure, where they break up into numerous transverse
folds, while the lower ones are subdivided by smaller grooves,
less defined in the plaque and more clearly cut in the frieze.
The triangular opening is identical, as also the manner in which
it runs out into a curved fold at the bottom. Below it there
is the same cavernous fold, and between it and the arm the
drapery is subdivided in both instances by a small groove and
a larger one towards the arm, in the plaque the smaller one
being visible up towards the arm, while in the frieze it is visible
further down. There are no indications of a spear in the terra-
cotta, because this could not well be rendered in this material.
It has been stated above that a spear of bronze was perhaps
attached by rivets to the marble figure, and it will be easily
understood that any such free accessory would hardly be repre-
sented in so brittle a material as terra-cotta. Beside the cavern-
PLATE IX.
IERRA (JIIA PAQUE, LOUVRE MUSEUM, PARS,

-
-
LONDON
THE PARTHENON BRIISH MUSEUM,
AIHENE FROM THE FRETE OF
PLATE X.

VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2 I 5
ous fold just above the breakage, there are three parallel curves
in the folds which are quite similar in the drapery of the frieze.
Unluckily the terra-cotta is fractured at the lap of the figure
and the whole lower portion is wanting".
On the other hand the greatest value is given to the plaque
in that the head has been perfectly preserved, and that we
can now complete in our mind the picture of the Athene from
the frieze whose mutilated head so painfully destroyed the effect
of the whole figure. And considering the smallness of the scale
of the terra-cotta relief we must be amazed at the delicacy and
nobility of the modelling of the face and neck. The firmness
of the features is still far removed from hardness, the cheek
is soft and yet firm and the texture of the hair is well set
off against that of the face. The whole has in character a
mixture of maidenly purity and graceful nobility. There is no
accentuation of the distinctively feminine charms, nay, from
one aspect the head is almost boyish in character. And this
quality of the head combined with the feminine forms of the
body, produces that mixture of attributes which characterised
the virgin daughter of Zeus in the less stern conception of the
patron goddess of Athens.
So fortunate and complete is this discovery that, with the
fatalistic scepticism which is inherent in us, the thorough coinci-
dence in all points will call forth within us a doubt “whether
it is not too good to believe,” whether this terra-cotta is not
a forgery evoked by the importance of the subject represented
and the apparent facility of completing the fragmentary Athene
by restoring the head. The question that will have to be
answered before all things then will be: What exactly is the
plaque and what uses did it serve 2
Now there are three conceivable possibilities. (I) That it is
a modern forgery. (2) That it is an ancient copy from the
figure in Athens, ordered by some noble Roman of artistic tastes
* This has now been found. Since these Essays were in type, the rest of the
Athene and the whole of the adjoining figure of Hephaistos have been discovered by
Mr A. Hamilton Smith in the Museo Kºrcheriazzo at Rome. For all details concern-
ing this fragment, and other matters which have come to light since, relating to these
small replicas of the Parthenon frieze, I must refer the reader to Note F, which will
be found at the end of Essay VII.
2 I6 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
probably to decorate his private mansion or villa. (3) That it
is a work contemporaneous with the frieze. The last possibility
includes one which, from the prospects which it opens before
our eyes, we dare hardly entertain, namely, that it is one of
the original sketches by Pheidias from which the marble frieze
was enlarged and finished. -
(1) This first possibility absolutely falls to the ground upon
examination. The first question we must ask is: Why should
a forger more than twenty years ago (for the plaque must have
been in the Louvre since 1861, the date of the Campana sale,
and in the possession of Campana some time previously) have
gone to the trouble of making an imitation of this work 2 The
Second question is: How could he have made it?
The answer to the first question is very simple. It was for
purposes of gain. But the terra-cotta fragments do not fetch
a very high price at present, and brought but a very trifling one
thirty or more years ago". In order to obtain any price whatever
for his false antique terra-cotta, it would have to be exceptionally
perfect in its supposed preservation, which such a clever artist
could easily have made it, in adding the lower part of the figure,
the hand, &c. Only then would it have been worth the while
of such a skilful artist and expert counterfeiter to devote his
time and skill to such a work. But there would be one circum-
stance in which even a fragment would be of considerable value,
and that is, if it were in some way connected with a celebrated
work of antiquity. But in order that it might fetch a high
price with this consideration, its being thus connected with a
figure from the Parthenon would have been the first point which
the impostor would have impressed upon the purchaser. And a
purchaser and an amateur like Campana would have set great
store by such a work, and would have put its connexion with
the Athene in the foreground when he sold his collection to the
Louvre. But neither Campana nor the present possessors were
aware of the nature of the work, as is evident from the fact
* I have since seen H. Pennelli, the ristoratore at the Louvre Museum. His father
had been with Campana for many years, and he himself was in his service as a lad up
to the time of the sale. He does not remember the acquisition of this “trifling”
fragment; but feels assured that it could not have cost more than 5, Io or 15 francs.
The Louvre Museum bought it among a series of fragments for a moderate sum.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 217
that this fragment is not specially mentioned in the catalogue
of Campana, still less published in his Opere in Plastica, nor,
as M. Heuzey informs me, specially mentioned in the registers
of the Louvre; but is classed together with a mass of similar
fragments, which were all collected at Rome.
With regard to the question how the artist could have made
this forgery, we find that he could not have made it from the
original in the British Museum, which was placed there in the
summer of 1816. For, in the first place, this could only have
been done with the consent and knowledge of the authorities and
in the presence of the attendants of the museum. In the second
place, it would not have paid an artist capable of restoring the
head so perfectly, to model the figure, make a mould, and stamp
a relief, then to send it to Italy—where it was to be sold for
5 francs. This might perhaps be worth his while, if the manu-
facture and retailing of such a forgery were carried out on a
large scale and hundreds of plaques of this fragment were dis-
persed throughout Europe and sold to public and private col-
lectors. He would have to resort to some of the illustrated
books, in which moreover the head, which is wanting in the
original, is drawn. I have carefully compared with the cast of
the terra-cotta the drawings of Parry and of Pars in Laborde's
Parthenon and with the original drawings in the print room
of the British Museum, and have found that all these differ
decidedly from the terra-cotta, which is nearer the original in
its general aspect and in its details than are these drawings.
The earliest publication in the form of a book which had the
widest circulation (translated into French and German) and
was the basis for the drawings of so many subsequent books
relating to the Parthenon, is Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of
Athens which bears the date 1787, but only appeared in 1790,
after Stuart's death. In vol. 2, plate XXIII., there is a drawing
of the slab of the frieze containing the Athene. Here the
head is not at all like the head of the plaque, the forehead
is higher, the distance from the angle of the eye to the beginning
of the hair is greater than in the plaque, and above all there is
that strange elevation of hair on the crown of the head which
impairs the beauty and, by the way, there being no traces of
this in the original, leads me to believe that Stuart's drawing of
2 I 8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
the head is a restoration and that therefore the head must have
been destroyed in the original as early as the time of Stuart and
Revett's sojourn in Athens (from March, 1751, to September,
1754). Then too there are many more details (for instance in
the drapery), and these are much closer to the original in the
plaque than in the drawing of Stuart. We need but compare for
instance the triangular opening on the right side, which ends in a
stiff angle in Stuart yet gradually flows out in a slight curve in
the plaque. In the piece of drapery between this opening and
the right fore-arm Stuart has but an indication of a fold-groove
close to the arm, while in the plaque as in the original this
portion of drapery is subdivided by three such grooves, one next
to the arm, a distinct one further towards the opening, and a
slight one at the verge of the opening. It is evident that the
plaque could not have been made from Stuart's drawing, still
less from the reduced edition by Kinnard, nor from any works
dependent upon Stuart, such as for instance, the Italian Museum
Worsleyanum by E. Q. Visconti, with its sketchy and inexact
outline drawing. In fact no published illustration, with the
exception of recent photographs, at all approaches so near the
original in correctness of the details as does the terra-cotta plaque.
So far the negative and external evidence. Now let us
examine the works themselves. Only an artist belonging to the
highest order, indeed not even he, could have rendered on such
a reduced scale the great correctness and delicacy of modelling,
and above all, the simplicity. A modern artist who could
imitate the texture of the skin with the power that is displayed
in this terra-cotta would have been unable to check himself,
would invariably have been carried on to overdo this in intro-
ducing more details, and would thus have failed in rendering the
simplicity, largeness and monumentality, which is inherent in
this work of small dimensions. But furthermore the plaque
manifests that handling of low relief which is peculiar to the
Parthenon frieze, and was called forth by the exceptional
position of the frieze in the temple, and there surely was no
reason why a forger should adhere to peculiarities which make
the work more difficult, which disturb the eye when the work is
examined from close at hand, and are not visible at all unless
thus closely examined.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 2 I9
Finally if we examine the claims to antiquity of the terra-
cotta relief in itself, no doubt is left as to its genuineness. The
breakages of the plaque are of that nature which could hardly
have been made by design. They could not have been
modelled, i.e. made when the clay was soft; and after the clay
was baked and hard we can hardly conceive how the forger
could have risked destroying his whole work in attempting to
fracture it by violence. The way the most projecting parts
have been worn off can only be the effect of the gradual friction
and wear of time, and this wear of time is especially noticeable in
the blunting of the finer lines of the folds and of the modelling
of the hair. The scratches and indentations of the plaque could
not be made by design and have the genuineness of such corro-
sion and injury as are displayed only in genuine antiques. Last
of all the terra-cotta itself bears all the characteristics of antique
ware in tone and quality, so far as I have been able to determine
from careful examination. On this point however I need not
trust wholly to my own experience, having been fully confirmed
by the superior judgment of M. Heuzey, who, in his official
capacity at the Louvre, has had many years of experience with
ancient terra-cottas both genuine and imitation, and in his
Aigurines de terre-cuite au Musée du Louvre has established
his claim to be regarded the highest authority in these matters.
M. Heuzey considers it impossible to doubt of the antiquity
of the fragment". .
The first of the three possibilities therefore completely falls
to the ground, and we must now turn to the examination
of the two which remain, and see what speaks in favour of
either of them.
(2) The second possibility, that it is a copy made in Roman
times, is one which has much in its favour. Whoever is conver-
sant with Roman history and Roman literature knows how
intense was the admiration of this people for Greek culture in
all its forms, and how they strove to imitate and assimilate with
their own all its manifestations. We furthermore know that it
was a common undertaking for a high-bred Roman, and an event
* M. Heuzey says in a letter “Il me parait impossible de douter de l'antiquité du
fragment de terre-cuite dont je vous ai envoyé le moulage.”
22O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
which was almost essential to his complete education, to travel
in Greece. Here it was that the Roman patrician's artistic
nature was trained by the study of the great art treasures,
as, fifty or a hundred years ago, the wealthy inhabitants of
Northern Europe completed their education by a visit to Italy.
It was only exceptionally, under the influence of war and
conquest and with the ensuing public desire to decorate their
Capital, that conquerors like Sulla ventured to carry off original
works of art. There existed a strong quasi-religious piety which
forbade them under ordinary circumstances to desecrate the soil
of the country which the Romans considered their original home,
by despoiling it of its most sacred treasures of art. And yet the
appreciative Roman felt, as we do, a desire to carry home with
him reminiscences of the treasures he had seen and to adorn
his house and gardens with them. And so there existed in the
Roman period, after Greece had lost its inventive artistic genius
together with its political independence, a numerous colony of
half-mercantile sculptors, who copied, modified, and combined (in
the eclectic School, which endeavoured to make new works, new
canons of proportion and new styles in combining characteristic
qualities of previous masterpieces) works of Greek art to supply
the demand of the Roman market. The greatest number of
statues in Italian museums are such copies or modifications. To
this class of work the Paris plaque would belong if it is a copy.
But then there were so many supreme works of pure sculpture
from the hands of the great artists, that we cannot well under-
stand why a part of this decorative work which, in comparison
with the great works, is not thought worthy of any mention by
the ancient authors, should be copied and should be desired by
artist or by amateur. Yet this is easily explained : a Roman
patrician of cultivated taste is struck by the beauty of the
Parthenon frieze. Now it must be borne in mind that the
Roman's true taste inclined more to great architectural works
of splendour than towards pure sculpture; and that specifically
Roman sculpture is essentially decorative in character. He feels
a desire to decorate with the same reliefs the small temple in his
country home, or still more probably his house or his villa, or a
room, or a court in them. Accordingly he orders a reduced
copy to be made in terra-cotta, and of this copy the plaque,
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE, 22 I
probably found in Rome or its neighbourhood, would be a
fragment.
Much as this possibility has in its favour, serious objections
might still be raised. In the first place the later schools of
artists in Rome and even in Greece had distinct styles of their
own, markedly differing from the simple grandeur of the Pheidiac
age. Now it is contrary to experience that these later charac-
teristics of style should be lost even in copies of earlier works
intended to be correct. The later Roman copies that fill our
museums, such as those of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos and
the Myronian Diskobolos (of which an earlier copy exists for
comparison with the later ones in the replica of the Palazzo
Massimi at Rome) are most instructive in this respect. We
should expect traces of such later work in the plaque if it were
such a late copy. But of this there are no traces. The plaque
has all the simplicity bordering on severity of the figure in the
frieze, nay, it is almost severer and larger in character, while at
the same time it is far removed from that stereotyped and
exaggerated severity which is given to the copies of early work
when the late copyist endeavours to maintain the characteristics
of archaic art.
Furthermore, it is physically impossible that a copy so
accurate in all its details, including not only the folds, but even
the peculiarities of Pheidiac relief-technique, should be made
by a copyist standing below while the frieze was in its original
position with the imperfect conditions of lighting to which
attention has been drawn. To do this the copyist had to be face,
to face with the original. Now, it is hardly conceivable that,
even if it were permitted by the magistrates in charge of the
temple, any one would have gone to the trouble and expense of
erecting a scaffolding round the wall of the cella to the height
of thirty-nine feet—the only means of making it possible to
reproduce it with such accuracy. There remains the last possi-
bility.
(3) If it was a work contemporaneous with the frieze itself,
the reasons just mentioned would speak against its production
when once the marble relief was in position; the terra-cotta must
then have been made before the relief was fixed to the temple.
Now, it is hardly probable that copies of the decorative sculp-
222 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
tures of the Parthenon should have been made at the time. I
must again remind the reader of the fact that, though to us the
sculptures of the Parthenon are of the highest interest and
importance as independent works of art that we collect in our
museums, they were not so to the Greeks of the time of Pheidias.
They were then merely decorations of the great architectural
structure; and the works which were chiefly estimated by them
as works of art complete in themselves, were the statues by the
great artists, which the ancient authors mention, while they
passed over the frieze without a remark.
I have mentioned before that we naturally hesitate to face
the possibility of this plaque being one of the original sketches
by the hand of Pheidias. We cannot help feeling some of the
timidity, which will always be felt by conscientious people, who
have to report an unexpected stroke of fortune. This timidity
increases with the importance of the unexpected discovery and
with the consciousness of our increased desires, which, we might
fairly presuppose, may direct and modify our belief, with or
against our will. But, bearing this in mind, I do not see why we
should hide from ourselves the fact that it is by no means
impossible that the plaque is the original sketch, and why we
should not bring forward as fairly as possible all circumstances
which speak in favour of such an assumption. Let us make
sure that our desire to possess an original from the hand of
Pheidias does not prejudice our observation; but let us equally
make sure that Our hesitation to state something uncommon,
and our fear of laying ourselves open to the ready contradiction
and easy incredulity of those who stamp even the admission of
such a possibility as extravagant, do not equally hamper us in
a just consideration of the work before us.
When we consider the accuracy in the reproduction of the
details and, above all, in the working of the relief, especially as
regards the edges of the figure, the greater height of the upper
parts and the sinking of the ground about the head, all of which,
as we have seen, was modified by the peculiar conditions
surrounding the frieze of the Parthenon, we must feel that they
speak strongly in favour of this view. Furthermore, the terra-
cotta, though it marks all the chief lines of the drapery, still does
this with a certain definiteness and want of life as compared with
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 223
the marble relief, which characterises the “first state” of a work
as distinguished from the finished production".
When we consider the actual mode in which the great works
of art were produced during the few peaceful years of the
Supremacy of Pericles, a new light is thrown upon the possible
destination of the terra-cotta relief of which the plaque is a
fragment. Within these few years a number of great composi-
tions, which were before enumerated”, among which was the
colossal Athene Parthenos decorated by many figures in relief
and in the round, all of them over life-size, were designed and
executed by Pheidias. It is to these works, important temple-
statues, that Pheidias, in addition to the design, also added the
technical execution or at least gave the finishing touches. Ac-
cording to our modern scale of the working power of an artist,
a single work like the Athene Parthenos would call upon the
time and energy of a sculptor for a period of several years.
Now, besides this, there were all the decorations of the Parthenon
with its ninety-two metopes, its hundreds of figures in relief
in the frieze, its large pedimental compositions. It is incon-
ceivable that Pheidias should have executed with his own hands
all these works, though he may have given the finishing touch
to some of the most important parts. Though the designs
were made by him, the execution was put into the hands of
marble-workers ranking from high-classed artists down to mere
artisans. The occasional discrepancies in the actual execution
of the marble-work in various parts of the frieze, the pediments
and the metopes, is in part to be referred to this fact. This
assumption is fully verified by the ancient authorities. So we
hear from Plutarch”, that a great number of artists and artisans
skilled in marble-work, metal-beating, wood and ivory-carving,
&c. flocked to Athens from all parts of Greece and the colonies,
and were added to the large number of native workmen. These
workmen were free from taxation and all inducements were
offered to the skilled among them. The same writer further
* It was an interesting confirmation to me when the sculptor Mr Woolner, upon
examining the cast of the Louvre plaque, said that compared with the Athene from
the frieze it had all the characteristics of a “first state.”
* See Essay II. p. 67. 3 Vºf. Aericſ. XII.
224 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
tells us”, “ that these buildings were of immense size and un-
equalled in form and grace, the workmen striving emulously
that the workmanship should excel in artistic finish, and that
nothing was more to be wondered at than the rapidity with
which they were brought forth.”
It has ever been assumed by archaeologists that works
like the frieze were sketched in small in their totality by
Pheidias himself. Quatremère de Quincy gives the following
account of what he supposed the process of their execution
to have been:—“I quite believe that a small model of the whole
composition, either in clay or in wax, was first made in order
to fix the ensemble, the details, and the relation of the parts
of this composition to each other. But I presume that in ac-
cordance with this model an exact copy of the outlines of the
actual size of the frieze was taken, of the outlines of each figure
and of the forms of each object; and that these outlines were
faithfully traced on the unhewn slab of marble in accordance
with their succession and position in the model. It is after this
tracing and these designs that the sculptor proceeded to work
2 25
his marble”.
Now, it is not likely that if the sculptor had at his disposal
means of readily reproducing these designs, he would rely upon
one copy only of so extensive a work consisting of so many
parts each of which is essential to the whole, especially when
we bear in mind the carelessness of workmen and the chances
of destroying whatever is fragile within the surroundings of
marble-workers. Modern sculptors avoid these difficulties in
making moulds of their clay models from which any number
1 Ibid. XIII. See the motto prefixed to this Essay.
2 “Voici toutefois commeje crois que ce mot doit s'entendre, et comme l'opération
me parait avoir eu lieu. Je ne me refuse point à croire, qu'une esquisse générale
aurait été d'abord faite en petit, soit en terre, soit en cire, de façon a bien fixer
l'ensemble, les détails et les rapports de cette grande composition; mais je présume
que d'après cette esquisse, on aura fait un tracé des contours de chaque figure, des
traits de chaque objet, correctement arrêtés, et dans la grandeur méme de la frise; que
ces contours auront été fidèlement calqués sur chaque dalle de marbre et selon l'ordre
de l’esquisse. Ce sera sur ce calque, et d'après ces dessins, que le sculpteur aura
travaillé son marbre.” Zettres écrites de Zondres à Rome et adressées à M. Canoza
sur les Marères d’AElgin, etc. Rome, 1818; 2nd edition (from which the passage is
quoted), Paris, 1836.
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 225
of plaster casts can be produced. There is no evidence that
the early Greek sculptors made plaster casts; there is evidence
that they made lasting models of their statues. There are still
extant moulds in which terra-cotta figures were pressed. It is
therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the small, thin and
fragile sketches of a work like the Parthenon frieze, which was
given into the hands of the marble-workers, were fixed and
made capable of reproduction by clay moulds from which terra-
Cotta plaques, corresponding to the fragment we are considering,
were reproduced.
The last question to be answered is: is it likely that such
sketches would be preserved 2 To answer this in the affirmative
it would have to be shown first, that the ancients did value
original models by the hands of their artists, as we prize a
sketch by a Raphael or a Michael Angelo; and secondly, that
Pheidias stood in such esteem in later antiquity that his works
and sketches were of an interest corresponding to that which we
feel for the sketches of the great Italian masters. *
The first of these points is proved by a passage from Pliny"
in which we are told that the models (proplasmata) of the
sculptor Arkesilaos brought higher prices than actual statues
of other sculptors, and another” which shows that in the time
of Pliny an antiquarian interest existed which drove people to
pay high prices for old Greek plate for the sake of its antiquity
even if the design were almost effaced. With regard to the
second point, the tone in which the later authors speak of
Pheidias shows that he was held in reverence almost ap-
proaching religious worship, and that everything pertaining
to him was preserved with piety. I have before drawn atten-
tion to the fact that his studio at Olympia was built near the
sacred Altis, was shown to the traveller in after-days, and has
with much probability been identified by the German excavators
at Olympia”. Is it then unlikely that the original models of
Pheidiac works were carefully preserved by the ancients and
were bought at a high price by one of those rich Roman
amateurs, who gave so much money for the original models of
an Arkesilaos?
* Overbeck Sq. 2268. (H. M. xxxv. 155.) * H. M. XXXIII. I 54.
* See Ausgrabungen in Olympia, Z. c.
W. I5
226 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
Whether original or copy, the fact remains, that we have
here to deal with an antique representation of the Athene of
the Parthenon frieze, so far as extant, in excellent preservation,
presenting us with the head which is destroyed in the original
marble. This is, no doubt, an acquisition of considerable value,
and most students will only view the discovery from this point.
But the value which I chiefly see in this discovery, though I am
fully ready to appreciate the worth of the plaque itself, is in the
triumph of the method which led to it, namely, the comparative
study of style. A student sees, while hastily glancing over the
inferior portion of the large collection of a museum, a terra-
cotta fragment among other works of a like nature; and he
feels convinced that it bears the characteristics of an individual
style which he has studied and compared with other styles.
Upon careful examination he is as assured in his conviction
as if he had a score of passages from the most trustworthy
authors, to back him. Upon confronting the fragment with
an authenticated original, found in the very temple for which
it was made, it becomes demonstrably certain that the fragment
represents the same figure and exactly the same style of sculp-
ture. Surely we must acknowledge that the method thus
employed is sound—that it would have been a trustworthy
guide, even though we had not the means of so happily
proving the identity of the plaque by the extant relief among
the Elgin Marbles,
VI.] THE ATHENE FROM THE PARTIHENON FRIEZE.
2
2
7
NOTE D.
Page 204. “The lower parts also appear more projecting...”
The following attempt to account in a more exact way for the modifications of the
technical working of the relief in the frieze has been made with the assistance of a
friend.
Partly as an effect of difference of height from the pavement of the colonnade, and
partly as an effect of light and shade, a given height of relief would appear greater in
the lower than in the upper parts of the frieze, when seen from below. Thus, if an
appearance of uniformity of relief is to be given, the actual height of relief must be
greatest in the upper parts.
But quite another point is involved in the question of the relative heights of the
relief in the upper and lower parts. It seems probable that the back-ground of the
frieze, especially if it was conspicuous by reason of paint or gilding, would be in-
stinctively assumed by the eye to be vertical. If this were so, then, if the relief was
made of a uniform height, and so appeared to be lowest in the upper parts, the general
surface of the figures would appear to the eye to be not quite vertical, but tilted back
very slightly; and, if it is desired that the general surface of the figures shall appear
to be vertical, the relief must clearly be made highest in the upper parts.
The question of apparent proportions of the figures is at the same time involved
in the following manner.
Let us assume (as is really the case) that the general surface of the figures is
vertical, and compare the two following cases; (1) that in which the relief is uniform
so that the surface of the figures appears to be slightly tilted back, (2) that in which the
relief is sufficiently greater in the upper parts to give the surface the appearance of
being vertical. In these two cases the images of the outlines of the figures on the
retina of the eye would be precisely the same; but the conclusions which the eye
would instinctively draw as to the proportions of the figures would be not quite the
same. For in the first case the eye would make an allowance for foreshortening due to
a tilting back of the surface, which in the second case would not be allowed for as it
would not appear to exist. Let us assume that in case (1) an eye makes a quite
accurate allowance for the amount of foreshortening due to a tilting, the appearance
of which would be corrected by an extra height of relief of I centimetre in the upper
parts of the frieze. Then it is easy to see that figures of 1 metre in height would be
judged to be I'o:38 metres (that is, nearly 4 centimetres higher than they really were)
by an eye placed II'3 metres below the top of the frieze and at a distance of 3 metres
from the wall. This may fairly be taken as the average position of the eye of a full-
grown man when looking at the frieze from below. It still however remains to be
established whether the correction introduced by Pheidias was exactly sufficient in
amount for the purpose here suggested.
I 5–2
228 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VI.
With reference to the point discussed in the note on page 79, it may be mentioned
that, if an eye, placed 3 metres from the wall and 11.3 metres below the top edge of
the frieze, is going to assume that vertical distances on the frieze which subtend equal
angles are equal, it will be necessary, in order that an eye so placed may see the
figures in their true proportions, that the vertical scale at the extreme top of the frieze
should be to that at the bottom in about the ratio of 19 to 16. If an eye so placed is
going to make the same assumption as to different horizontal distances, it will be neces-
sary that the horizontal scale at the extreme top shall be greater than that at the
bottom edge in about the ratio of 12 to 1 1.
ESSAY VII.
THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE
AND THE COPENHAGEN PLAQUE.
$AI. O& Trávv vevömka &AN eltré irpès Atós, ò 26xpares, or roºro Tö Av6oxóympa
Treiðet d'Ambés eival ;
20. AXN et &rwrotmu, Çorép of goſpol, oëk Ču ärotros etºv: eita aoqušáuevos palmy
airºv rvedua Bopéov karð Töv TAmatov Terpóv gºv Pappakelg traišovcav čoal,...... éºyd,
6é, & patópe, dANøs uév rá totaúra xapleura, not uſu, Atav Šē Öelvoi, kal étruirévov Kal ow
Távvedruxois àvöpás, k.T.A. ......'Aráp, 3 raipe, ueražū Tów A&you, äp of Tööe fiv Tó
ôévôpov, Šq àtrep yes huās;
$AI. Toºro pièv of v auró.
20. N.) rºv "Hpav, kaxå ye # karayanº. # re Yöp trädravos airm AdX' épºqixaçãs
Te kal tym}\}, k.T.A. -
Phaidr. I have never noticed it. But tell me honestly, Sokrates, do you believe
this tale of mythology [associated with the plane-tree towards which we are walking]
to be true? ".
Sokr. I should do nothing strangely out of the way if I were to refuse it credit,
as the learned do, and go on in their rationalising method to say that, as the girl was
playing with Pharmakeia she had been blown over the adjoining cliff by a blast of
the wind Boreas, &c.......But for my part Phaidros, though I consider such explanations
pretty, yet I esteem them the particular province of a very subtle, painstaking, and by
no means enviable person, &c.......But by the by Phaidros, is not this the very tree
to which you were leading me?
Phaidr. The very one.
Sokr. Well really it is a beautiful resting-place. For the plane-tree I find is
thick and spreading as well as tall, &c. PLATO, Phaidros, IV.
ESSAY VII.
THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE AND THE
COPENHAGEN PLAQUE.
IT was my conviction that the terra-cotta fragment described
in the previous Essay was part of a complete composition repre-
senting in small either the central groups, the gods, the priest
and priestess and their attendants; or, still more probably, the
whole of the Parthenon frieze. It was therefore highly proba-
ble, and remains so still more at present, that other fragments
of this terra-cotta model of the Parthenon frieze might be
lying buried in some of the numerous museums and private
collections of Europe. From the illustrated catalogues and sale
catalogues and other works relating to the Campana collection'
it became evident that a vast number of terra-cotta figures and
plaques, and, above all, undescribed “oggetti e framment: ine
terra-cotta " were in this collection. The question then arose:
was it possible to discover any other fragment that might prove
to belong to the same terra-cotta frieze as the Paris plaque 2
Though my regular duties naturally precluded me from roaming
about indefinitely in search of these fragments, I resolved to
do all I could, as far as circumstances would permit, to examine
the most likely places where such fragments might be de-
posited. It will be seen that one of these did appear in a
locality where there had been no reason to expect it.
* The notices of the Campana Collection of Antiques are: (1) Museo Campama,
Antiche Opere in Plastica, discoperte, raccolte da G. Pietro Campanza. Roma, 1842–
51; (2) Description des Marères Antiques du Musée Campana, à Rome, par Henri
d’Aºscamps, Paris, 1856; (3) Cataloghi del Museo Campama : (4) AVotice sur les
objets d'art de la Galerie Campana ó Rome, acquis pour le Musée impérial de
l'Ermitage (St Petersburg), with introduction by E. Guédéonow, Roma, 1861.
232 ESSAYS ON THE ART of PHEIDIAs. [VII.
From the catalogues it became evident that a certain small
portion of the Campana collection had gone to St Petersburg.
It was therefore most desirable that the rich collection of the
Ermitage should be searched with this point in view. I did
not feel quite satisfied about Paris or the Louvre, though I had
carefully examined the collection there and though M. Heuzey
and M. de Villefosse had kindly examined the terra-cottas for
me. I accordingly again went to Paris in June 1881 and made
another search, and since then I have paid still another visit and
also examined the collection of the Cabinet des Médailles of the
Bibliothèque Nationale and private collections, such as those
of M. Camille Lécuyer and M. Gréau, without finding anything
to the point. Professor Brunn, who was Secretary to the Ger-
man Archaeological Institute at Rome during the Campana sale
and was well acquainted with the collection, wrote to tell me
that a small portion, containing those objects that had been
in Campana's private rooms, had gone to Brussels. M. Juste
of the Musée Royale d'Antiquités of Brussels has kindly
informed me “that the Belgian Government bought in 1863
Seventy-seven vases from the Campana collection, but no terra-
cottas; and furthermore, among the terra-cotta bas-reliefs in
his museum none seemed at all likely to correspond to my
description.”
The places that now seemed most likely to contain such
fragments were St Petersburg, Italy (for reasons that will be-
come evident, Rome' above all), and Greece.
I have not been able since to visit Italy and Greece; but,
from the number of the competent archaeologists now in Greece,
the interest which each smallest discovery on Greek soil now
awakens, and the attention that is given to it, it is not likely
that such a work would escape notice. Still, I remember some
striking terra-cottas in the Barbarkeion Museum at Athens,
and it is important that this collection should be carefully
examined with respect of this class of terra-cottas.
Upon leaving Paris in June 1881 I remained a few hours
1 Mr R. S. Greenough the American sculptor residing at Rome kindly undertook
to examine the Vatican and Capitoline museums, but found no similar terra-cottas.
Later on, however, in 1884, Mr A. Hamilton Smith was fortunate enough to
discover in the Museo Kircheriano the lower part of the Athene and the Hephaistos
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 233
in Strassburg and mentioned the discovery of the Louvre plaque
to Professor Michaelis. On my showing him a proof of Plates
IX. and X., he was very much struck with the undoubted
evidence, presented by this collocation, of the identity between
the terra-cotta and the Parthenon marble. He informed me
that Professor Eug. Petersen (now at Prague) had seen a small
terra-cotta fragment, representing a boy holding a peplos, in
the Museum at Copenhagen (Pl. XI.), and had pointed out
the identity of this representation with the one on the Parthe-
non frieze. -
Professor Petersen informed me that he had written a notice
of this fragment in the Archäologische Zeitung for 1877 (p. 136).
I found upon referring to his article that all he wrote seemed,
as far as it went, to conform to what I expected—or rather
hoped for. I then wrote to Professor L. Müller, the Director of
the Royal Museum of Antiquities at Copenhagen, who has since
then been most obliging in furthering my inquiries, for the
exact dimensions and, if possible, for a photograph of the plaque.
These he kindly sent me, and the dimensions as well as the
look of the work as presented in the photograph seemed to
point out that this was a part of the same work as the Louvre
plaque. Still in such cases first-hand knowledge is of the
greatest importance. To feel and see the work itself is always
the final proof for the enquirer. Here was a, fragment in
Copenhagen which was probably a part of the same compo-
sition as a fragment in Paris, both dating back to the great
dead past of Greek antiquity—nay, the very piece which, in
this long frieze, was immediately beside, and joined on to the
Paris fragment. -
It was not however till the middle of September that I
was able to start for Denmark. It was a fortunate circum-
stance that Professor Brunn, whom I met at Munich, was on his
way to St Petersburg. He kindly examined the Hermitage
collection for me. Since then I hear from him, that, from
the Campana collection, there are marbles, vases, and bronzes,
but no terra-cottas at St Petersburg.
The first glance at the Copenhagen fragment proved its
adjoining the Louvre plaque. A full account of this, and a further discussion on the
nature of all these plaques will be found in note F at the end of this Essay.
234 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
entire identity with the terra-cotta at Paris, not only in the
dimensions and the peculiar technique of bas-relief work, but
also in the quality and consistency of the terra-cotta itself, the
colour, the peculiar working of the surface, and the same traces
of a slight layer of a ground colour appearing in small spots
here and there.
Prof. Petersen believes he has found traces of blue colour.
on the ground about the peplos and the neck of the boy. Prof.
Müller doubts of the presence of such traces, nor could I notice
any. The traces of a whitish Colour, which I have just alluded
to, and which appear distinctly on both these plaques in the two
plates (IX, and XI.), were a kind of ground colour that was given
to all the ancient terra-cottas before the upper coating was put
on. It can be noticed on many of the numerous terra-cottas
in every museum of antiquities. It would be something like
the white of egg that is used by gilders with us as a fixative
for the outer colour, as well as for the purpose of giving uni-
formity of tone in avoiding the appearance of the irregularities
and the bare material from shining through the outer coating.
The whole fragment is 16 centimetres in height by I4 centi-
metres in width : the thickness cannot be computed, as the
fragment is buried in the wall. The height of the relief from
its ground in the highest parts is 18 millimetres. -
A close examination of the piece itself proved beyond a
doubt that this terra-cotta fragment, together with the Paris
plaque, formed part of a terra-cotta frieze. As in the case of
the marble frieze and all similar works of whatever material,
a long band of this kind was composed of sections or slabs
which were fitted together. In this case the Copenhagen and
the Paris plaques form respectively the end and the beginning
of immediately adjoining slabs. All this evidence was made
complete when finally Prof. Müller had a cast of his fragment
made and sent on to me, so that now it was possible to study
at leisure and to examine and compare side by side the two
casts taken from the Paris and Copenhagen originals, and both
could be taken to the British Museum and “collated ” with the
marble frieze (Plates XI. and XII.).
The general proportions of the figures on these terra-cotta
fragments bear the same relation to one another as that ob-
IERRA-COIA FRACMENT, ROYAL MUSEUM, COPENHAGEN,
PLATE {.


PLATE XII, BOY AND PREST FROM THE FREE OF THE PARTHENON BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON,


VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 235
taining between the corresponding figures of the British Museum
marbles. The interval between the boy and the Athene of the
terra-cottas corresponds exactly to that of the marble reliefs,
as does also the relative height of the head of the boy as
measured by the Athene, in both instances the top of the head
of the boy reaching to the beginning of the head of the Athene.
The top of the peplos with the hand in both instances is on
a line with the crown of the head of Athene. So too the
distances from the traces of the head (in the terra-cotta),
the head of the priest itself (in, the marble), the top of the
peplos, the head of the boy, and that of the Athene, to the upper
border of the frieze are the same in both instances. As in the
Paris fragment the Copenhagen terra-cotta has the same marked
character of the Pheidiac relief-technique which we noticed in
the previous essay: the sharp perpendicular edges firmly worked
down to the back-ground, and the decided outline.
Of the priest there remains in the terra-cotta but the right
fore-arm, the left shoulder with the visible hand, and the
drapery of his garment comprised between these two points.
The round outline of the breakage towards the left top clearly
shows the outline of his head which holds the same position
as in the original. The draped shoulder exactly corresponds,
as also does the hand of the priest, of which the fingers appear
on the upper end of the peplos.
The peplos is most strikingly the same in all its detail.
Nay, in many ways the terra-cotta enables us to complete the
modelling of the cloak and to notice lines which before escaped
our eye in the marble, which, from its prominent relief has been
very much effaced. This is especially the case with three small
folds which are quite rubbed out in the marble, the traces of which
can however distinctly be seen when guided by the terra-cotta.
All the folds in the peplos are the same in both instances. The
indentation caused on the peplos by the hand of the boy is very
marked in both instances. So also the swelling out of the cloth
between the fore-finger and thumb. However in the marble the
outer or upper piece of the folded garment has four grooves on
the side to indicate the folds, while in the terra-cotta there are but
three. But in so small a model, especially a ‘first state, more lines
could not well be brought in, nor was there any need for this.
236 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
The head of the boy on the marble frieze is almost com-
pletely destroyed, while in the terra-cotta it is in excellent
preservation. This fragment again enables us to complete a
figure from the frieze and to restore in mind the whole of this
pleasing little figure. When comparing the head on the plaque
with the remaining indications of the head in the marble,
standing below the marble frieze in the British Museum, we
are at first led to believe that the heads differ; for the head
of the plaque then appears more pointed than the remain-
ing outline of the marble seems to indicate. But when we
mount to the level of the frieze in its present position in
the British Museum, we find that the top of the head has been
very much broken away, even more than the lower or middle
parts, and that the remaining Outline exactly corresponds to the
pointed top of the extant head in the plaque. Nay we even
find, that there was in the marble the same protruding lock
in the front, like a little horn, a mode of wearing the hair,
which, even in those early days, was common to younger
people. In both cases the upward position of the head causes
a distinct wrinkle in the neck of the boy. In both instances
too a few stray hairs are indicated at the nape of the neck.
The two folds of his cloak running to the peplos are identical.
Where these folds run together the marble is somewhat washed
out, not so the terra-cotta. There is the same triangular cavity
in the two folds; the hand and arm of the boy are the same;
the little finger, very distinct in the terra-cotta, is much effaced
and hardly noticeable in the marble, unless carefully examined,
and then it corresponds exactly to its indication on the plaque.
In short, the identity is complete.
With respect to the genuineness of this fragment, the same
arguments as those brought forward with regard to the Louvre
plaque apply. It is difficult to doubt of its genuineness. Nobody
(even if he had found it worth his while) could have copied so
carefully from the marble since the destruction of the Parthenon
in the 17th century. Nay, even then, though a scaffolding had
been built for this purpose to the top of the frieze in its position
in the Parthenon, we may assume that time had worn away
much that, as we have seen, is indistinct in the marble and is
yet clearly visible in the terra-cotta. All we learn from a care-
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 237
ful study of the fragment and its comparison with the marble
frieze, speaks in favour of the last possibility enumerated in the
previous essay, namely, that these terra-cottas might be remains
of the original models for the Parthenon frieze.
From the information given to Petersen as well as from what
I at first heard at Copenhagen, this assumption would at first
sight even gain slightly in likelihood. For it was stated that
the fragment had been brought to Copenhagen from Athens
by the architect Chr. Hansen, the fellow-traveller of Ross
and Schaubert. Now, the Serie VII of the Classe IV in the
Catalogue of the Campana sale mentions “fragments in terra-
cotta found on the Acropolis of Athens’.” If the Copenhagen
plaque undoubtedly came from Athens, it will be seen what
light it would throw upon the origin of the Louvre plaque also.
Feeling the importance of ascertaining definitely what the real
provenance of this fragment was, I was very anxious to ascertain
some personal information concerning Mr Hansen, his travels,
his way of procuring antiquities, if possible even notes con-
cerning the circumstances of his purchase or discovery of this
fragment. I was greatly surprised and pleased to hear from
Prof. Müller, that Hansen was still alive, though very old and in
feeble health. But, upon Prof. Müller's taking the photograph
to him, Hansen did not recognise it as being his aquisition, nor
did he know anything about it, and denied having ever brought
it to the museum. Thereupon Prof. Müller again examined
the inventories of the museum and, as he now informs me,
found the mention of a terra-cotta fragment which is without
doubt the one under consideration. This fragment was bought
in Italy (most probably at Rome) by the Danish landscape
painter Lossoé, now dead, somewhere between 1850 and 1855.
It came into the museum about 1855–1856. This, together
with the fact that the Copenhagen and Paris fragments are
the two adjoining pieces of the same frieze makes it almost
certain that the two fragments were originally found at the
same place in Italy, and it is probable that the same person
sold the one fragment to Lossoë and the other to Campana”.
1 Figurine e Frammenti di terrecotte provenienti dall’Acropoli di Atene.
* This opinion is shared by Pennelli, who was with Campama as “restorer,’ at
a time when he bought many of his terra-cottas.
238 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
That these fragments were found in Italy and not in Greece
makes the assumption of the probable immediate connexion
between these terra-cottas and the original sketches of the
Parthenon frieze by Pheidias even more likely than if they had
been found at Athens. For if the models of Pheidias were
valued and kept by the Greeks, it is most likely that upon the
dissolution of Greek independence and the wealth and import-
ance of Athens, such portable remains would have been taken
to Rome by Some one of the rich. Roman amateurs, who we
know valued highly and coveted the possession of Greek “old
masters.” Moreover the fashion of collecting their works was
just as great and as wide-spread in ancient Rome as it is with
us to-day, and, as we have seen, this appreciation extended to
the sketches and models as well as to the works themselves.
These amateurs were often guided entirely by the collector's
attitude of mind in which antiquities are valued for antiquity's
sake. Thus Pliny tells us of the high prices paid in his time
for old Greek plate for the sake of its antiquity, even if the
design were quite undistinguishable';
The next question to be answered is: What is the subject
represented by the two figures of which the fragment contains a
part? In order to answer this we shall have to consider the
whole of this central group and to enter into a discussion, in
many ways unsatisfactory, to the solution of which we may,
however, hope to contribute to some small degree.
The more I have consulted the ancient authorities concerning
the Panathenaic festival, and the more I have treated the subject
of this interpretation primarily from a philological and antiquarian
point of view, the further did the problem appear removed from
a satisfactory solution. With every passage from an ancient
author and with every inscription, the number of possible
meanings assignable to the group increases. I have come to
the conclusion that the only hope for a definite result is to be
found in the chief archaeological method”, that is, to leave aside
in starting the written traditions, to study without bias and pre-
1 M. H. xxxiii. 157. Suðitoque ars haec zła exolezit, ut sola fami zetustate censeatur,
usugue attritis caelaturis, så mec figura discerni possit, auctoritas consted.
* See Essay I. -
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 239
conception the work itself, and to follow the suggestions found
inherent in it. (See also Note E at the end of this Essay.)
As we have seen, the gods of the eastern frieze are not
grouped together in one continuous line, but are divided into
two groups by five figures occupying the centre of the whole
frieze (Fig. 9).
In the exact centre is a standing female figure considered by
almost all authorities to be the priestess of Athene who is
receiving or, according to some, offering objects placed on the
heads of two smaller female figures before her. The one of
these maidens is immediately facing the priestess; the Other,
from having been advancing towards the centre, is almost
completely turned towards the spectator. From the mutilated
condition of the slab as well as from the absence of any definite
statement in ancient authorities concerning the subject of the
whole frieze, it has been a natural consequence that the most
varied meaning has been given to the objects" which these
maidens carry on their heads. So seme consider them to be
baskets, thus making the maidens the Kanephoroi, Arrhephorož
or Ersephoroi of the Panathenaic festival, carrying in their baskets
sacred loaves or barley or other materials used in the sacrifices;
while most of the recent authorities hold them to be chairs with
cushions, carried by servants of the priestess or by the Diphro-
phoroi of the Panathenaic procession. The object held in the
hand of the girl nearest the priestess appears to me to be a leg
quite similar to those of the chairs of the gods. Furthermore the
photograph, if carefully studied”, shows white marks running
down the sides corresponding to the inner feet, painted or in
relief, since broken away; while the projections and the extant
boreholes correspond to the feet on the outer side nearest the
spectator. What these objects definitely are cannot, as matters
now stand, be determined beyond a doubt; though no doubt,
any child from the streets of ancient Athens would have known
* See Michaelis, ibid. p. 263; Guide to the Sculptures of the Parthenom, Table C.
* For careful study of monuments photographs have peculiar advantages of their
own which make them an invaluable supplement to the study of originals and casts.
As they often reveal in manuscripts marks, letters and blemishes, which cannot
be noticed in the originals, so traces of colour, former projections and mischievous
restorations in works of ancient art are often more distinctly noticeable in them than
in the originals.
24O , ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
4.
it. Upon one most important fact all authorities seem agreed,
namely, that these objects were meant to be used in the sacred
ceremonies. Whether chairs, or baskets or trays containing
loaves or meal and sacrificial implements wrapped in a cloth,
whether they are supposed to belong to the treasury of Athene
or not, the fact remains that the chairs, baskets and vessels with
their contents, in ancient processions in general as well as in the
special mention of the objects carried in the Panathenaic pro-
cession, were meant to be used in the sacrificial ceremony.
On the other side of the priestess is the bearded man giving
to the boy before him, or receiving from him a folded piece of
cloth. The bearded man is generally called archon basileus,
priest, hieropoios, priest of Poseidon, or of Erechtheus, or the
tamias, the steward of the treasury of Athene. Until recent
years, it has almost universally been assumed that the priest is
receiving from the boy the peplos dedicated to Athene at the
Panathenaic festival which had been suspended to the mast of
the sacred ship in the procession. Friederichs' was the first to
gainsay this established interpretation; his arguments were,
however, chiefly negative. Brunn” next pointed to the simple,
but none the less important fact, that the priest is clad in a long
under-garment, a talaric chiton, without the usual over-garment
the himation, and that doubtless for the culminating and most
solemn act of ceremony we have all reason to expect the most
decorous dress and not a mere under-garment, which was the
most convenient apparel when something requiring exertion and
manual agility had to be performed. Finally, Flasch" has made
a most careful enquiry into the gods and central group of the
eastern frieze, critically analysing all the arguments in favour of
the peplos theory, and bringing out with great strength all the .
arguments that would show this central group to represent the
simple act of preparation for the ceremony, in which the priestess
offered up prayers to Athene on the part of the Athenian
people, and the priest performed the sacrifice of the hecatombs
offered by Athens and its dependent communities. The most .
important fact which Flasch adds is his demonstration that the
* Bausteine zur Gesch. d. Griech. Plastić, pp. 163 seq.
* Berichte der k, bayr. Akad. &c. 1876.
* Zbid. pp. 99 seq.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 241
priest is not receiving the cloak from the boy, but that he is
really handing it to him. This he makes evident in drawing
attention to the way in which the priest holds the garment
which he has just folded, which would not be folded in this
irregular manner if the boy had been carrying it, while the
priest would not seize it in this fashion if he were taking it from
the boy; and, above all, the way in which the boy holds the
peplos. This, Flasch maintains, would be an awkward method
of holding up and offering a limp substance, while it is the
evident and most natural way for receiving the garment.
I can thoroughly sympathise with the reluctance which many
must feel to give up, first, an interpretation long fixed by custom,
secondly, one so full of beautiful associations, and thirdly, to re-
sign such a meaning for one seemingly so trivial. It does seem a
great step downwards from the dedication of the sacred peplos of
Athene, the culminating act of the Panathenaic procession, to the
scene of a priest divesting himself of his outer garment. Yet we
must not forget that what to our minds appears trivial was not
so to the minds of the Greeks, simpler and less Sophisticated—
especially in matters connected with dress or nudity. Further-
more we must bear in mind that every act connected with the
worship, the rites and ceremonies of the gods, was possessed of
a solemnity and importance which raised it far above the
corresponding prosaic action of daily life. We need but re-
member the solemnity attached to every movement and action
of the priest in the ritual of the Church of Rome. Finally we
must bear in mind that Pheidias was true to nature even in his
representation of the gods, and that such an artist would have
represented most clearly, true to the custom in life, the act of
receiving the peplos from the boy, if such had been the action of
the priest, and not have represented him in the act of handing it
to the boy, though he would have found means of indicating the
solemnity of this act in distinguishing it from the unceremonious,
less solemn, and less individual scene of sacerdotal preparation.
In a few words: he would have shown unmistakably, first, that
something is offered to the priest, secondly, that what is offered
is the peplos of the goddess, forming the culminating point of
the great ceremony. It remains for the archaeologist to study
carefully what the artist has really expressed and to base upon
W. . I6
!
242 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [VII.
this our interpretation. May not Flasch be right in supposing
that the preconceived ideas derived from the traditional inter-
pretation, handed down from generation to generation, have so
blinded the archaeologists that they failed to read from the
monument itself the simple story which it has to relate 2
The most important evidence in favour of Flasch's view will
be furnished if we find drapery similarly dealt with in extant
monuments. Instances in extant monuments bearing imme-
diately upon this scene abound. We need but consult numer-
ous vases containing scenes from the baths and the palaestra’ to
see how frequently men are found putting on or off garments of
their own corresponding to the one which is supposed to be the
sacred peplos offered in great ceremony to Athene at the Pana-
thenaic festival. The most instructive instance is a vase-painting
(Fig. IO) published by Panofka”, who makes the strangest use of
FIG. Io. Boy with a peplos, from a vase-painting.
it. A beardless man with a staff is standing opposite to a boy
holding a piece of drapery very similar to the one on the frieze.
The hands of the boy are not visible. His right hand is proba-
* Gerhard, Auseriesene Vasenbilder, Vol. IV. (Badescenen, Rüstungsscenen und
Palaestra).
* Annal; d. Znst. 1845, p. 60, P1. D, Fig. 3.

VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 243
bly between the front and back fold. What exactly he is doing
with it is not evident. It is probably one of the scenes of domes-
tic life or of the baths showing a master with his servant. At
all events it shows a similar motive to the scene on the frieze,
and this scene on the vase has no relation to the Panathenaic
procession and no sacred meaning". If however it is connected
with Athene's peplos (and this is believed by Panofka, who com-
pares the two), then it shows conclusively that the priest is not
receiving the peplos from the boy. The boy seems to be taking
away the garment while the man is standing leaning on his staff
and is making no sign of receiving it either then or afterwards.
As evidence that the scenes depicted
on this central slab were not typical of
any sacred religious function, but belonged
to the sphere of every-day life, we need but
consider in addition to the vase-painting
representing the boy with his master's
cloak (Fig. IO), another figure (Fig. I I)
from a vase by Exekias where a boy is
represented carrying a chair like the
maidens in the frieze, but without any
reference to the Panathenaic festival or
any sacred ceremony. This vase” has on
the obverse Achilles and Ajax playing at
dice; and on the reverse, Kastor with his
horse Kylaros, Tyndareos in front of the
horse, and Leda and Polydeukes caressing
his dog behind them. All the figures on FIG. I. I. Boy with chair,
this vase have their names inscribed. The from a vase by Exekias.
boy with the chair is between Tyndareos and the horse, and is
probably advancing towards Polydeukes, the only nude figure
among the principal persons, who has probably returned from
a victorious wrestling match. The servant boy carrying the
* Levezow (Verzeichniss der Vasensammlung des é. Mus. in Berlin, No. 841) and
Gerhard (Berlin's antike Bildwerke, p. 244), who were not struck by its resemblance
to the scene on the frieze, are thus not biassed by the interpretation and consider it to
be a domestic or bath scene.
* Monumenti dell’Instit. 1835, Pl. xxii.; Panofka in the Annali dell’Instit. 1835,
pp. 228 seq.

I6—2
244 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
chair, the oil-flask, and what is either a cloak or a cushion (more
probably the latter) is here rendering a humble service to his
master, just such as the young acolyte or the maidens with the
priestess are about to render to their sacerdotal master and
mistress. -
The most weighty argument against the simple interpretation
of this act and in favour of the peplos-dedication theory, is the
central position of this representation in the frieze. The central
place in a composition, especially in sculpture, and above all
when it coincides with the main entrance of a temple, may a
priori be considered to be the most important part of the whole
composition. So far we should be led to assume that the central
group of a frieze representing a ceremony, would contain the
culminating act of this ceremony, which, it might be maintained,
was in this case the offering of the peplos.
If this group be the culminating scene of the whole represen-
tation, we cannot help asking : why should this central act be so
meagrely represented 2 Why should an artist, who had such a
keen tact and feeling for the essence of his art, in which the size,
bulk, proportions and fulness in the outer material ought to be
in perfect harmony with the importance and spirit of what is
represented, why should Pheidias give such small space, such
sober and relatively thin lines to the most solemn feature of the
whole festival? and above all, Why should he isolate the repre-
sentation of this act from the rest of the procession and even
from the gods 2 For they evidently and most distinctly turn
their backs upon this supposed solemn offering to Athene, and
no amount of assumption with regard to the licence of the sculp-
tor in translating a scene full of life and variety into marble low
relief can alter the fact, so clearly indicated in this representation,
that both Athene and Zeus and all the other gods have their
backs turned upon this central scene; and by no stretch of our im-
agination can we represent them to ourselves as being spectators of
this offering. And even assuming this central group to be a repre-
sentation of the supreme moment in the Panathenaic festival, the
dedication of the peplos, this act is even then not clearly ex-
pressed. For we must ask: What is the real action of this group,
the offering of the peplos or the handing of the chairs In fact,
it is the priestess who is really in the centre with her maidens
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 245
and not the priest with his boy. And from the space that is given
to the left half of this composition as compared with the right
half, as well as from the fact that the priestess has two atten-
dants and the priest only one, we cannot help inferring, if we are
Open to this simple phase of the sculptor's language, that the
offering of the chairs is the more important of the two acts—
provided always that we insist upon seeing in this group a
culminating scene of the whole composition.
Now, a very ingenious suggestion has been made to me by
one of my pupils, Mr F. C. Chambers, in the course of Our
work. The central group placed above the wall corresponds
exactly to the door leading into the temple in which stood the
great statue of the goddess. Inasmuch as the spectator, when
once he has arrived before the door under the inner colonnade,
will have his whole attention and interest engrossed by the
interior of the temple and the great statue, so far is this most
central position not the most important. The fact of the
main entrance being in the middle of the east front increases the
importance of the central figures of the eastern pediment. The
pedimental group is viewed by the spectator standing in front
and outside of the whole temple, and the exterior form acts
independently, without any encroachment on the part of the
important interior. But when the spectator desired to examine
the eastern frieze, he must have entered the outer colonnade
under the exact centre of which was the door leading into the
temple proper, the interior and contents of which must have
attracted his attention, and so far have detracted from the
specific importance of the exactly central position of the eastern
frieze. This suggestion seems to me to point to the true solution
of the difficulty. * \
I would here lead the student away from the minute exam-
ination of details to a point from which he may take a broader
and more general view of the work under consideration, and we
may hope for some useful results from such an examination.
For it has sometimes been found that the practice of an occasional
ordinary examination with the natural eye, often neglected by
those whose aim it is to strive for the very elements of things
in a most careful microscopical study of the primitive forms,
may contribute greatly to the truth and produce good results.
246 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
I would ask the student to consider the nature and character of
the whole composition of the Parthenon frieze. Does it on the
whole convey the idea of a procession as a mere means to lead
up to the dramatic centre of a ceremony” Or, does it not repre-
sent a procession as the end itself of the representation to which
we are led up by scenes indicating the preparation ? I do
not hesitate to affirm that if we merely walk round the Elgin
Room of the British Museum, beginning at the slabs that
come from the western frieze of the Parthenon, until we come
to the eastern frieze where the gods are manifestly viewing
and enjoying this procession advancing towards them, we
cannot fail to receive the impression that Pheidias desired to
convey the idea, and succeeded in expressing it, not of a scene
disconnected from and not suggested in the bulk of the repre-
sentation, but of the procession itself. And if there are any
suggestions of a future act, these are contained and clearly
expressed in the procession itself, and not in a piece which
is distinctly severed from this procession, and upon which all
the figures turn their backs.
What a clumsy contrivance it would be on the part of the
artist wantonly to break in upon the unity of the story told and
the action represented, in severing the most interesting scene, the
dedication of the peplos, from the rest of the composition, in
hiding and dissociating the dedication of the peplos from the
Athenian people, who offered it to the goddess, and, as we must
assume, from the view of the gods themselves. This intro-
duction of the gods into the frieze could but create a strange
want of unity. These figures which sever priest, priestess, and
peplos from the Attic people, would be nothing short of an
interruption of the continuity of the entire scene of the frieze.
Yet we must bear in mind that, even if it is not the dedica-
tion of the peplos, there is still an interruption, a severing of
this small central group from the main body. We shall see
however that the act performed by priest and priestess is of such
a nature that its remoteness from the public is essentially in
keeping with its meaning. The real interruption will then be
the severing of the group of gods into two halves. Yet we shall
find that this very division was the reason why the sculptor
introduced this central scene.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 247
It might be maintained, as has been done, that the gods are
supposed to be invisible. In real life no doubt, the gods were
considered present at the festivals though they were not visible,
and on all reliefs representing gods crowning victors or interven-
ing to help their people the gods are represented as physically
present, as much as in the epic descriptions of Homer and in
the dramas they are physically present, though sometimes
invisible to the person upon whom they act. Even in the real
life of this plastic and simple-minded people the idea was not
that the gods were merely there in spirit or floating in the air, as
our children sensualise the spiritual from their reminiscences of
the pictures of floating and winged angels; but their presence
though unseen was to them of a more sensuous or real nature, as
is borne out by the fact that, during feasts, they placed empty
chairs upon which the gods might seat themselves. If this was
so even in real life, in artistic representations the gods were
always considered to be actually present. And it was contrary
to the simple and direct mind of the Greeks, even of the time of
the Sophists, to believe or to imagine that a thing was and was
not at the same time.
Even without the gods, however, the central group is severed
from the main body. For, as has been pointed out by Flasch,
the group of magistrates on either side of the gods, who stand
there with their backs turned to the centre or conversing with
one another, cannot lead us to believe that the action upon
which their back is turned is of the greatest importance and
solemnity. These men are, as a matter of fact, awaiting the
arrival of the procession, or ratner the collection of the people in
the procession on the Acropolis. No doubt it is a procession
that is represented on the Parthenon frieze, a procession that is
to end in some act; but the procession itself is here represented
above all things, from its beginning in the preparation and
starting of the horsemen in the centre of the western frieze, to
the leaders of the cows, and the sheep, the hecatombs offered
to Athene, and the maidens bearing offerings and the instru-
ments for sacrificing animals, on the eastern frieze; and these
show the arrival of the head of the procession on the Acropolis
where they are expected by the chief magistrates. How is it
possible, says Flasch, that we are to assume that the chief
248 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
solemnity is actually taking place while as yet only the head of
the procession has arrived at its destination on the Acropolis,
and the end is but preparing to start. Surely we must feel the
weight of his remarks when he interprets the central group as
representing the preparation of the high priest and priestess of
Athene for the great act which is to take place as soon as the
multitude has assembled. All the suggestions of the nature of
this act are clearly contained in the representation of the
procession itself, namely the offerings of the fruits of the field to
Athene and the hecatombs which are to be sacrificed in her
honour. This is clearly expressed in the maidens bearing the
offerings and the instruments for sacrificing the animals, which
are the first to arrive on the Acropolis, and are followed on the
one side by the cows, the hecatombs from Athens, and on the
other, by the cows and sheep, the hecatombs from the country.
The chairs (if they are chairs) borne by the maidens in the
central group are, according to Flasch, destined for the high
priest and priestess, who are, the one to receive the offering and
to open the ceremony with a prayer to Athene, the other, to per-
form the sacrifice of the hecatombs. The priest is preparing
for this act in divesting himself of his himation, which would
doubtless be in his way in performing his task. Conze' rejoins
to Brunn's indication of the unusual costume of the high priest,
who is to receive with great ceremony the peplos, in pointing to
an Attic sepulchral slab" in which the deceased is represented in
the same long chiton with a knife in his hand. But there can
be no doubt that this evident preparation for a sacrifice is the
strongest argument in favour of Flasch's interpretation.
Mr A. S. Murray has had the great merit of insisting upon a
point which was merely hinted at and implied in Flasch's
monograph. Pheidias in this relief, which represents a large
and continuous scene (as the relief in contradistinction to the
round may to a certain degree do), has somewhat infringed upon
the domain of pictorial art. He has not expressed in the lines and
forms of the relief itself all that he wished to convey to the imagi-
nation of the spectator, any more than he was inartistic enough
to aim at “archaeological” completeness in representing the Attic
* Zeitschaft, f. Öst. Gymnº. 1873, S. 443.
* Heydemann, Marm. Bilaw. Nr. 475, S. 180; Pervanoglu, Grabst. S. 25, Nr. 28.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 249
horsemen in full rank and file. In the central group it is evidently
not his intention to produce in the imagination of the spectator a
picture of this group in the identical position which the figures
now hold in the bas-relief. In other words, there was a differ-
ence in the depth of the positions held by the various figures in
the actual life of which this scene was a reproduction. This
effect upon the eye of the spectator is reproduced on the flat
surface of the painter's canvas by what we call perspective.
Some sculptors, such as the very skilful virtuoso rather than
artist Colin in his reliefs at Innspruck, produced this effect
by means of working deeply into the marble and thereby
actually attaining a foreground and a background. To such
artifices Pheidias never has recourse. And even if he had
desired to indicate such differences by means of a higher and
lower relief, or by a sinking of the ground or body of the relief of
one slab more than another; yet the conditions of the lighting
of this relief from its peculiar position on the wall of the temple
were, as we have noticed in the previous essay, such that any
attempt of this kind was out of the question. There is no doubt
however that the ground of the relief was coloured, and so the
difference of plane could be easily indicated. I believe that Mr
Murray" is quite right when he points out that the gods and the
central group are not conceived as being in reality in one line
but at different distances from the eye of the spectator. Only I
believe that he is not right when he thinks that the central group
is meant to be in front of the gods.
Though Pheidias may have meant to suggest and has
actually suggested in some parts more than is immediately
contained in the lines of the relief, still his, as any other well-
regulated artistic imagination, would not attempt to put such a
tax upon the imagination of the spectator that he is to picture to
himself the very opposite to what is indicated in the artistic
representation. In the string of horsemen on the north and
south friezes, Pheidias has represented groups of horses and
riders so overlapping each other that he succeeds in leading the
imagination of the spectator to perceive small files of four and
five riders at right angles from the front of the spectator. This
* Revue Archéolog. Vol. xxxvii.I. (1879), pp. 139 &c. Pl. XXI.
25O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
is more than he has fully expressed and actually represented in
the lines and forms of the relief; for here, as is necessary in
such a work, he has represented them as following one another,
though he has suggested their real position by means of their
overlapping. This is admissible artistic suggestion, which pre-
demands a normal and healthy imagination and necessarily
leads it further and higher in a direction clearly indicated by
what is represented in the work itself. But surely this is not
the case when figures are represented as turning their backs on
the scene, and the spectator is to imagine them in front of these
figures, the immediate objects of their attention. Now the gods
are turning their backs on the central group, and their attention
is distinctly taken up by the procession to which all, with the
exception of two that are conversing with one another, have
their heads turned, and the Eros at the one end is admiring
while his mother Aphrodite is pointing towards them. This
central scene of preparation is in reality not taking place in
front of the gods but at the back, behind them, and if we take a
general glance at the whole of the two groups we shall see that,
even without the aid of the coloured grounds now wanting, the
central group is indicated as being somewhat in the back-
ground, especially by the way that Zeus and Athene stand forth.
In Mr Murray's ingenious pictorial restoration of this scene
the maidens are advancing in one column in front of the joined
groups of the conversing magistrates, and then we come to the
high-priest and priestess with the serving boy and maidens, and
these are placed in front of the gods who are seated in a semi-
circular group. This semicircular position is again not at all
indicated in the relief as it is. From the Athene to the Eros
there is a continuous receding and nothing to indicate a circular
movement. Just as with the horsemen, here the chairs of those
nearest the centre overlap their neighbours towards the angles.
A continuous line at right angles to the spectator, so that the gods
on either side of the centre would form one row at right angles
to the front of the temple, is however not here produced as in
the case of the horsemen, or else this overlapping would have
to be continuous, and the chair of each god from the centre
would have to overlap that of his neighbour towards the angles.
But this is not the case, the overlapping being only in part, and
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 25 I
so the figures are not represented as being in a parallel line with
the front of the temple and the spectator, nor at right angles to
them, but in oblique lines from the spectator to either corner of
the front, in an arrangement corresponding to what military men
call échelon.
..We must remember that in this frieze the gods are not
joined and do not form one continuous group, but are divided
into two groups, the one headed by Zeus, the other by Athene,
running towards either corner of the front. Far from being an
undesired break, this is, to my mind, the very intention of the
artist, the very cause and essence of the severing of the central
group at which I have before hinted.
The chief cause of the introduction of the central group is to be
found in a difficulty, paltry as it may appear to those who are not,
as artists, acquainted with the difficulties of art-production, but of
a kind that is frequently most perplexing to the artist. Pheidias
has overcome this difficulty and has in fact worked what at first
partook of the character of a subterfuge into the essential
harmony of his whole composition in a manner worthy of such
an artist. What this difficulty was becomes most evident when we
examine Mr Murray's restoration. The gods are here placed in
a semicircle, Zeus in the centre, Hera on his right and Athene on
his left. But surely this would be a festival, a procession, and an
offering in honour of Zeus and not of Athene. Pheidias wished
to introduce the congregation of the gods as spectators of the
festival in honour of Athene. He must give a prominent
position to Zeus in this congregation ; yet if he places him in the
centre, the story in the language of this figurative art will dis-
tinctly be that it is a festival in honour of Zeus and not of Athene.
(See Essay V. p. 140.) If he were to place Zeus and Athene
together in a prominent position he could surely not sever Hera
from Zeus, placing her in an inferior position to Athene. Paltry as
it may seem, such a difficulty must have been most perplexing to
any artist, and the tact of Pheidias in dealing with this difficulty
is of the same virtue as are those weightier qualities of his genius
to which such high epithets have been applied. He severs the two
groups by means of a small composition, not so important as to
make the figures of the gods a mere ascending scale, not of
sufficient weight in the action represented to attract the eye
252 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
and interest of the spectator to man and his performances after
they have dwelt upon the figures of gods (which would be a sad
anti-climax), and yet in harmony with the whole composition
and contributing some part to the story told. Athene now has
a proper prominence; she is the head of one group of gods and
corresponds in her position to Zeus, and Zeus holds his promi-
nent position at the head of the other group, his superior
authority being indicated by the throne on which he sits, while
the other gods are seated on chairs without backs and arms;
and Hera is in her wonted place as the queenly spouse beside
the king of the gods".
This is the real raison d’être of the central group which, at
first meant to overcome a difficulty, has at the same time been
made a most harmonious finale to the whole composition. As
the back of the temple, the western frieze, begins with repre-
sentations of the preparations for the procession, so the front, the
eastern frieze, ends with the scene of preparation for the sacrifice to
Athene which is to conclude the whole festival. It is like a musical
composition, some great movement of a symphony, which begins
with a simple tema, developes it into the most manifold and varied
forms through all gradations to its culminating point, until the
first tema is slightly indicated at the end in a modified form, so
that it leads over to the second movement. And this last
composition, though not of sufficient importance to form an
anti-climax to the group of the gods, is still not of such trivi-
ality as to be unbecoming for its central position on the eastern
1 The scene of the eastern frieze in real life would be as follows: the procession
upon reaching the Acropolis and having entered through the Propylaea splits into two
halves before the west of the Parthenon, the one half drawing round the north, the
other round the south side, and at some distance from the eastern front they again join
into one column and draw up taking their proper position to witness the final sacrificial
ceremony. Here, where the spectator of the eastern frieze is supposed to stand, are
immediately before him the chief magistrates who are waiting for the arrival of the
procession. Towards either angle of the front, the first two not joined but leaving an
open space like the frustum of a cone, are, in the frieze the gods, and in real life,
most probably, the empty chairs, upon which they were supposed to seat themselves.
Through this open space one can perceive in the background, either in the temple (in
the opisthodomos, the vestry, as it were), or in front of it, the high-priest and priestess
preparing for the ceremony, who will, when the procession is taking its final position
advance for work through the open space left by the chairs of the gods to the altar of
Athene and there perform the sacrifice.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 253
front. On the contrary, without being intrinsically weighty, its
meaning as an action in the sequence of performances of the
festival as indicated in the frieze is such, that it most properly
forms the central knot which finally ties together the two ends
of the composition. As I have said above, the real subject
represented on the frieze is the procession; and this is not
regarded as a mere means to the culminating point of interest,
the dedication of a peplos, not represented in the frieze ; and
if anything is suggested as taking place after the procession,
the elements of this act are contained within the representation
as it stands. These elements are the offerings and hecatombs
at the head of the procession, and the act which is to take place
after the procession represented on the frieze, is the sacrifice of
the hecatombs. When the representation of the procession
ends, the sacrifice begins, and all this is clearly expressed in the
composition of the frieze of the Parthenon. The composition
begins at the preparation for the procession, the bulk of the
composition; and it ends with the scene of preparation for the
sacrifice, not expressed, but clearly suggested. Pheidias has as
a true artist left something to the imagination of the spectator
after the mere eye has done with the work before it; but, as will
always be found in the work of a great artist, it is something
clearly suggested, and decidedly not something directly opposed
to the suggestions themselves.
NOTE. E.
Page 239. “To follow the suggestions found inherent in it.”
It appears to me that the importance of the dedication of the peplos among the
ceremonies of the Panathenaic festival, especially in the time to which the erection of
the Parthenom belongs, has been over-estimated. This, I believe, is chiefly to be at-
tributed to the fact that the current interpretation of the central slab of the frieze, so
long established and so often repeated, has become fixed in the minds of scholars as
the most striking feature of that work.
Though I have throughout this essay endeavoured to avoid formulating a new in-
terpretation of the Parthenon frieze, and, leaving the literary traditions, have striven to
limit myself, as far as possible, to those conclusions arrived at by an examination of
the monument itself, still I feel driven to point out certain conclusions concerning the
254 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
interpretation of the whole frieze which have forced themselves upon me in connexion
with the examination of the central slab.
The earliest mention of the peplos, though not in any immediate connexion with
the Panathenaic festival, still less with the procession, is in Euripides’ Alecuba, l. 466
(about 423 B.C.), and in Aristophanes’ Airds, 1.826 (4I4 B.C.), probably also in the
Arogs, l. 565 (B.C. 428). Thucydides makes no mention of it.
The origin of the ceremony of its dedication, not as yet a part of the Panathenaic
festival of later times, goes back to the earliest years of the establishment of an Athene
worship on the Acropolis of Athens. In connexion with the very ancient and archaic
wooden statue of Athene Polias in her temple on the Acropolis, the mythological,
tradition among the Athenian people considered this statue to be the dedication of
Erichthonios. Similar to the Palladium of Troy, this ancient wooden statue was
clothed in actual drapery, just like some quaint images of the Virgin Mary, especially
in Italian churches. As there was no need for a continual renewal of the wooden
core even if this had been possible and desirable, it sufficed that the drapery should be
periodically renewed, and thus, once a year, at the birthday of the goddess and the
ensuing feast, a new garment was offered her in lieu of a new statue. But this was
not yet the Panathenaic festival, as the authorities of later times, from whom we derive
our information, depict it.
At the time at which the Parthenon was completed a new and most glorious image
was dedicated to her, provided with a golden garment, and on that occasion, at least,
the other ceremony, if it was still in practice with reference to the ancient £6avov of
Erichthonios, receded to the background.
The real prominence of the peplos in the procession and in the ceremony only
comes in when once it is attached as a sail to the ship which is drawn through the
streets, and when it thus appeals to the feelings of the Athenians by means of their
maritime power which, through Themistocles, had become so prominent a feature in
the Attic polity. But the earliest authorities make no mention of this part of the
procession. We do not hear of it till the beginning of the 4th century (Mich. pp. 212,
329, No. 165); and after that it is made the chief feature of the procession in the
descriptions of these later authors. &
Now, it appears to me that this form which the ceremony assumes after the time of
Pericles, is the result of an intermingling (contaminatio) of the ceremonies in commemo-
ration of Theseus with those dedicated to the worship of Athene. And this supposition
will gain in weight the more we bear in mind, (1) that, in the course of time the various
ceremonies of gods and heroes strongly tended to intermingle; (2) that Athene and
Theseus became more and more closely associated as the patrons of Attica, and that
they both have an especial share in the constitution of the Panathenaic festival; and
(3) that after the Persian war the chief prowess of the Athenians consisted in their
maritime force, a suggestion of which they would naturally tend to introduce in con-
nexion with their patron deity.
To show the process of its introduction we must look more critically into the nature
and history of the whole festival.
The Panathenaia, as we know them, were more a political festival than immediately
a part of religious worship. The word denotes primarily a union of the Athenian people,
and only secondarily reflects upon the supreme sway of the goddess Athene. The
festival grows more a festival in honour of Athene the more that goddess comes to be
considered the chief patron of the Attic people, when the latter had become established
in their union and leaders in the political life of Greece. -
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 255
The supreme worship of Athene in Attica is, together with the worship of a
Panhellenic Zeus in Greece, the religious concomitant of the political feeling arising
in Attica and in Greece after the victories of the Persian war.
Before this the worship of Athene was not so supreme in Attica. There existed
older rites, superior to or at least coordinate with her worship, such as that of Zeus
Polieus on the Acropolis, Aphrodite, Artemis, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Dionysos,
Herakles, &c.; and each attempt at centralisation of political power and assertion of
national supremacy, leading with it a centralisation of religious worship", towards a
distinctive national deity, led to a more pronounced preference for her worship. In
the earlier times, the other gods had their festivities with their games; but more and
more the festival games in her honour not only eclipse the others in splendour but
these even become modified in that Athene together with Theseus are introduced into
the ceremonial primarily in honour of some other deity. So, for instance, Athene, as
Athene Skiros, has part with Dionysos in the Oschophoria, a preliminary celebration of
the vintage of which Theseus is considered the founder. In fact Theseus (probably in
the time of Kimon) becomes strongly mixed up in the whole of the Pyanepsia, primarily
a festival of Apollo. .
The various marked stages in the history of the Panathenaic festival are, (1) the
dedication of the ancient £6avov by Erichthonios: (2) the act of uniting the separate
tribes of Attica into one centre (Athene and the Acropolis) by Theseus, called
$vvoikia or avvoukiapós; (3) the introduction of greater pomp, and the establishment of
the greater Panathenaia by Peisistratos in every fourth year; (4) the introduction of
musical games by the Peisistratidae; (5) further similar additions by Pericles.
The act of Erichthonios is the least historical in character. It points to an early
establishment of a worship of Athene Polias on the Acropolis along with the earlier
worship of Zeus Polieus.
The real establishment of the festival and games is attributed to Theseus; and here
the festival is of an essentially political and national character, which it maintains ever
after until the worship of Athene becomes identical with the glorification of the Athe-
nian people. The tradition concerning the act of Theseus marks above all things the
union of the Attic people with one local centre, the Acropolis of Athens, and this it is,
the £vvolkta, which gives its character to the festival. The earliest and best authority,
Thucydides, in speaking of the early history of Attica (II. 15. 2) simply calls the festi-
val by that name*.
It is a significant fact that all subsequent political movements that tended towards
the centralisation of power in the Attic state were marked by some addition to this
festival; so with Peisistratos, the Peisistratidae and Pericles.
Peisistratos appears to have formed the plan of a united Greece with Athens as
1 It will be an important task for future writers on Greek mythology to trace the history of the
worship of the gods in various districts in its relation to the political history of each nation, and not only
in the mythical stages of a nation’s history, but in the historical periods of their growth or decline and
the corresponding modifications of the worship of their deities.
* Compare also Plut. Thes. 24; Paus. VIII. 2. 1 ; Schol. Plat. Parmen. 127 A ; Suid. and Phot.
Apostol. 14. 6. When A. Mommsen, Heortologie, p. 111 seq., makes a separate festival of the Synoikia
and combines it with the worship of Eirene, he is certainly wrong, as in Thucydides v. 47 there is no
implication of a worship of a goddess Eirene, an idea which really only gained mythological personality
in the fourth century. It is a strange critical method, to deal with the direct statement of the identity
of the Synoikia and Panathenaia in Plutarch by merely maintaining that the ancient author made a
great mistake (Plutarch hat einent grossen Fehler begangen, p. 84).
256 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
the leader; and, as the Olympian games which began to flourish so greatly about
his time brought the whole of Greece together, uniting in the games of Zeus, so he
appears to have taken these for a model and to have attempted to create Attic games
of similar fame with Athene as the patron. Thus he establishes greater festivals at a
period of four years like the Olympiads, and these festivals are used in Athens as a
division of time similar to the recurrence of the Olympian games. He too, like
Theseus, turns his attention to the full establishment of a metropolis, in rebuilding
parts of the town and improving the roads all over Attica; while he and his family
develop to the highest degree the worship of Athene, through whose interposition,
according to Herodotus (I. 60), he was supposed to have been introduced to
sovereignty. He fixes the head of Athene as the emblem on Athenian coins;
he and the Peisistratidae began the great Hekatombeion, the earlier temple, which
was followed by the Parthenon. It is in this time, no doubt, that the worship
of Athene began to be supreme, as the feeling of national power on the part of the
Attic people was rising, and it is in this time that the religious festival of the
birthday of Athene and the Thesean Synoikismos (both taking place in the same
month Hekatombaion) seem to me to have been firmly welded together.
But the temple of Athene built by Peisistratos was never destined to be completed.
The Persian invader destroyed almost the entire town of Athens. The Athenians after
the war had to set to work to rebuild their destroyed homes, and there ensued a new
Synoikia revived with a new spirit of national vigour and power. The resettling of
Athens completed by Pericles was the occasion of a new festival similar in its
conditions to that of the union under Theseus, only far grander, and the festival was
to be glorified by the dedication to the goddess of a new grand “house’ and a glorious
image clad in a garment of gold. To Athene and Theseus, the divine and heroic
patrons of Athens, the victory over the Persian foe is chiefly attributed, and they are
considered to have actively intervened. The worship of Athene and of Theseus are
now fully fixed and have reached their highest point, and the two elements are now
thoroughly combined, the goddess and the religious act becoming thoroughly national
in character, and the Synoikia receiving a religious colour. Athene and Theseus
henceforth are thoroughly blended in the devotion of the Attic people, and if the
Thesean elements in the festival have been infused with ceremonies belonging
to Athene, the rites connected with Theseus are sure to become infused into the
Athene ſestival, even those not connected with the Synoikia.
Thus it is that when time has somewhat effaced the exact definitions of
ceremonies, the maritime element is introduced into the festival of Athene in the
fourth century through the close relationship of the goddess with the hero who
founded it. We need but to read in Himerios (Or. III. 12) the description of the
ship, on the mast of which the peplos is suspended as a sail, filled with priests and
priestesses and decked with flowers, to see how this is the ship of Theseus which
was kept in repair down to the time of Demetrios the Phalerean (317 B.C.), and in
which, decked with flowers, the sacred embassy was sent to Delos. Moreover the
sail in the myth of Theseus had a particular significance.
Thus it is that in later times the peplos obtained an importance which it did not
possess in earlier times, and which could not come into consideration on an
occasion when a great statue was offered to the goddess.
The feeling of Panathenaism reaches its highest point after the Persian war, and the
consciousness of this supremacy is to be noticed in all expressions of public life and in all
the works of art belonging to this period. The Panathenaic festival with its procession
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 257
is primarily an expression of Attic unity. How then would an artist commemorate
the event and represent the scene? -
In an essay on the Parthenon frieze by Th. Davidson recently published and with
much, I must say most, of which I cannot agree, the author rightly criticises the
common interpretation of the Parthenon frieze in maintaining that there are no
instances in Greek art of the representation of a general indefinite custom such as a
periodically recurring event. Though there is one instance of the representation of
the various athletic games without any reference to definite contests or victories on the
throne of the Olympian Zeus by Pheidias, still the author is right in maintaining that
it was contrary to the Greek mind to represent generalisations without clothing them
in the sensuous form of some definite type or event. But he is strangely misled by
the word “event” into assuming that the Greeks then chose some contemporary
historical event. Of this there are no instances in sculpture in the time of Pheidias.
We do hear of paintings in the Stoa Poikile at Athens (by Mikon, Polygnotos or
Panainos), a secular building in which among mythological scenes, such as Theseus
leading the Greeks against the Amazons, are represented the battles of Oinoë and
Marathon. But in the battle of Marathon (to this Pausanias devotes a few words of
description while he merely mentions Oinoë). Theseus, Athene and Herakles take
part and so the action receives a mythological character. Other instances of approach
to the representation of an historical, still less contemporary, event even in painting I
know none in the time of Pheidias.
But contemporary events were commemorated and represented in art by a fixed
method congenial to the Greek mind. The lasting type of the attribute or event was
made the artistic bearer of the thoughts and feelings of the time. This the Greeks
possessed in the myths of gods and heroes. And thus, for instance, the warlike
glory of the Greeks was in all times represented and their individual victories com-
memorated by the mythical types of Greek prowess over barbarian forces, such as the
Gigantomachia, the Amazonomachia, the battle between Centaurs and Lapiths. In
Athens those myths were chosen by preference to commemorate the victory over the
Persians in which the Athenian hero Theseus distinguished himself, and so the
Gigantomachia is one of the subjects of the metopes of the Parthenon. -
When the sculptor desired to represent on the frieze the Panathenaic procession
and all that it meant to the Athenian, he sought for the mythical type of this festival,
the Panathenaion. This type is the real founding of the festival and the establishment
of the political unity of the Attic people in the Synoikia of Theseus, the national hero
and the active shield of the Greeks at Marathon.
I therefore see in the Parthenon frieze the representation of the Synoikia of
Theseus. It is needless to say that in these mythical representations the Greeks
did not strive after imaginary archaism, but represented the customs and people
of their own time, the Lapiths as Attic warriors, and the Thesean festival as the
festival they saw before them, the youths and warriors that made Athens great.
Thus this scene, commemorating the great festival of the day, recalled the foundation
of Attic national greatness by the patron hero, and glorified the protecting goddess
of the Athenian state. . . t -
In all the works of the Parthenon Pheidias has glorified the Attic people and
Athene, and it is a normal development to which we have alluded in the second essay
that he should have risen in his last period from Athene and Panathenaism at
Athens to Zeus and Panhellenism at Olympia.
W. 17
NOTE. F.
Page 232. “The places that now seemed most likely to contain.”
In the winter of 1883–84 Mr A. H. Smith, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge,
started on a tour of archaeological research in Italy, Sicily, and Greece. Acquainted
as he had become with the methods of investigation advocated in this book and
knowing the state of the inquiry concerning these terra-cottas, as well as the questions
therein involved, he was well fitted to undertake the continuation of the search for
further fragments. He thus endeavoured, while following his own studies, to examine
the various collections he met with with a view to such terra-cotta fragments. -
In February 1884. Mr Smith wrote to tell me that he had found a fragment, which
he believed to be part of the same work with the Louvre and Copenhagen fragments,
in the Museo Kircheriano at Rome. He enclosed a small photograph of the
fragment taken by him from the original; and from this it appeared probable that
the fragment in question contained the lower portion of the figure of Athene of which
the Louvre plaque presents the upper part, together with the complete figure of
Hephaistos seated beside Athene in the frieze. The importance of Mr Smith's
discovery will be readily perceived. For, on the one hand, it might prove to
complete the figure of Athene besides adding another complete figure to this series of
terra-cotta reliefs, and, on the other hand, forming part of the Kircheriano collection,
it might be possible to find definite records concerning these terra-cottas and their
provenance. -
The early catalogue of the Kircherian Museum by Bonanni, published in 1709",
contained no mention of such a work. It now remained to examine the exact
relationship between this terra-cotta and the other fragments at Paris and at Copenhagen
and to search for records concerning it on the spot.
In April 1884 I visited Rome and examined the fragments at the Kircherian
Museum, having brought with me a cast taken from the Louvre plaque. The
terra-cotta (Plate XIII.) consists of several fragments, so carefully fixed together by
the restorer, that the fact of its having previously been fractured only becomes evident
upon close examination. There could be no doubt that the subject was that of the
two figures in the Parthenon frieze, and upon placing the cast of the Louvre plaque
beside the upper part of the fragment the pieces joined absolutely, the Louvre plaque
thus completing the figure of Athene, while the Kircherian plaque contains the whole
figure of Hephaistos.
1 The full title is Muesaereme Kircheriazzum ; sive Musaeume a P. A thanasio Kirchero in Collegio
Romano Societatis 9este fame ºridem inceptume, mufter restitutum, auctum, descriptum, et iconibus
illustratume a Philºpo Borzazumi, Societatis 9esze, Romae, 1709. fol.
MUSE0 KRCHERIANO ROME.
IERRMCOTIA PAQUE
PLATE X||.

VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 259
The next important task was to find any museum records concerning this fragment.
Professor Pigorini, the director, could find none,—in fact there are hardly any papers
concerning the Museum in his possession.
If it formed part of the old Kircherian collection, those connected with the museum
when it was still under the Jesuits would be most likely to know its history. I found
the Padre Tongiorgi, the late Jesuit director of the museum, who informed me that
there were no records concerning the museum in existence, and upon my showing him
a photograph of the terra-cotta, he assured me that it could not have been there
before the museum passed into the hands of the Italians in 1871.
The first curator of the museum after the Jesuits was Prof. De Ruggiero, who was
in the act of publishing a catalogue". He kindly showed me the proof-sheets of the
catalogue referring to terra-cottas. The fragment is there mentioned under number
315. From him I learnt that this terra-cotta was bought by him along with a number
of similar works, about forty in number, from a dealer living somewhere in the Via
Babuino. He paid three hundred francs for the whole lot, and he thinks that he
must have valued this fragment at from 20 to 25 francs. He assured me that there
could be no doubt as to its genuineness. I then endeavoured to discover the dealer
in the Via Babuino to ascertain, if possible, further particulars concerning its
provenance ; though both Prof. Pigorini and Prof. De Ruggiero assured me that it
was hopeless to expect to get a true statement out of a dealer. I went from shop to
shop in the Via Babuino, showing a photograph of the fragment, inquiring if they
had ever seen the terra-cotta, and whether they could let me have similar pieces.
The fragment was unknown to them all, and my offer to purchase similar pieces was
met with the regretful reply, that it was Greek and that they had none (“e roba greca,
non me abbiamo”). -
It was upon leaving one of these shops that I met the American sculptor Mr
Franklin Simmons, in a store-room of whose studio I came upon a plaster cast with
these identical figures from the frieze, the heads complete and identical with the terra-
cottas, the whole about the same dimensions as the fragments in the Louvre, at Copen-
hagen, and in the Kircherian Museum. Mr Simmons had bought them at the sale
of the studio furniture of the great Italian sculptor Tenerani some few years back. He
referred me for further information to the sculptor Prof. Anderlini who had been
Tenerani's assistant for many years. Prof. Anderlini informed me that he had known
these casts for a long time and that he did not believe that they were made by
Tenerani. He thought it impossible for them to have been made either in the Barocco
period or in modern times: they were too large and simple. He had these casts and
further complete casts of the frieze of the same dimensions in his studio. It is a
remarkable fact, and one which I shall again refer to, that some of these are inferior
to the figures of which the terra-cottas exist. Tenerani had worked with Thorwaldsen
and Wagner in restoring the Aegina marbles now at Munich. Was it not possible
that, with machine reductions of the marbles in the British Museum, he might have
restored these heads? The keeper of the Tenerani Museum in the Via Nazionale,
Tommaso-Cardelli, seventy-six years of age, a distant relation of Tenerani's, worked
under that great sculptor since 1840, and remembers these casts to have been there at
that time. He did not believe that they were made by Tenerani. -
I now decided to act on the assumption that the terra-cottas might be forgeries,
and I resolved to play the part of a detective in search of the possible offenders
* The first part has appeared, Catalogo del Museo Kircheriano, Parte I. Roma, 1878.
I7—2
26O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
against truth. I accordingly visited the shops of dealers in antiques with the air of a
colleague in this profession. I took with me the cast of the Louvre plaque, and the
photograph of the Kircheriano terra-cotta, and asked for an antique like them or for
information whether and how I could get one made. I could find no terra-cottas of
this description, but I ascertained the address of a skilful “restorer” residing in a
small street near the Coliseum, -
As I was about to ring the bell of the apartment on the top floor occupied by the
“restorer”, I noticed an open door with a ladder-like staircase leading to the roof, and
I instinctively felt that this would lead me to the sanctum of iniquitous productions.
I found two young men at work on the flat roof, preparing some brew over a stove.
Behind them was a shed, evidently the workshop. They were displeased with my
encroachment, but I greeted them as if they were old acquaintances, entered the shed
and seated myself upon a box. The room was filled with artistic riff-raff of every
description: a triptych with barely more than the gilded back-ground which was
probably to be turned out as a work of Cimabue, black canvases in shreds and tatters,
old frames, fragments of bronze and iron, of antique marble to be completed in
composition and matched in colour, old glass and pottery. A black mass in a kettle
had pieces of bronze inserted which were receiving their antique patina and cor-
rosion. A few easy remarks freed the artists from their mistrusting reticence, and I
proceeded to show my specimens and to ask them whether they had any work of the
kind. But neither they nor their father, who joined us subsequently, knew of
anything like it. From the photograph and the cast they thought that the terra-cottas
must be genuine antiques. The father and one of the sons examined the terra-cotta in
the Kircheriano; but I soon found that it is an invariable habit with people of this
kind to endeavour to ascertain what you would like them to say and to modify their
statements accordingly. I commissioned the father to find for me the original moulds
from which these terra-cottas were made years ago, and I have reason to believe (if
modern they be), that he did his best to gain information among his colleagues; but
none of the “restorers” knew of the existence of such terra-cottas. I had an “antique”
terra-cotta made from the cast of the Louvre Plaque, and have compared it with the
original, but the difference is so marked that even an untrained eye can easily perceive
its inferiority in every respect. The clay they used was a mixture of Campagna-
clay with river-clay from the Tiber, with bits of stone added. As they put it: “mezzo
creta di cave e mezzo creta diſiume e fuzzolana.”
It is needless to give an account of the fruitless search after the forger on the
assumption with which I started. On the last day of my quest I made inquiries of a
plaster-cast maker who was supervising the casting of a clay model by two of his
assistants. “There is an old man,” he said, “who might have made such a thing.
He was a model and exceedingly skilful at making forgeries from his employers' work.
His name is Gaspero. Where he lives? Let me see—I know him well; he is a very
old man, but I saw him a few months ago.” While he was thus puzzling to remember
Gaspero's address and I expressed my determination to find him out somehow or other,
his assistants, though they were aware of our difficulties, proceeded quietly with their
work. “Do you know where Gaspero lives, Antonio P” asked the master of one of
them. “Sta a San Lorenzo’,” was the reply. I found a son of Gaspero, but he knew
nothing of such terra-cottas. He showed me specimens of his father's work, that were
however of quite a different character.
* “He is at San Lorenzo.” San Lorenzo is the burial-ground.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 261.
I thus failed to obtain any definite result concerning the history of the terra-cotta
or of the reductions of the plaster-casts during my inquiries at Rome.
The important question which now presents itself is: What is the relation of these
casts to the terra-cotta fragments. It is evident that there must be some connexion
between them. -
We have the following materials for the study of this question. First, there are the
three terra-cotta fragments themselves, recognised as genuine antiques in three
important museums, the Louvre, the Royal Museum of Copenhagen, and the Museo
Kircheriano. I have collected here, at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, repro-
ductions of all the monuments bearing upon this question. They are these :
(a) There are casts from each of the three terra-cotta fragments mentioned above.
Each of these we can ultimately trace back to Rome. The Louvre plaque we know
to have been with Campana some years before 1861; the Copenhagen fragment was
bought by Lossoë between 1850 and 1855, and has been in the museum since 1855;
the Kircheriano fragment was bought by Prof. De Ruggiero for the museum
after 1871.
(b) There is the pseudo-antique terra-cotta made for me at Rome from the cast
of the Louvre plaque. ſº
(c) I have succeeded in obtaining duplicates of the complete set of casts in the
possession of Prof. Anderlini at Rome. The terra-cotta fragments are practically
identical with the corresponding representations on these casts. I shall dwell upon
the points of similarity and difference as we proceed. These casts are known to have
been in the possession of Tenerani as far back as 1840.
(d) I have since found a set of old casts, somewhat smaller (ranging from 27 to
28 centimetres) than those of Prof. Anderlini, at Brucciani’s in London. A workman
there says he remembers them thirty years back. They are inferior to those from
Rome. There are no heads that are not extant in the marble frieze. They seem to
be simple reductions from the original slabs. The seated gods and the central slab
are not among them, and they are chiefly composed of horsemen, maidens and
magistrates. The sixteen pieces contain the following portions of the Frieze
according to Michaelis' plates of the frieze:
Michaelis Eastern Frieze VII.
No. 1.
3 3 2 25 9 3 5 3 VI. fig. 48.
2 3 3 2 3 2 3 ,, VI. 55 44 & 45.
22 4° 2 3 3 9 , VI. , 42 & 43-
, , 5. , Western , XII. , 23.
,, 6 2 3 2 3 5 5 X.
2 3 7 5 5 5 * 5 9 IV.
,, 8 2 3 2 3 ,, VII.
2 3 9. 25 22 2 3 IX.
; : IO- 2 3 2 3 ,, II.
2 II • 9 3 2 3 5 3 V. fig. 9.
; : I.2. 9 3 9 3 ,, VIII.
2, 13. $ 2 3 2 ,, VI. fig. II.
2, 14- 2 3 92 ,, III. 2, 5 & 6.
; : I 5- ,, Northern , , XLI.
, , 16. 3 9 J } ,, XLII.
(e) Finally, there are Henning's small restorations (about 6 centimetres in
height) which have been popular for so many years. They were made between
262 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
1817 and 1820.1. These were reduced from the marbles in the British Museum, and
the figures were restored by the sculptor. They are instructive in showing how
incapable a skilful modern sculptor is of rendering the qualities of early Greek work.
This is brought out very clearly in the case of heads that are extant in the original,
while his restoration of the heads of Athene and of Hephaistos is typically modern,
whereas in the terra-cottas and the Roman casts these heads are Greek in character.
The real enigma remaining is the relation between the Roman casts and the terra-
cottas. These casts range from 30 to 32 centimetres in height, and are fifteen in number.
They contain the gods and the central slab of the eastern frieze, as well as specimens
of the northern and southern friezes. The following are the subjects accoording to
Michaelis' plates: - -
- No. 1. Michaelis' Eastern Frieze III, figs. I4–17.
53 2. 37 35 99 IV. , , 20–23.
$ 3 3. 33 33 * } IV. , , 24–27.
$ 3 4- 9) 2 3 } % V. 9 3 28–30.
3 2 5. } } 7% 39 V. 3 3 31–35.
* } 6. ! 3 2 33 V. 2 3 36–37.
, , 7. ,, Northern , XXXVIII. & XXXIX.
, 8. 33 35 ,, XL. & XLI. figs. I25–129.
3 * 9. 2 3 3 y 33 XLII.
; : I.O. , Southern , XVIII.
53 II • 3 * 35 $ 3 XXX.
; : I.2. 93 3 * 55 XL.
sº I 3- 25 5 § , XLI.
No. 14 is a mixture between Michaelis' Northern Frieze XIV. and XXII. and No.
15 is a mixture between Eastern Frieze XXXVIII, and XLII.
Now there are three possible relations of the terra-cottas and the casts to one
another. I. The terra-cottas may have been pressed from moulds taken from these
casts. 2. The casts may have been taken from the terra-cottas as far as extant when
they were together at Rome. 3. The casts and terra-cottas may independently be
derived from the same original source.
1. If the terra-cottas were made from these casts before 1855, they are evidently
very ingenious forgeries made with intent to deceive ; inasmuch as they bear all the
marks of age in the working of the terra-cotta itself to such a degree that the very
capable directors of the three museums were convinced of the antiquity of the terra-
cotta. I have become more and more impressed with the fact that, of all materials,
the semblance of antiquity can most readily be reproduced in terra-cotta, though the
specimen I have had made at Rome is so clearly inferior. For if the forgers use the
same clay as did the ancients, leaving it in the same crude state, with small stones,
bake it to its proper hardness, and then put it under similar conditions with regard to
the wear and tear of its position under the ground, there is but little change in the
mere material, which from the beginning has been interfered with by the hand of
man. It is the character of the design then which affords the one criterion; but if the
design is immediately and mechanically reproduced from an antique, the complication
grows to its highest point. The fact which speaks most strongly for this possibility is
in the comparative dimensions of the works before us. Thus the same measure from
the bottom of the round fold in the drapery beside the wrist of Athene to the top
* E. Braun in the Anzial; d. Inst. 1854 p. 15 ; cf. Annali 1851 pp. 89 seq. They are published by
photograph in the Monument: a, Znst. 1854, tav. II.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 263
of the head is "158 m. in the Roman cast, 149 in the Louvre plaque, ‘I4I in the
terra-cotta forgeries made for me at Rome. Other similar measurements concerning
this portion as well as the parts contained in the Copenhagen and the Kircheriano
fragments yield similar proportions. It will be seen that the proportional diminution
in size from the Roman cast is the same in the Louvre plaque as in the Roman
imitation. The Roman imitation is a terra-cotta reproduction taken through the
medium of a cast from the Louvre plaque, and the diminution is caused by the
shrinkage of the terra-cotta through the baking. If the Louvre plaque was in the
same way taken from the Roman cast, its diminution in size would be accounted for.
2. The arguments adduced in the preceding essay against the possibility of the
Louvre plaque being a forgery, would speak in favour of the possibility that these
portions of the Roman casts were restored from the terra-cottas when they were
together in Rome, and that subsequently other parts of the frieze were more freely
restored. It is a curious fact that these very figures of gods are the most perfect of
all represented in these casts; while the restoration of heads and figures, notably the
walking maidens (Michaelis' Eastern Frieze III.), are more modern in character and
design. I was much interested to hear at a recent visit to Paris most of the arguments
of the previous essay brought by Pennelli, the restorer of the Louvre Museum, against
the possibility of the plaque being a forgery. But I must mention the fact, that the
possible previous existence of these complete Roman casts, from which a forger could
take his mould and press his clay, would do away with the necessity of such a marvel-
lous restoration on his part. It further remains difficult to understand how all traces
of these terra-cottas should have been lost, when the artist who made the complete set
of casts could hardly have been unaware of the nature of the work he was reproducing.
3. The third possibility, namely the independent co-existence of terra-cottas and
casts, both having an immediate relation to the original works of Pheidias, has much
in its favour. This is especially the case if the parts now missing in the Elgin marbles
were extant when the casts were made from which the Roman reductions are taken.
The opinion of specialists with regard to the terra-cotta would then have its full
weight, and most of the arguments previously adduced in favour of their genuineness
would apply.
The reason which leads me to suppose that the heads, especially of the gods and
central slab as rendered in the Roman casts, were extant in the originals is, in the first
place, the internal evidence of these casts. For, while most of the heads are quite in
the character of the art of that period and of the heads extant at the present moment,
some few, especially those that seem to have been in a poor state in Carrey's time
(such as South frieze fig. 73 and fig. I I2), are inferior and more modern. The nose of
fig. 31 (the first of the serving maidens from the central slab) seems worn away by
time, not as if this had taken place in the cast, but in the actual face from which
the cast was taken; while now the whole face has been destroyed in the marble
original. -
There are a great many heads still extant at present. Nearly all the heads were
extant in Carrey's time. The explosion in the Parthenon which rent the temple
asunder during Morosini's campaign, did not affect the frieze as it did the other
sculptures. Unless actual attempts were made to carry away portions of it, much
damage could not be done. According to the accounts of travellers" the wanton
destruction, be it through negligence or in the attempt to carry off fragments, seems to
* Compare Michaelis pp. 72–76.
264 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
have been most active shortly before Lord Elgin carried off his prize; while the
vicissitudes of their transport when in his possession, delay and storing at Athens,
packing, shipwreck, etc., may account for much further damage.
Now the following points in the later history of these sculptures must be carefully
borne in mind in these investigations. Some were overlooked, the important bearing
of others was not appreciated by me, at the time I was writing the text of the preceding
Essay, but it is evident that they bear materially upon the question. Choiseul-Gouffier
began in 1784 to have casts taken of the sculptures of the Parthenon, and his agent
Fauvel continued this task, and the artists commissioned by Lord Elgin began their
work with drawing and casting. Where all these casts have gone we do not know.
Two pieces in the immediate vicinity of our fragments from the Eastern frieze are
only known to us through the casts taken by Choiseul-Gouffier, namely the boy Eros
with Aphrodite and the adjoining magistrates, and in these cases the heads are intact.
We must further bear in mind that, though Stuart is not to be trusted implicitly with
regard to the completeness he gives to the figures, in his drawings, taken from 1751
to 1755, the figures in question still have heads and we must also note that all the
figures to the (our) right of Hephaistos, the six gods, have the heads now extant. This
slab, containing the central group and Athene and Hephaistos, would have been the
one first to be cast, as it was removed from its position and was within reach. It must
have been removed from its position before Carrey's time, as he omits it. It is no
doubt to this slab that Babin refers in his letter to the Abbé Pécoil in 1672", when,
after describing the frieze, he tells us that one slab had fallen to the ground and was
preserved behind the door within the temple (then mosque)”. In Chandler's time
(1765) it was let into the wall of the fortress ; for he no doubt refers to the whole of
this long slab when he says”: “...with other figures a venerable person with a beard
reading in a large volume which is partly supported by a boy [no doubt the priest with
the boy and the cloak]. This piece, now inserted in the wall of the fortress, is
supposed to have ranged in the centre of the cell.” In 1785 Worsley saw it lying on
the ground before the east front of the temple; while, according to Visconti, it is again
immured in a house whence Lord Elgin’s workmen take it”. Chandler’s “venerable
person with a beard” could hardly have been without a head, and it is most probable
that he would have mentioned the fact if all the heads of this slab had been mutilated
as they now are. ,
E. Braun” tells us that casts of all the central figures (on which he is writing)
were made by an Italian Andreoli, and brought to Rome". Andreoli, it appears,
brought his casts from Athens’. Further, in another article *, Braun mentions reductions
made by the Collard process of the figure of Aphrodite, which reduction, he learns
through Visconti, was taken from the cast taken by Choiseul-Gouffier “of the
* Cf. Michaelis, Anhang III. p. 336, 31.
* Une deces grandes pierres qui composoit cette ceinture s'est détachée de son lieu, et étant tombée
a été portée dans la Mosquée derrière la porte, où l’on void avec admiration quantité de personnages
qui y Sont representes avec un artifice nompareil.
* 7 ravels tº Greece, 4to. Oxford 1776, p. 51.
* Cf. Michaelis p. 258. -
* Bullettino dº. Inst. 1851, p. 19.
* Tal pezzo importantissimo è stato scoperto sotto le rovine di quell' edifizio in occasione degli
ultimi scavi, ed il sig. Andreoli che ha formato tutte queste preziose relique, n' ha recato un gesso a
Roma. Ibia.
7 Annali 1851, p. 89. Riportati da Atene dal sig, Andreoli.
* Artmalt 1851, p. 326.
VII.] THE CENTRAL SLAB OF THE PARTHENON FRIEZE. 265
figure as Carrey saw it,” and he feels convinced that the original will be found at
Paris 1. º * - -
At this stage of the investigation, where necessity compels me to pause for the
present, it may be well to sum up the results at which we have arrived so far. These
results may be briefly stated in the form of the two questions which now await
solution: - -
(1) Are the Roman casts which have certainly been in existence since 1840,
reductions taken by the Collard process from the early casts of Choiseul-Gouffier,
reduced perhaps by Andreolif
(2) Are the terra-cotta plaques of Rome, Paris, and Copenhagen, which must have
been in existence in 1855, genuine fragments of an ancient rendering of the frieze, or
forged fragments reproduced from the Roman casts?
I am bound to add the conclusion which I am myself at present inclined to adopt.
As regards the first question the facts brought forward in the preceding paragraphs
point to an answer in the affirmative; and it appears to me highly probable that the
casts taken before the present mutilation of these slabs may have rendered the figures
in the completeness which our representations show, and that the Roman casts are
reductions from these early casts taken before the marbles had left Athens. Their
truthful rendering of the character of the frieze certainly goes far to warrant this con-
clusion, especially when they are compared with Henning's restorations, in which the
parts supplied by the restorer are at once apparent to anyone who has made a special
study of the work of Pheidias. -
As to the second question it will be seen that I have been unable to come to any
definite conclusion in my own mind. When engaged upon writing the Essays VI. and
VII., which I have thought it best to leave standing as they were written, I was un-
aware of the existence of the Roman casts, and I had also overlooked the bearing of
those notices relating to the later history of the frieze, which I have now brought
forward from Braun and Michaelis in the last few paragraphs of the present Note. If,
on the one hand, the terra-cotta plaques are genuine antiques, they of course possess
an intrinsic value and interest a thousandfold greater than any which either their
purchasers at the time, or the keepers of the museums in which they are now preserved,
ever thought of attributing to them. If, on the other hand, they are not genuine
antiques, they cannot possibly be mere reproductions like the Roman casts, they must
of necessity be forgeries, such as I have shown above that it is not impossible for a
skilful forger to produce. If, however, this suggestion be accepted, and we look upon
the plaques as knowingly forged to represent a genuine antique rendering of the frieze,
we are brought face to face with the fact that there is no trace of their having ever
been used to impose upon any collector of antiques, seeing that in every case they
have been treated merely as fragments, of some interest perhaps, but certainly not of
any particular value, still less of such value as would necessarily attach to a terra-cotta
professing to be an early rendering of a monument of such interest as the frieze of the
Parthenon. We are thus in a dilemma from which it is hoped that future investiga-
tions may by some fresh discovery release us. I am bound to say that the view, which
to my own mind presents the fewest serious difficulties, is that the plaques are genuine
* Più importante è l'investigazione di quella donna [Aphrodite] al di cui grembo Erittonio [Eros]
s' appoggia. Dauna notizia di E. Q. Visconti risulta che Choiseul-Gouffier ha fatto cavarne un gesso,
quando ancora si trovo conservata tale quale Carrey la vidde. Ora sembre che il gesso ridotto col
processo di Collard sia stato cavato da quello menzionato dall’ erudito archeologo romano, ed io sono
persuaso chel' originale si trovera tuttora a Parigi. Ibid.
266 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VII.
antiques. I must ask the reader, however, to bear in mind, that the point which I
have been most bent upon illustrating is not so much the question whether these terra-
cotta plaques are genuine or forged, as the necessity of following the comparative
method of study as applied to the style of works of art. The question of the actual
history of these fragments is, so far as these Essays are concerned, a secondary con-
sideration, though I have honestly endeavoured, to the best of my power, to solve the
problem with regard to their origin. I hold it to be certain that the heads and other
portions, which are here preserved though lost to us in the frieze as it now exists, are
not the invention of modern restorers; and if they were based upon mechanical repro-
ductions from the originals, while still comparatively unhurt, they could not fail to
display those indications of the art of Pheidias, which first attracted my attention to
the fragment in the Louvre. Whether really ancient or not, we may be confident,
after what has been brought forward above, that they actually represent the originals;
and they have certainly led to a minutestudy of many details of the technique of Pheidias,
which cannot fail to bear fruit as time goes on and fresh facts come to light which the
properly trained archaeologist will know better and better how to use for the elucida-
tion of truth.
ESSAY VIII.
THE ATHENE PARTHENOS AND
GOLD AND IVORY STATUES.
e tº e º 'º º ăuotov Švra roſs HeyāNols toūrocs KoMogo'ots, oſovs i Petóias if Müpwu iſ
IIpaśuréAms étrolmgay kékelvoy Yêp &kartos ékrogdev pew IIogetóów ris à Zeiſs éart
tránſka)\0s, ék Xpworlov Kal éAéjavros avvespryagaévos, kepavvöv # darpathy ñ Tptatuav
éxwv év tí, óeşū #v Šē Utroköpas toms rá y' évôov, Šyet pox)\oſs tuvas kal yopºpot's kai
#\ovs 6tapatráž öuatretrepov muévous kal koppo's kat a pāvas kai trirraw kal trºëw kai troAA#v
Tuva totaúrmv &poppſaw tºrotkovpoila'aw......
tº tº ſº tº º tº being like unto those colossal statues as Pheidias or Myron or Praxiteles
made them; for of these too each one appears from without a Poseidon or a most
beautiful Zeus of gold and ivory holding in the right hand a thunderbolt or the
lightning or the trident ; but if you stoop down and look within, you will see some .
bars, clamps and nails driven through and fastening it, and logs and wedges and tar
and clay and many similar ugly things......
LUCIAN, Gallus, 24.
PLATE XIV, THE WARWAKEION ATHENE, ATHENS,

ESSAY VIII.
THE ATHENE PARTHENOS AND GOLD AND IVORY
STATUES.
IN the winter of 1881 the archaeological world was startled
and perplexed by a telegram sent by the Mayor of Athens to
the Lord Mayor of London, stating that the Athene Nikephoros
of Pheidias had been discovered. The archaeologist could not
help feeling perplexed and sceptical, knowing in the first place
the exaltation of mood which always accompanies a new dis-
covery and the exaggeration to which it leads. It was also
evident, in the second place, that of the Athene statues by
Pheidias it could not possibly be the gold and ivory Athene
Parthenos, which, even if it had not been destroyed could not
well have lain hidden, large in dimensions as it was, under the
ground, nor the Athene Promachos, which stood on the Acropolis
and must have been at least forty or fifty feet in height. The
only statue that could possibly have been meant was the bronze
Lemnian Athene, so highly praised by ancient authors. But
this statue was not a Nikephoros, it did not hold a Victory.
Nothing remained but to wait patiently for some further light.
The statue (Pl. XIV.) soon turned out to be nothing more
than an inferior late Roman copy of the Athene Parthenos,
important in many ways in confirming or modifying the
views which archaeologists had already formed with regard
to the arrangement and disposition of the details of this
statue, yet otherwise quite incapable of assisting a well-guided
imagination in arriving at any conception of the original
work and its spirit. It has been the subject of careful articles
by learned Greek, French, German, English, and American
27o ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
archaeologists", who have for the most part said all that can
well be said about this work. Nevertheless it appears to me
that two points still require to be definitely stated. On the
one hand the novelty of the discovery, as is generally the case,
has led to a somewhat exaggerated estimate of the artistic
value of this Athene, especially in its relation to the so-called
Lenormant statuette (Fig. 14). On the other hand an accessory
in the statuette has been held to be ascribable to the original
Athene Parthenos by some authorities, and, it appears to me,
has not been conclusively shown by others to be a superfluous
addition.
Both these points have an important bearing upon this great
work of sculpture: the one upon the spirit of the composition
itself, the other upon the nature of these gold and ivory statues,
and therefore will well repay a reconsideration of the lately
discovered statuette. -
During some public works, the workmen, while digging in
the small street to the north of the Varvakeion (the ancient
northern boundary of the wall of the city), came upon a Roman
house in which they found the statuette. It is of Pentelic
marble, which, as Lange says, probably came from the quarries
on the north side of the Pentelicon. The height including the
plinth is I’og5 metres (about 3 ft. 5 in). The plinth is O'IO3 m.
The width of the plinth is o'4I m., while the depth on the right
side is o'331 m. and the left only O'285 m., so that it is not quite
* Kavvadias, 'A6mvå, iſ trapá tê Bapóáketov eipedeſora, Athens, 1881 ; Dragatses,
Parnassos, IV, 1, 33, seq., Hauvette-Besnault, Bulletin de correspond, hellen. 1881, pp.
54–63; Lange, Mittheil. d. Deutsch. Azch. Instit. in Athen, V, 4, p. 370 seq., also
VI, 1, p. 54 seq.; Michaelis, I'm neuenz A'eich, p. 356 seq.; Newton, % ournal of
Aſellenic Studies, II. I, pp. 1–7; Gildersleeve, Harper's Monthly Magazine, Vol. III.,
1882, pp. 666 seq.; Mitchell, The Century Magazine XXIII, 4, p. 552 seq.; Schreiber,
“Die Athena Parthenos des Phidias, &c.” Abhandlungen d. K. Sächs. Gesell. d. Wis-
sensch. v11.I. No. 5, 1883. The last of these treatises has appeared since this Essay was
written. In it some of the points of this essay have been anticipated, especially some
of the arguments against the existence of the column of the Varvakeion Statuette in the
original gold and ivory statue. Dr Schreiber and Dr Lange have gone through a large
number of statues of Athene and, with the help of the newly discovered statuette,
have made a classified list of replicas which had been well begun by Michaelis. To
make such a list or to deal with questions of the details of the Athene Parthenos was
not the aim of this Essay. I have proposed merely to show some points in which the
new statuette is defective and to convey some idea of the structure and appearance of
chryselephantine statues and their artistic relation to modern taste. -
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOS ; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 271
square. Athene is clad in a sleeveless talaric chiton. The
peaceful aspect of this virgin Athene, in contradistinction to the
bronze Athene Promachos who was fully equipped, and yet the
suggestion of her power (if need be) to protect her people, are
expressed in the way in which the shield rests by her side.
From the position of her hand on this shield, in confirmation
of the statement of Ampelius and of the ingenious restoration
of Flaxman, the spear must have idly leant against her left
shoulder. . Though she wears the crested helmet, the cheek
pieces are evidently turned up. She is not fully dressed, being
without the diploidion, and she holds the Nike on her right hand.
From all this it is evident that Athene is here represented as
having entered her house after a long struggle, with the intention
of remaining peacefully among her people and of patronising
their more peaceful arts. For the other details I may repeat
what has been well stated by Mr Newton :
“A Gorgon's head ornaments the centre of the aegis and also
the centre of the shield. Within the concave of the shield the
serpent which Pausanias supposed to be Erichthonios is coiled;
the Nike, who holds out some object in both hands, is half turned
towards the goddess...... On its discovery the marble showed
traces of gilding, of the application of colour and a high polish
of the surface...... The right arm is supported by a pillar. The
base on which the figure stands is plain.
“On comparing the statuette with the description in Pausanias
and in Pliny we see a very satisfactory coincidence in most of
the details. But the following features in the original design are
wanting: the spear in the left hand of the goddess; the battles
of Greeks and Amazons on the outside, and the Gigantomachia
on the inside of her shield; the relief on the base representing
the birth of Pandora; the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs on the
soles of the sandals. Several of these missing details may be
supplied by comparing the rude little marble figure discovered
at Athens by Charles Lenormant many years ago with the
fragment of shield formerly belonging to Lord Strangford and
now in the British Museum. On the base of the Lenormant
statuette the Birth of Pandora is indicated by a series of rudely
executed figures, and on the outside of the shield the Amazono-
machia is very clearly represented. For the spear in the left
272 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
hand of Athene we must look to the smaller representation of
the chryselephantine statue on Athenian coins and reliefs".
“The column below the right hand of the goddess which we
find associated with the newly-discovered statue is an unwelcome
addition to this composition, which I feel very reluctant to re-
cognise as a feature in the original design of Pheidias; such an
adjunct seems a very clumsy expedient and unworthy of his
genius. It is true that such a support to the arm of the goddess
is found on an Athenian relief published by Boetticher”. But on
the other reliefs and on coins which represent the Athene Par-
thenos the arm is left free in mid-air. Michaelis in his recent
memoir argues that such a support may have been necessary on
account of the great weight of the Victory which is calculated
to have been 4 cubits, or about 6 feet high, and which he
assumes to have been like the goddess, gold and ivory. But I
am not aware that any ancient author tells us of what material
the Victory was formed, and in the absence of any evidence to
the contrary I think we are justified in assuming that this figure
was cast either in gold or some other metal, gilt. This material
would I consider be much lighter than the chryselephantine work
with its inner core of wood. •
“Michaelis says, the weight to be sustained would have re-
quired a structure such as would now be used. But why should
not the ancients, who were most skilful metallurgists, have had
within the chryselephantine arm of the goddess a bar of copper
or wrought iron, bent at the elbow, and affording a support quite
independent of the outer casing of wood on which the ivory was
attached 2 Such a bar would be, what, in the language of modern
architecture, is called a cantelever, and the upper extremity
could have been securely attached to the inner frame or skeleton
of the statue”.” -
Added to what we already have, the Lenormant statuette,
the Strangford shield, and the fragments of the shield in the
Vatican and Capitoline Museums, this newly-discovered Var-
vakeion statuette enables us to form a definite conception of the
actual pose and composition of the Athene Parthenos and the
details and accessories of this great work. The presence of an
* See Michaelis, Parthenome. Pl. xv. * Michaelis, Pl. xv. Fig. 7.
* Newton, %urnal of Hellenic Studies II. 1, pp. 2–4.
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOs; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 273
actual and tangible work bringing before our eyes the shape
of the helmet, the position of the shield, &c., is an advantage
which no amount of literary tradition could afford us. And
from this point of view, when the recognition of true facts inde-
pendent of artistic value is the proposed aim, nothing can appear
small or unimportant. Thus Athenian coins and the Aspasios
gem in the Vienna cabinet are valuable in completing our notion
of the helmet as shown by the new statuette by the addition of
a row of horses running as a border in the front. -
But here the value of the new discovery ends. Of the actual
spirit and artistic character of the Athene Parthenos these works
can give us nothing. They are but weak and, in part, vulgar
reminders which may call forth a somewhat adequate picture in
our imagination if, through other channels, we have been able to
form some conception of the spirit of the art of Pheidias. If the
Sistine Madonna of Raphael were destroyed, a reminder of this
work, corresponding somewhat to the statuettes in question, would
be the figure of this virgin and child painted on a common china
cup in some Saxon village. Or the relation between the original
Athene Parthenos and these statuettes would be like that between
the Choral Symphony of Beethoven performed by a perfect
orchestra and chorus, and the great work rendered in part by
unskilled hands on a pianoforte out of tune. Both these vul-
garised reminders would be of use if, through other channels, we
had been able to form some idea of what the art of the great
painter and musician was like. So if we knew some of the
drawings or other paintings of Raphael and had copious notes
written by people who had seen the Sistine Madonna, the
common cup would form a good frame-work of fact which our
reproductive imagination might somewhat adequately complete
if otherwise it was well saturated with the spirit of the art of
Raphael. So too if we are musical to start with, and have
heard other symphonies of Beethoven, or (and this is a closer
analogy to our case) merely some short piano Sonata well
rendered, the unskilled rendering of the great orchestral work
on the pianoforte might help us to reconstruct in our minds
something of the effect of the Choral Symphony.
In our case these statuettes furnish us with a solid basis of
fact; yet an idea of the spirit of the great work itself will only
W. I8
274 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
be conveyed when the impulse is given to our imagination and
the direction for its ascent prescribed by the records of the effect
which the work produced upon the ancient authors who saw it,
and above all, by the spirit of the art of Pheidias as it shines
forth through the Parthenon marbles, minor works of Pheidias
though they be.
Between these two reproductions of the great statue there is
a difference in the adequacy, or rather, inadequacy with which
they render the artistic spirit of the original, And here it is, it
4; e º -
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&= ze- ºf .
**
FIG. I2. The Lenormant Athene.
appears to me, that archaeologists have over-estimated the value
of the new statuette in comparison with the Lenormant statuette.
The small and unfinished Lenormant statuette has in it a
slight reminiscence of the greatness of character of Pheidiac art
of which the larger, polished and finished Varvakeion statuette is
entirely devoid. The difference lies in the men who made them.
The one was to some degree an artist, the other was merely a
handicraftsman. The difference between the two corresponds to
the difference between the rapid and unfinished sketch of the
Sistine Madonna by even an inferior artist, as compared with
the vulgar cup-painting which the manufacturing painter has
finished as far as his craft admits. The higher finish of the new


VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOs; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 275
statuette has deceived archaeologists into over-estimating its
comparative artistic merit; while, as a matter of fact, the more
an inferior work is finished the more strikingly does its inferiority
obtrude itself. This is so in many aspects of life. A simple
analogy, again taken from music, may suffice as an illustration.
If a country girl were to sing a passage from some elaborate
masterpiece of music, of which the simple and grand melody has
clung to her memory, the greatness of the work might in some
way be recalled to us; but if she were to attempt to reproduce
the quavers and elaborate forms, the greatness of the work would
vanish and her own absurd clumsiness would stand forth in bald
uncomeliness.
The best test for appreciating the superiority of the Lenormant
statuette over the Varvakeion statuette in its remote suggestion
of the largeness of the art of Pheidias is an experiment similar
to the one suggested in Essay II." If we were to make a ten-
fold enlargement of the new Athenian statuette, the work would
be more repulsive and less grand than it is at present, the
coarseness of the features, the awkwardness of the pose, would
be exaggerated tenfold. If, on the other hand, we were to
enlarge the Lenormant statuette into colossal dimensions, and
were to half close our eyes, or to stand at some distance in order
to lose the unfinished surfaces of the sketch, the work would no
doubt possess qualities of grandeur. . *
The clumsy handicraftsman has increased the effect of
imperfection in his work by the introduction of the column as a
support to the right hand of Athene. This column immediately
suggests to us the technical difficulties with which the artist had
to grapple, in every branch of art a suggestion most fatal to the
production of artistic illusion. It is strange that the nature of
this merely mechanical subterfuge was not immediately recog-
nised. Kavvadias is the only one who has distinctly felt this and
has brought forward strong reasons against it. If we examine
the evidence which supports the attribution of the column to the
original, as suggested by the new statuette, we find that it is a
relief at Berlin, first published by Boetticher”. But how can this
free copy or adaptation be considered as evidence on this point
* See Essay II. pp. 78 and 79.
* Michaelis, Der Parthenom, Pl. xv. Fig. 7.
I8—2
276 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
when the ten other reliefs and the four Athenian coins, which
Michaelis has collected on the same plate, represent Athene
without the pillar This is not a case of bringing quantity
against quality, for Fig. 17” and the coin 27 at least are as near
the statuettes as is Fig. 7 with the pillar. If we study the
nature of all these reliefs, the column on relief No. 7 as well as
the evidence afforded by it will be accounted for. On all these
reliefs the goddess Athene is represented in some peculiar action:
she is either crowning a victor, or, in reliefs heading an inscrip-
tion containing some public treaty or proclamation, she is
facing the . Attic Demos, receiving the solemn pledge. She is
then represented as either crowning the victor or allowing Nike
on her hand to offer the wreath, or is standing before her altar,
or opposite the Demos with the snake between them. In order
thus to represent the patron goddess of Athens, the sculptors of
these reliefs found it convenient to resort to the familiar type of
the Parthenos of the Acropolis; yet it was not with the view of
making a copy of the statue that they borrowed the type from
Pheidias, but because this type served to accomplish the aim
they had, namely to represent the goddess Athene. They there-
fore did not hesitate to modify the type and to deviate from the
original statue which they used as a model. And so we find
that on all the coins the snake could not well be indicated and
was omitted. On coin 21 the shield with the Gorgon's head is
placed in front of Athene; on reliefs 7, 8, 9, Io, I I, 12, 14, 15, 16
and I7 the snake is omitted ; on 9, II, 12, 13, 16 and 17 the
Nike is omitted ; on 6 and I 3 the snake is placed between her
and the Demos, and so on. Nay, we might as well expect that
because I4 and I7 have an altar under her hand the statue
of Pheidias also had one, and that because in this very relief
No. 7 Athene has no spear and the snake is not represented
by her side, that therefore the original statue was also without
these attributes. In this relief No. 7, as in the other reliefs, a
definite action is represented, the crowning of the victor. He is
standing before the pillar and Nike on the hand of Athene is
bending forward, almost flying down, to place the wreath on his
brow. In the plate of Michaelis the hand moreover is not resting
* For the works here referred to, see Michaelis, ibid., Pl. xv.
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOS; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 277
upon, but is above the pillar. This pillar is one of two things :
it is either the symbol for the locality, namely a temple (the
usual way of indicating such edifices in reliefs and in early
painting), or it may be the meta, the winning-post, to indicate
the nature of the victory of the fully-draped figure before her.
For while on relief No. 16 the figure is nude, on No. 9 the figure
is in the armour of a warrior, and on No. 8 there is a figure on
horseback. The figure on the relief in question, in which a whole
chariot group would have been too elaborate, is fully draped, as
were charioteers. This relief then can in no way be looked upon
as evidence in favour of the pillar.
But there are still more final and conclusive arguments
against this assumption, even if our feeling for the character of
the art of Pheidias did not oppose itself to the admission of such
an accessory in one of his greatest works. Kavvadias has preceded
me in pointing to the conclusive fact, that, if there had been reliefs
on this pillar, the ancient authors who described the statue
would have mentioned them. Wherever there was a bare space
this work was decorated with reliefs or paintings : the base was
decorated with the birth of Pandora, the outside of the shield
with the battle between Greeks and Amazons, and the inside
with the battle between giants and gods. The very soles of her
sandals had on their edges reliefs of a battle between Greeks and
Centaurs. Is it likely that a bare surface of a column, which in
the original must have been at least I2 or 15 feet in height, was
left unadorned when, in this statue as well as in that of Zeus at
Olympia, every accessory surface was used to heighten the
brilliancy of the whole work by means of some smaller decora-
tion ? Finally the fact must be borne in mind that the column
in question is not Greek, but is of a very late Roman type and
therefore conclusively shows, clumsy as it is, that it was a clumsy
interpolation of the craftsman copyist.
The column is in truth one of the very common additions
made to statues when copied in marble from bronze or other
material. It is an important fact in Greek art, to which attention
has not yet sufficiently been drawn, that in the great period of
Greek sculpture preceding the age of Alexander the Great, marble
was not the material used for superior works: it was chiefly used
for architectural sculpture, and was considered a lower material.
278 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
For the great works, gold and ivory or bronze were the proper
material: gold and ivory for the great temple statues, excep-
tionally bronze; bronze for the great out-of-door statues, more
especially for those in honour of athletic victors. It was chiefly
through Praxiteles, who was the first great sculptor in marble
and used it habitually', that marble became also the material
for great works of sculpture not decorative. But even with him
we find that of one of his less famous works, which has recently
been restored to us, the Hermes with the infant Dionysus in the
Heraion of Olympia, Pausanias makes but slight mention,
though he describes fully a series of gold and ivory statues in
this temple: it being merely the “stone Hermes with the infant
Dionysus by Praxiteles’.”
When in the late copying schools working for the Roman
market the ancient Greek chryselephantine and bronze statues
were copied in marble, supports and tree stems, which were not
necessary and are not found in the bronze originals, were intro-
duced into the marble copies where they are needed to give
stability and firmness to the work. Such is the case in almost
all marble statues of athletes (Myron's Discobolos, the replicas
of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos, &c.) when compared with
extant bronzes. With Praxiteles these supports had not yet
gained their own right of existence as supports, they were not
introduced as evident supports of the marble work to be ignored
by the spectator of the athlete or god. And so they are made to
play some part in the general composition: the Hermes is resting
his arm with the child upon the tree-stem, and his drapery is
Suspended from it, and partly hides it ; the Faun is resting
against it, weary of his rapid chase through the woods; the Apollo
Sauroktonos is leaning over it watching the lizard whom he is
to spear; the Cnidian Aphrodite takes her drapery from the
ground and this becomes the support in the marble. In later
works, however, and in the copies, these supports have no
meaning, and are an open protest on the part of the artist
against the imperfection of his material, and an admission of his
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* SQ. 1287, 1288, 1289 (Plin. M. A. xxxiv. 69, xxxvi. 20, v1.1. 127). Praxiteles
quoque marmore felicior et clarior fuit....Praxiteles aetatem inter statuarios diximus,
qui marmoris gloria Superavit etiam semet....Praxiteles marmore nobilitatus est.
* I. 20. 1. ‘Eppliv Attov, Atóvvorov Šē (pépet virtov, réxvm 6é éott IIpaśutéAovs.
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOs; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 279
incapacity. This is the history of the introduction of the
column into this Roman copy. In the larger marble copies, of
which a number have been identified, the marble workers did
not attempt to represent the arm with the Nike because their
material would not allow them to do so; yet most have had the
good taste to avoid the introduction of such a pillar.
Surely Pheidias did not arbitrarily adorn his composition
with the introduction of this unnecessary pillar, and as for the
evidence of the statuette, we might as well consider the rock-
like projection which supports the hand of the Lenormant
statuette to be a proof that a similar projection was attached to
the gold and ivory statue of Pheidias. It would surely be more
in keeping with his art than a late Roman column.
But the very nature of the chryselephantine statues has been
brought forward as a reason for assuming the introduction of the
pillar; for it has been supposed that the outstretched hand could
not hold a heavy Nike without some support.
But there is no reason to believe that the Nike though 6 ft.
in height was of great relative weight. There is no reason to
believe that Pheidias had waged war against common sense and
did not endeavour to make this figure of as light a weight as
possible. Furthermore there are no grounds for assuming that
chryselephantine statues were in greater need of support for the
extending portions of the composition than are marble statues.
On the contrary, the nature of their construction was such that
all the advantages of mechanics could be applied without any
disturbance to the artistic effect of the visible surface. It has
always been assumed that the gold and ivory statues consisted
of a core of wood round which the thin plates of gold were laid
for the drapery, and layers of ivory, made pliable by some
process, were fixed for the nude parts of the body and face.
But there can be no doubt in my mind that, as Quatremère de
Quincy' has supposed, the interior of these statues was provided
with a complete frame-work of metal bars, one massive one,
or, more probably a wooden mast, running through the centre
and well fixed in the basis. From the centre bar smaller ones
branched out following the main lines of the limbs of the figure
* See 9 upiter Olympien, Plates Ix and x.
280 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
and the general attitude. This would correspond to what in
modern times is called by sculptors “putting up the irons.”
Nay, as is evident from the passage in Lucian's Gallus quoted
as a motto to this essay, the interior of these colossal statues
was a structure composed of bars, masonry and woodwork which
would require the skill of an architect, mechanic and engineer.
That these statues were provided with a strong central bar
of metal or mast-like beam of wood fixed in the base and
running up the whole height of the statue, from which the
thinner cross-bars, clamps, and chains branched out, is finally
shown by the fact mentioned by Boetticher (Tektonik, II. p. 409)
and quoted by Schreiber, that in the centre of the masonry of the
base upon which stood the Athene Parthenos there is now to
be seen a cavity of 86 m. (2 ft. 7% in.) in length by O'56 m. (1 ft.
IO in.) in width in which no doubt the great central beam was
fixed.
Now, if we assume, as we must, that the Nike was constructed
so as to be of the lightest weight with the thinnest frame of net-
work and thin plates of gold, perhaps without any core of wood,
but merely wire network to give firmness to the plate, then it
would be an easy task to accommodate the mechanical arrange-
ments of the frame-work of the statue of the Athene so as to
bear the stress of the Nike on an extended fore-arm. I have
consulted authorities in matters of mechanics and they assure
me that according to these laws the Nike could well be supported
without a pillar. This could best be done if from one point in
the central beam of the statue a weight were connected on the left
side of the statue and running through this central point it were
joined to the right hand upholding the Nike. This weight on
the left of the statue would have to correspond to the weight of
the Nike. This arrangement moreover would give additional
firmness to the whole statue, inasmuch as it would put additional
weight on the central axis, the bars or chains connecting the
weight on the left with the hand on the right acting as stays or
supports to the perpendicular column in the centre. The pas-
sages' concerning the portrait of Pheidias on the shield of the
* SQ. 669 to 672 (Aristot. De Mundo, 6, p. 399 B; Cic. Orator 71. 234; Valer.
Maxim. VIII. I. 46; Apul. de Mundo, 32 ; Ampel. Lib. Memorial. 8).
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOS; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 281
Athene Parthenos, in Aristotle, Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Apu-
leius and Ampelius, which, despite the positiveness of the state-
ment and the critical value of the authors, have at first been
considered a puzzle and then been discarded as a myth, now
become intelligible. We learn from these that, by a mechanical
contrivance, the statue was so built up that if anybody attempted
to tear the portrait of Pheidias out of the shield (in the left of
the statue) the whole work would perish, the statue would fall to
pieces. No doubt in the shield on the left hand was the weight
or power which, passing through the centre, supported the right
arm and gave equilibrium to the whole statue. .
If it would appear that this is attributing too much know-
ledge of mechanics to the ancient Greeks, I would remind the
reader of the fact that to construct a figure of over 30 feet
in height in itself demands a careful study of the laws of
mechanics. And I would but point to the Apollo in the Temple
at Miletus by Kanachos of Sikyon as a work previous to the
time of Pheidias, and to the Colossus of Rhodes by Chares of
Lindos as an instance of a later work. Both these statues were
colossal in dimensions, the latter IoS feet in height. Of the
Milesian Apollo Pliny’ says that the deer which he held on his
outstretched hand was by some contrivance moveable; while the
wonderful stories that are told about the easiness with which the
Rhodian Colossos could be moved at least point to some appli-
cation of mechanical art. -
It need hardly be said that the exterior of these great statues
revealed none of the signs of the careful and sober work in the
construction of the interior, as little as the extant marbles from
the Parthenon remind the unprejudiced spectator of all the study
of proportion, the minute considerations of the conditions of
lighting, and the long manual labour in producing their surface.
The fully finished core of wood was provided with its golden
garment, as in fact the gold and ivory statues are a normal deve-
lopment of the ancient wooden statues (Éóava) which in earlier
times were draped with the rich garments offered them. But in the
* M. H. XXXIV. 75. Canachus Apollinem nudum qui Philesius cognominatur in
Didymaeo Aeginetica aeris temperatura, cervomaue una ita vestigiis suspenditut linum
Supter pedes trahatur, alterno morsu calce digitisque retinentibus solum, ita vertebrato
dente utrisque partibus ut a repulsu per vicis resiliat.
/
282 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
time of Pheidias the drapery of imperishable material has become
an essential part of the work of art and lends itself to produce
the most brilliant effect upon the senses of the spectator. These
great works, such as the Athene Parthenos and especially the
Olympian Zeus, were microcosms of art. Not only by means of
the dimensions which called for the skill of architects to construct
them and by the harmony maintained in these colossal dimen-
sions, but by all that appeals to the eye (both colour and form), .
did these works produce their grand effects. Every available space
was filled with reliefs or with paintings, and by means of beautiful
enamels on the garment and over the gold surface colour was
added to form. | We can hardly realise the world of art that was
united in an Olympian Zeus. The king of gods, 42 feet in height,
was seated upon a throne, a marvel of construction and decoration,
his sceptre surmounted by an eagle, and, no doubt, adorned
with enamels, in his left hand, and on his right hand the goddess
of victory, Nike. The left arm and shoulder and the lower part
of the body were covered with the golden drapery ornamented
with enamels, the olive wreath crowning his head was of gold
with green enamel. The legs of the colossal throne were orna-
mented with statues or reliefs of Victory, the barrier surround-
ing the throne and the beams joining the legs of the throne
presented large spaces and smaller friezes which were orna-
mented with paintings by Panainos the brother or nephew of
Pheidias, and by statues and reliefs representing the various
games and mythological scenes such as the battles of Theseus
and Herakles against the Barbarians, and the story of Niobe.
Above on the back of the throne about the head of Zeus were
the Seasons and Graces. The footstool was supported by crouch-
ing lions and the border was decorated with an Amazonomachia.
The base (or, according to some, the barrier) was decorated with
a scene representing the birth of Aphrodite from the sea in the
presence of the gods, the whole scene bounded by the rising
Helios and the descending Selene. This mere enumeration will
give a faint idea of the splendour of the work of which each
ornament was colossal in dimensions.
If now we turn to the outer appearance of these gold and
ivory statues as such, I have no doubt that there are many
readers for whom it will be impossible to form a just appreciation
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOS ; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 283
of the effect of these works, and who will feel more or less pro-
nouncedly that there is something “barbarous” in the use of
Such materials. I must confess that there was a time when I
was incapable of duly conceiving of and appreciating sculpture
in such material. It is partly the same attitude of mind which
makes us at first shrink from the idea of polychromy in sculpture
and architecture. But the reasons for our repugnance, or rather
prejudice, against statues made of gold and ivory, or of marble
statues with encaustic painting, or of marble edifices in part
picked out with colour, are merely subjective in nature, that is,
they arise from a peculiar frame of mind affected in its artistic
appreciation by circumstances and surrounding conditions not
essentially of an artistic nature.
The reason that led the Greeks to use material like gold
and ivory in sculpture, and to apply polychromy to statues and
edifices, was not primarily the desire to make these works of art
more realistic, but simply the desire to add the pleasure of
colour and the harmony of varied texture to the pleasure of
form. & . -
There are two main subjective reasons why we are predisposed
to shrink from gold and ivory statues as a shock to our artistic
taste. The first is concerned with the material itself, the second
with the composition of materials as such. The first is entirely
subjective and unjustified, and must simply be called prejudice;
the second, though subjective, has still some justification in its
bearing upon what might be called a principle of aesthetics. -
We are predisposed to look upon gold and ivory as a material
unsuited for works of art because of the economical and mer-
cenary tone of our mind. The market value of things is ready
to obtrude itself upon our attention, engrossing our capacity in
judging of objects to the exclusion of all other attributes".
|This is so to a greater degree with some objects than with
others; yet it is especially the case when these objects in any
way connote value. Whether it be morally advantageous or
no, whether it mark a higher stage in social development or
not, the fact remains that the leading thought and feeling which
floats through our social world, saturates the mind of nations
* See Essay I. p. 18.
284. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [VIII.
and individuals, and stamps its seal upon their character, whether
passively perceptive or actively creative, is the realisation of
the necessity, power, and moral justification, of the economical
struggle. If art was the characteristic great reality of Greek
mind, empire and civil organisation of the Roman world, faith
and chivalry of the mediaeval world, then economical struggle,
with its ensuing relation of man to man, is the most characteristic
feature of modern life. This feeling of the reality of the struggle
for economical existence affects the tone of mind and the attitude
with which modern man regards things, even in those persons,
who, possessed of great wealth, may never have immediately
realised by means of needs and efforts what this struggle really
is.
Therefore a statue greatly composed of gold (itself the unit
of money value) either so strongly suggests to those of smaller
artistic appreciativeness the idea of the market value of the
material that there is no room left for the impression of the
artistic effect by means of the form which the material has
taken ; or the obtrusive association with money-value produces
in others the effect of showiness and vulgar display which are not
artistic qualities and equally counteract artistic illusion. But
to the Greeks who, in those days, were not essentially economical
but primarily artistic in their tone of mind, gold and ivory, when
once part of a work of art, did not evoke these anti-artistic
associations. To them gold and ivory were simply (as they
decidedly are) most beautiful materials, both in colour and tex-
ture; the one more brilliant than bronze, the other softer than
marble. - -
A further purely subjective reason why we are prejudiced
against chryselephantine statues and polychrome sculpture and
architecture is the unconscious association of such works with
modern works of false material and cheap manufacture. This,
I have no doubt, is the most potent unconscious associa-
tion which makes us unappreciative of these forms of ancient
art. The statuettes, jewels, boxes and toys that are manufac-
tured at Birmingham, Nürnberg, and elsewhere, are, in contra-
distinction to solid hand-work, generally gilt or thickly laid
with bright colours. Cheap and vulgar statuettes of plaster that
try to look like bronze or marble, flowers that are not real,
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOs; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 285
houses not of stone but with a front of stucco, common deal which
means to look like oak or walnut, are all painted. Because of
this imitation manufacture we have been driven to assert the
realness and genuineness of work and material by leaving the
material so far unadorned that it can clearly assert its own
noble lineage, and by constant experience we have been led
invariably to associate painted and thinly plated works with
baseness of material and all the offensiveness of falsehood. A
statue covered with something, whatever it be, or painted, an
edifice tinted with red and blue and gold, invariably call forth
an ugly and formless sprite lurking beneath and just peering over
our consciousness, the petty monster of the vulgarity of sham
who lords it over the works of modern Nürnberg and Birmingham.
But these associations did not exist for the ancient Greeks, nor
is there any reason why they should with us exclude from
the pleasing forms of Sculpture and architecture the pleasing
harmony of colour. In the marble Academy of modern Athens
the Viennese architect Hensen has introduced polychromy into
the capitals and the frieze, and some successful attempts at
tinting marble statues have shown that the nobility of the
material will ever shine through the colour and produces an
essentially different effect from plaster or any other common
material coated with colour. But, as I have said before, it must
be borne in mind that the primary aim of the Greeks in colouring
their statues was not to heighten the reality of the work of art
to such a degree that it almost appears like the thing in nature:
they never mistook deception for artistic illusion. Their aim
was simply to add beauty of colour to beauty of form.
The last subjective reason which leads us to oppose the
idea of gold and ivory statues, a reason which, as I have said,
has some justification on aesthetic principles, lies in the fact
that a duality of material counteracts in us the effect of the
unity of an artistic organism. The two different materials sug-
gest to us the fact of the work having been put together, and,
as has been stated in a previous essay", a work of art is imperfect
when it suggests to us the mechanism of its construction. In
the former case it was chiefly through the want of technical
* Essay II. p. 41 seq. and note B.
286 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, [VIII.
skill that we were reminded of the material. In this case as in
the case of mosaics, however perfect they may be (unless we are
at a sufficient distance that they appear like paintings and then
aesthetically they come under the head of paintings), the com-
plexity of the material of construction would again counteract
the pure illusion of form.
But we must bear in mind the highly praised perfection of
the gold and ivory technique of a Pheidias, who no doubt
diminished to a minimum the possibility of the obtrusion of
such an association : and that these two materials correspond to
the great division of the two simple textures that we are ex-
perienced to see in human figures in life, namely, drapery and
nude. Without suggesting any actual individual being, the ivory
neck and arm must have risen out of the golden drapery SO
organically and naturally that not for one moment did the two-
fold nature of the material obtrude itself upon the harmony
of the whole composition. -
If gold and ivory are looked upon as the two most beautiful
materials of their kind, both in colour and texture, and simply
as this, we can well imagine how they must have added to the
effect of the wonderful human form into which the artistic
genius of Pheidias put them. / Nor would the reflective power
of gold dazzle the eyes and harshly reflect the light as it does
when such a statue is placed in the open air, for the modified
light in the interior of the Parthenon mellowed and toned
down the brilliancy of this material. The vö0s of the Parthe-
non, in which the Athene stood, received its light, as the hypae-
thral temples of antiquity did, through an aperture in the roof,
the 6traſov. The statue did not stand immediately under this
Opening and thus did not receive the full glare of light'.
If I before pointed to the value of the material gold as an
association which in our mind made it impossible for us to
appreciate the artistic effect of the chryselephantine statues, and
* Since this was written Mr Fergusson's book The Parthenon, in which the
question of the lighting of Greek temples is dealt with, has appeared. He holds that
Greek temples were lighted by clerestories (6trata). He has made a large model
of the Parthenon and has placed in it a statue of Athene. I have had the good
fortune to see his model. The light which is thrown upon the statue by his method,
is most perfect. It falls chiefly upon face, neck and arm (the ivory parts) and leaves
the golden drapery in a softer half light.
VIII.] ATHENE PARTHENOs; GOLD AND IVORY STATUES. 287
asserted that this disturbing influence was not present to the
minds of the Greeks, I did not mean to infer that they ignored
entirely the costliness of the material. On the contrary the
value of the material played a distinct part in the effectiveness
of the whole work; but it was not for its own sake, and still less
to the subordination or the diminution of the artistic qualities of
the work itself. In such a sublime artistic composition the
costliness and brilliancy of the material, so long as they have
not the power to attract attention for their own sake, heighten
the spiritual qualities of the work, just as, to use a trite simile,
luxury and wealth of surroundings heighten the festive character
of a social entertainment, provided the social tone is sufficiently
strong and refined to make the brilliant surroundings merely
accessory: but they become depressing and offensive when ob-
truding themselves so that they contrast with the poverty of the
social spirit. It is this subtle line which makes the difference:
if the part which the material plays in the effect upon the senses
of the spectator is relatively inferior, if the value of the material
is but “sub-conscious,” it heightens the impressiveness of the
artistic work; so soon as the value of the material takes a fore-
most position in our attention and appreciativeness it is to the
destruction of the artistic effect.
The reasons why the associations which are derogatory to
artistic effect in chryselephantine statues did not prevail with
the Greeks as they commonly would with us is not only to be
found in the fact that the Greeks were not of so essentially and
Supremely an economical cast of mind as is Our age, but to
a great extent also in the largeness and mightiness of the art of
Pheidias. If monumental material like marble and bronze de-
mand greatness in the subject and its treatment, then material
So weighty in its quality as gold is demands a still more power-
ful artistic production in order that the form might sustain the
burden of the material and not be crushed by that which, though
it be only the material, has in itself so many attributes which
have the power on their own account to call forth intellectual
associations. It is a great triumph for the art of Pheidias, and
may bring home to us the grandeur of its character, that for those
who gazed upon the work he forced gold and ivory to be a mere
servile material bearing (itself unnoticed) the forms of his gods.
288 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS, [VIII.
None of the numerous writers on the Olympian Zeus and the
Athene Parthenos dwell upon the brilliancy of the material for
its own sake when they praise the work of art. And this speaks
the more strongly when we bear in mind that in the case of the
Athene Parthenos such associations lay so near ; for the gold of
the statue could be taken off", and could be used as money by
the State in case of emergency, provided it was restored when
the urgency no longer existed.
If once we are freed from these associations that would cling
to the material and can feel without prejudice and open our-
selves out to the simple qualities of these materials, so beautiful
in tone and texture; if we can imagine ourselves entering the
sacred and graceful temples at Olympia and on the Acropolis,
and before us, while we are in the dark and alone, one over-
powering image over forty feet in height, the drapery of pure
gold, face, neck, and arms of soft ivory, a world of colour and of
form in the enamels and reliefs of the accessories, and all this
brilliancy shrinking into the background of our consciousness
through the overpowering majesty of the spiritual beauty which
they make visible, the brilliancy making us falter, the dimen-
sions making us small, and the harmony and beauty lifting us
up to admiration and to devotion—we shall then no longer be
prejudiced against this form of art, we shall perhaps faintly realise
what splendour and what grace dwelt in the art of Pheidias.
1 Thucyd. II. I.3.
ESSAY IX.
THE SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS AND THE ATTIC
SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS,
Kouvi, Y&p to aduata Ötöövres tétº rôv dyipov čtravov čAáuflavov kal rôv ráqov
étrio muáratov, oùk év (; keivrat HåN\ov, &AN év (; ) 56%a aúróv trapá rà évruxávri del kal
Aóyou kal épyou kaupið deluvmatos kataMettrerai. Guðpóv yöp &ltupavāv trága yń rāqos,
Kalot o'rm) Öv påvov čv Tſiolkeigo muatvet étraypaqº), dAN& kal év tº pai) trpoo`micotſon âypaqos
Avium trap &káorg rös Yvºwns wax\ov fi roß Epyov čváuatrărat.
Offering up their lives collectively, they have each one gained glory which will
never die, a sepulchre most illustrious : not that wherein their bones lie mouldering,
but that in which their fame is treasured to be ever refreshed by every incident, either
of word or deed, that stirs its remembrance. For of illustrious men the whole earth is
the sepulchre: it is not only the inscription on the sepulchral slabs in their homes that
records their fame, but even in a country where they were unknown, an unwritten
memorial dwells in the heart of every one more durable than material monuments.
Funeral Oration by Pericles, THUCYD. II. 43. 2.
ESSAY IX.
THE SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS AND THE ATTIC SEPULCHRAL
RELIEFS.
THE most difficult task in dealing with the subject of the
present essay has been the absolute necessity of limiting the
range of inquiry. The study of the history of Greek reliefs is
on the one hand so attractive to the student, and on the other
hand so diffuse in the data of investigation, that the temptation
to wander further and further in inquiry is proportionate to the
difficulty of arriving at a completely satisfactory end and to the
necessity of enlarging the investigation from record to record
and from monument to monument. I have thus found it neces-
sary to premise a definite statement of the limitations which I
have found it necessary to put to this inquiry and my reasons
for so doing.
In the course of examining the relation which certain Attic
sepulchral reliefs held to the frieze of the Parthenon, I arrived
at the conclusion that, though in special instances similarities
between some of these reliefs and the Parthenon frieze had been
noticed, the tendency existed to assign these reliefs too readily
to the middle of the fourth century before our era instead of
bringing them into the range of the direct influence of Pheidias,
and I also felt that this direct and continuous influence of
Pheidiac relief-technique upon these works in general had not
been stated with sufficient clearness nor traced with sufficient
definiteness. But from studying a certain number of these
Attic reliefs I was led on to study, as far as was possible, the
whole of this interesting class of works, and I became impressed
with the fact that they in themselves presented an unbroken
series, illustrating by this one technique and this one group of
19–2
292 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
monuments, in the clearest and most instructive manner, the
continuous development of Greek art through the successive
periods and the several schools. At last I found myself driven
to investigate the question of the origin and development of the
relief-technique as such.
This work has grown under my hands to such a degree, that
it tended more and more to assume the form of a monograph on
Greek Reliefs, and it became evident that it would thus mani-
festly be out of proportion with the remaining essays of this
book. The need of restriction within narrow limits thus became
imperative. -
At the same time I heard of the great work undertaken for
the Academy of Sciences of Vienna by Prof. Conze which,
according to his statement, already consists of between two and
three thousand instances; and I felt that, for the present, this
would make any other general work on the subject, if not super-
fluous, at least premature. I also realised the numerous difficult
problems to which such an investigation necessarily leads when
I read Prof. Conze's preliminary article" on Greek Reliefs.
Thus from all sides the necessity was pressed upon me of
limiting the scope of this essay to the illustration of the general
proposition, that the highest development of Attic sepulchral
reliefs was immediately due to the influence of the art of
Pheidias as manifested in the frieze of the Parthenon, and
of avoiding the tempting incursions into the field of inquiry
concerning the general history of Greek reliefs.
Still I cannot refrain from offering a few remarks concern-
ing Prof. Conze's views as laid down in his preliminary article,
less with a view to direct criticism, than for the purpose of
recalling some of the negative instances which, I believe, ought
to be taken into account before accepting several of his general
conclusions. *
It has been stated before” that the relief is neither pure
sculpture nor pure painting; but that it stands on the border-
line between these two arts, partaking of the character of both.
Still the question necessarily arises as to the exact proportion of
1 A. Conze, Ueber das Relief bei den Griechen. Sitzungsber, d. Å. preuss. Ažad, d.
Wissenschaftem, Berlin 1882, pp. 563, seq.
2 Essay I., p. 32 and note 1 ; Essay II., p. 8o; see also Essay II., p. 77.
IX.]. SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 293
the part played by the two arts of whose character the relief
partakes. I believe that it is commonly held that of the two
(sculpture and painting) sculpture, both as to the manipulation
of the material and as to the application of the principles
governing the subjects represented and their character, prepon-
derates in the relief work, and it appears to me that the common
view is the correct one. One chief point, I take it, in Prof.
Conze's article, is to vindicate the claims of the pictorial element
in relief sculpture from the neglect and abuse which it has
suffered at the hands of art-critics and archaeologists.
The word pictorial (malerisch) has been applied so hastily as
an expression of derogation to works of Greek sculpture,
especially to works in relief, and the introduction of pictorial
elements into sculptured relief has been ascribed to the decline
of Greek art under Roman influence with such unwarranted
readiness, that Prof. Conze is to a great extent justified in
opposing himself to this exaggeration. I feel, however, tempted
to hazard the conjecture that there may be a certain amount of
Tendeng in his article, namely, the more or less conscious desire of
rescuing from slander the newly-acquired reliefs from the Altar
at Pergamon now under his care in the Museum of Berlin.
Prof. Conze has no doubt shown that reliefs decidedly pic-
torial in character already existed in the Hellenistic period, in the
third and second centuries before our era, and are not the product
of Roman art. He further endeavours to show that, as regards
the relief in stone, the technical working of the material naturally
leads towards a pictorial treatment; that historically painting
and sculpture were not completely severed, even in the earliest
times, and that thus the natural development of relief sculpture
points towards painting. He also suggests, it appears to me,
that the predominance of such a pictorial element does not
necessarily imply a degeneration of relief-work. Though I agree
with much that is said by Prof. Conze, there are certain points
on which I have been led to different conclusions, and there
are others which, though I feel inclined to accept them, must
still be strengthened against the negative instances which can
be advanced. -
As regards the influence of the material itself and its peculiar
manipulation in the case of relief in stone (the most important
294 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
and prevalent class of relief sculpture), Prof. Conze finds a
pictorial predisposition in this very working of the material
among the ancients, namely, in the custom of working inwards
from the outer plane of the unhewn slab, leading to the creation
of several planes in the same relief, and this produces the
semblance of perspective which is a distinctive feature of pictorial
art. He maintains with others, that the general difference
between ancient and modern relief work is to be found in the
fact that, whereas the modern sculptor begins his model for the
relief with a slate or panel upon which he adds the clay or wax
he is modelling and thus has the background of the relief as the
fixed and unaltering plane in all stages of his work, the ancient
Sculptor is supposed to have at once incised his outline upon the
smoothed surface of his stone and to have proceeded at once to
work inwards clearing away the material round about this out-
line. The difference between the two would thus be, that,
whereas the modern sculptor has as the standing plane the back-
ground of his relief which remains the same throughout, while
the material prescribes no limit as to the height of the relief;
the ancient sculptor had the utmost height of relief as the given
limit, which of necessity remained the same, while the back-
ground was not thus limited and varied in depth.
But the question must be asked, does this really characterise
the fundamental difference between the relief-work of modern
sculptors and those of ancient Hellas P. It implies that, in the
first place, the Greek sculptor did not follow the custom of the
modern artist in modelling in clay or wax before he worked in
stone; and, in the second place, that works in relief which implied
the principles of modern relief-work were not usual in antiquity.
Against this it must be urged that, though there is no direct and
definite statement to the effect that artists made models in clay
or plaster of the actual size of the marble work before the time of
Pasiteles' (about 80 B.C.), there is ample evidence to show that
modelling in clay was used as a preparation to sculpture, and it
is highly probable that the usual custom was to model at least a
sketch of the work in clay before executing it in marble. In the
* Plin. M. H. XXXV. 156. Laudat et Pasitelen, qui plasticen matrem caelaturae et
statuariae sculpturaeque dixit et, cum esset in omnibus his summus, nihilumquam fecit
antequam finxit.
IX.] school OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 295
time of Lysippus (the age of Alexander the Great) we hear of
the invention of Lysistratus of taking plaster casts from the
actual faces of men, and Pliny tells us that the practice of taking
casts grew to such an extent that no statues were made without
a previous clay model". The art of modelling in clay and of
making ornamented tiles goes back to the earliest times and is
more especially associated with the name of the Corinthian
Butades, and it was rightly felt by the ancients that this art
preceded the art of sculpture in stone or metal". The simple
fact that there could be no casting in bronze (an art which goes
back to Theodoros and Rhoikos) without some preliminary
model in wax or clay must show us how important actual
modelling (in the restricted sense of the term) was in the
establishment of all forms of plastic art.
Actually existing monuments show us how the principle of
adding on to a fixed background must have been prevalent in
antiquity. These are the well-known terra-cotta plaques with
the background stamped out, of the type of the “Melian” terra-
cottas, which were no doubt fixed as ornaments to a back-ground
of some other material, just as in works of the class of the
Chest of Kypselos the reliefs in the actual wood were varie-
gated with appliqué reliefs in ivory and gold. Nay even in
actual stone we have an instance (unheard of in modern times) of
attaching marble figures in relief to a background of different
stone, in the case of the frieze of the Erechtheion, of which
not only the fragments of the relief and the traces of the means
by which they were attached are extant, but even an inscription
enumerating the prices paid to the various artists for single
* M. H. XXXV. I53. Hominis autem imaginem gypso e facie ipsa primus omnium
expressit ceraque in eam formam gypsi infusa emendare instituit Lysistratus Sicyonius
frater Lysippi, de quo diximus. Hic et similitudines reddere instituit; ante eum quam
pulcherrimas facere studebant. Idem et designis effigies exprimere invenit, crevitgue
res in tantum ut nulla signa statuaeve sine argilla fierent.
* Plin. M. H. XXXIV. 35. Similitudines exprimendi quae prima fuerit origo, in ea
quam plasticen Graeci vocant dici convenientius erit; etenim prior quam statuaria
fuit. XXXV. 153. quo adparet antiquiorem hanc fuisse scientiam quam fundendi
aeris.
Urlichs, Chrestomathia Pliniana, p. 375, places this latter passage after “Italiae
traditam plasticen” in § 152. Perhaps this, together with the passage immediately
preceding it (ending “sine argilla fierent”), ought to follow “plastae appellati" at the
end of § 152.
296 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
figures making up this relief'. All these facts must be taken
into account before we admit Prof. Conze's definition of the
essential characteristics of Greek relief-work.
The difference of style in relief, Prof. Conze holds, is caused
by the difference of the material. The two principal materials
used by the ancients, he maintains, are metal and stone. In the
style of relief which these two materials produce they stand
opposed to one another; the metal repoussé relief elevating the
relief itself out of the ground, the stone relief causing the
elevation of the relief by the sinking of the background. The
relief in stone, moreover, presents us with the largest number of
monuments and may be said to typify Greek relief. Now, of
the various classes of reliefs in stone he singles out a class of
low reliefs, almost outline-incisions, typified by a fourth century
relief from the Peiraeus and now in a private collection at
Athens with the Inscription Glaukias and Eubule”. In this
class of reliefs he sees the young germ of all the later develop-
ment of Greek relief-style. It is the simplest process of the
relief en creaux reminding us, he holds, throughout of drawing
and painting as practised on early Greek vases. As in these the
outlines of the figures are carefully drawn or scratched, and the
ground round about them is filled in with the black patina, so in
the early reliefs this graphic method is applied in that the
outline is incised and the background round about is carried
away and sunk. Thus the chief characteristics of this style
of work which leads to all the later and higher developments are,
he believes, immediately taken from pictorial art.
The embryonic and early forms of Greek relief are held
to manifest the principles of drawing on the flat, which are those
of the simplest forms of pictorial art.
Against this I would urge that both historically and in-
trinsically there is much evidence pointing in an opposite
direction. The earliest form of relief in Greece does not, it
appears to me, coincide with this method of flat outline incision.
High reliefs with actual under-cutting or a tendency towards it
seem to me to be earlier, and to prevail equally with the class
of work which Prof. Conze supposes to contain the germs of
* See Schöne, Griechische Reliefs, &c. Leipzig, 1872, Plates I. to V., pp. 1, seq.
* Sitzungsberichte d. Akad d. Wissenschaft. zu Berlin, 1882, Plate IX.
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 297
the typical development of Greek relief-technique. The class,
like the individual instance he quotes, seems to me to form
a peculiar side-development of comparatively later times. They
illustrate what I should like to call the epigraphic style of relief,
inasmuch as this form of work appears most frequently on Small
reliefs surmounting inscriptions which were thus modified by the
habitual craft of the artist or artisan whose chief occupation
was the cutting of letters. We shall come across some instances
of this peculiar work in the course of this essay. Suffice it
to say, that the peculiarities considered by Prof. Conze to be
typical of the earliest Greek reliefs appear to me to be the
result of a more or less accidental branch of the main occupation
of Greek sculptors.
The pure relief en creux, I agree with him, is more imbued
with the spirit of the graphic than of the plastic arts. But to
find this we must turn to Egypt. The sunk, incuse, forms of
stone work we meet with on Egyptian sarcophagi are decidedly
inspired by the desire to make the most lasting form of picture-
writing in stone. In Greece, on the other hand, it appears to
me, the feeling for the round is the most manifest feature in all
the attempts at relief on the part of the early artist; as I also
believe that sculpture in the round preceded the other forms of
plastic art. And this is not only the case with such works,
almost in alto relievo, as the rude Boeotian monument of Dermis
and Kitilos from Tanagra"; but even in the well-known slabs of
very low relief, like the stele of Aristion at Athens. However
flat the relief, there is always an attempt at producing by means
of the modelling the actual appearance of roundness, and the
awkwardness of these earlier low reliefs is due to the unsuccessful
attempt at modifying the flat treatment so as to overcome the
traditions which sculpture in the round has fixed in the con-
structive imagination of the artist. This is especially so in any
cases where a side or profile view is given in relief. And the
technique which has been dominant in giving the characteristic
direction to the general impulse of the artist who attempts relief
is neither metal-work nor stone-work, but the older craft of
modelling in wax and clay which preceded the other forms of
sculpture, the mater caelaturae et statuariae. But this brings us
* Mittheilungen d, deutsch. Arch. Znstit. 1878. Pl. XIV.
298 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAs. [IX.
to the more general question of the relation which painting and
sculpture hold to the relief.
Prof. Conze rightly insists upon the close connexion between
painting and relief in early Greek art, and he reminds us of the
fact that in sepulchral reliefs the slabs are sometimes decorated
with relief, sometimes (as in works of the class of the Lyseas
stele) with painting, and often with both. He is no doubt right
in maintaining that in ancient Greece these two arts were never
So absolutely severed as they have become in modern times.
And I believe that he is also right in tracing a gradual growth of
a greater heed paid to principles chiefly pictorial as we proceed
from the fifth through the fourth to the third century before our
era. Yet I cannot agree with him in considering this modifica-
tion to be peculiar to the history of relief. It is a feature which
characterises the history of the whole of Greek art.
If we view the development of Greek art in the broadest
manner, contrasting Greek art as a whole with modern art as a
whole, I think all archaeologists, and Prof. Conze foremost
among them, will agree that Greek art is plastic or sculpturesque
in character, while modern art is more pictorial or picturesque
in character. And this plastic character will be manifest in
Greek paintings when they are contrasted with modern paintings,
as the picturesque character of modern sculpture becomes appa-
rent when it is compared with ancient sculpture. Yet within
this broadest characterisation of Greek art as plastic when taken
as a whole, we can mark various phases in which we notice com-
paratively a preponderance of the characteristics of some one art
even in works of another art. And so we can say that in the
works of archaic art, both in sculpture and in painting, there is
an architectural stiffness. In the great age of the fifth century
sculpture was most itself, and the pictorial works of a Polygnotos
were no doubt too much under the influence of sculpture to
manifest the freedom which belongs to painting as such. More
and more painting develops and its votaries gain fame and
prominence until, in the second half of the fourth century, it is
equally developed with sculpture and gradually makes its
preponderance felt in all forms of sculpture; so that in a group
of the school of Tralles, the famous Farnese Bull, we meet with
the endeavour to represent not only the acting figures, but even
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 299
marble rocks, the shepherd with his dog, and attempts at
indicating the landscape in which Dirke is punished by Amphion
and Zethos. But by this time the dramatic and sensational
element has already worked its way into sculpture, and, along
with the pictorial element, the groups and reliefs of the schools
of Pergamon and Rhodes display scenes replete with dramatic
action. -
It is thus not peculiarly characteristic of relief-sculpture that
it should have come under the influence of painting. However
much importance one may attribute to the constructive principle
in art, a close study of its history shows how the special arts
have always influenced and to some extent modified each other
without necessarily entailing a loss of the purity of their own
nature. When Pheidias realised that the monumental works of
sculpture were not all seen under the same conditions of lighting
nor from the same distance or point of view, he applied in the
treatment of the surfaces and the proportions of his works a
principle which is more essentially a fundamental principle of
the art of painting, namely, a modified form of perspective./
His studies and those of other sculptors may even have paved
the way for the more complete elaboration and practical applica-
tion of these principles to painting by Apollodoros and the
later painters. But this does not alter the fact that perspective
and all it implies is peculiarly a means required for pictorial
illusion, as it does not make the art of Pheidias pictorial in
character or essentially predisposed to develop into the direction
of painting. In relief the attempt at producing illusion corre-
sponding to pictorial perspective is greater even than in a
monument or a pedimental group seen at a great height and at a
distance ; still this does not necessarily lead to ‘pictorial’ reliefs
(that is, reliefs partaking more of the character of paintings
than of works of sculpture) as a normal and necessary develop-
ment of that art. In a very interesting treatise" it has recently
been shown how different the perspective of reliefs is from the
perspective of painting.
Though relief stands between sculpture and painting, the
fact remains that the material used is the same as in pure
1 Guido Hauck, Die Grenzen gºväschen Malerei und Plastik und die Gesetze des
Ateliefs, &c. Berlin, 1885. *
300 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
Sculpture, that it does attempt to give actual volume and not
merely the semblance of volume on a plane, and that light and
shade are not part of the artist's work as is the case in painting,
but are the influence of nature from without. The preponder-
ance will thus necessarily lie on the side of sculpture, and its
natural development will never lead it from its more or less
intermediate position into a more extensive resting upon the
foundations of pictorial art. The task for the true development
of Greek relief was, to make use of the greater freedom it
possessed over ornamental sculpture in the round, in representing
more continuous scenes with greater individuality of life, and to
apply the principles of perspective illusion so as to suggest
roundness by an incomplete elevation ; but at the same time to
maintain the principles of ornamental art in keeping with the
material used, and, if applied for decorative purposes, to combine
this with its share in adding to the harmonious effect of the
work or structure it served to decorate. These principles have
to some extent been laid down in the first two essays. •
It is to Pheidias that we owe the establishment of relief in
its normal development, and we can trace his direct influence in
this sphere in the extant works of Attic art that have come
down to us.
In the sense in which the word ‘school’ is applied to the
followers of Ageladas, Polykleitos or Lysippos, Pheidias cannot
be said to have formed a school. It is true he may have
greatly influenced the artistic development of Agorakritos and
perhaps also of Alkamenes; yet they cannot be considered the
representatives of his school as artists whose chief distinction it
was to have handed on the torch of a great personality in its
characteristic brilliancy, though reflected in a less powerful
agent. Yet it is this continuity of tradition and the reproduction
in all the later works of the chief characteristics of the master
which constitute a school in the full sense of the term.
In literature and art the greatest genius is the one whose
originality and individuality consist in the perfect health and
normal development of the creative power on all sides and in all)
its aspects. It is the chief mark of this highest genius that his
work is perfectly simple without being commonplace. His
Sº,
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 3OI
excellence and superiority really consist in the perfection of his
works on all sides from whatever aspect they are viewed, so that
no one quality stands out above the others and incites to imitation.
Such were Shakespeare and Goethe and Raphael and Beethoven.
When we descend one step lower to the genius, who, though
great, still belongs to the second order, we find that here a
certain extraordinary development of the one or the other
faculty constitutes his claim to genius and that the originality
approaches abnormality or even eccentricity and mannerism.
Such were Byron and Heine and Rembrandt and Schumann.
Those of the first order cannot be imitated or adequately
reproduced, because, to do this, one must needs be possessed of
all their greatness. It is the second order which is more likely
to find followers and to establish schools. The work of the
highest genius affects not only a few followers, but the whole
sphere of his activity: art or literature are affected by him for
all time, and each worker is more or less indebted to him, has
learnt from him, and, in so far, is his pupil.
Pheidias influenced the whole of Greek art that followed
him, and every subsequent artist, though he may have belonged
to some other school, was affected by him. But none could
boast of being the inheritor of those qualities which constituted
him the genius he was.
Still, we find that some one work of such a genius, in which
he has introduced a new and marked form, will find its special
admirers and imitators; and in such works we can perceive the
more direct and immediate traces of the master's influence.
This is still more the case with regard to the technical treatment,
especially when numbers of young artists have been gathered
round the master and have executed his designs, and when, from
the nature of the Surrounding circumstances, a marked and pecu-
liar handling was introduced, such as the relief-technique of the
Parthenon frieze. It is then that the master's style in definite
directions becomes more fixed and traditional. The traces of
the direct influence of Pheidias on his followers and on Attic art
of the period succeeding him are to be found most clearly in the
remains of Attic relief-work. It is here that Pheidias introduced
definite innovations, that circumstances led him to adopt a
peculiar mode of technical treatment, and that a large number of
3O2 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
assistants were trained in executing his designs. It is this
influence of Pheidias upon Attic art which we shall now trace,
and it is in this sense that we may use the term ‘school' as
applied to Attic artists succeeding him.
When we look more closely into the intimate relation which
some of the Attic sepulchral reliefs hold to the works of Pheidias
we must of necessity be astonished, that, though in special
instances similarities between such slabs and the reliefs of
- Pheidias have been referred to, the establishment of a general
relation has not been dwelt upon and accounted for; and that the
interesting series which the sepulchral monuments present has
not been systematically classified according to the main periods
in the development of Greek art. For if we simply cast a rapid
glance over the sequence of the works in relief in the various
periods, we are struck by the continuity of development which they
show. After the purely archaic and conventional reliefs there is
a series of interesting works which clearly mark the period of
transition from Archaic art to the full freedom of the art of
Pheidias. Such works are: the interesting Aristion Stele"; and
the two reliefs at Athens, the one representing a draped figure
mounting a chariot”, the other a small altar” decorated on the one
side by a ram carrying Hermes, on the other a graceful female
figure lifting her veil with her one hand. The two latter of these
reliefs have, with more or less weight of evidence, been attributed
to Kalamis, the immediate predecessor of Pheidias. In these
works the archaism is chiefly to be noticed in the traces of con-
ventionality in the treatment of the drapery, the folds of which
are still too regular and symmetrical to manifest the varied flow
of lines in the natural fall of drapery, while the artist has not yet
mastered the task of indicating the thorough response which the
drapery makes to the movements of the body that it covers.
These difficulties have been overcome in the class of works with
which we are concerned. -
That there is an intimate relation between the inferior works
of relief decoration and the works of Pheidias, not only his archi-
* Overbeck, Gesch. d. Gr. Alast, Vol. I. p. 150; Lucy M. Mitchell, A History of
Ancient Sculpture, p. 218.
* Overbeck, ibid. p. 153; L. M. Mitchell, ibid, p. 288.
* Overbeck, ibid. p. 219; L. M. Mitchell, ibid, p. 289.
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 303
tectural sculpture but even his great temple statues, has been
implied by archaeologists, who see in the figure of Athene on
many of the smaller Attic reliefs, votive offerings, or headings to
public proclamations, reproductions of the great Athene Parthe-
nos by Pheidias. Mention has been made of these in Essay VIII.
It is true these reliefs vary in style, and some of them belong to
a much later period than the age of Pheidias. But it is important
to bear in mind that it was customary to borrow types from
Pheidias and that, in whatever awe we may hold the art of
Pheidias, the ancients did not hesitate to attach to it even the .
most modest forms of art. I mention this to show that there is
nothing bold or venturesome in connecting the humbler remains
of Greek art with the school of its greatest master.
We have however among these works some" that can
definitely be fixed to the 5th century B.C. These are reliefs
surmounting public inscriptions similar to the one giving an
account of the treasury of the Parthenon” to which attention has
been drawn in Essay V. This account was made under the
archonship of Glaukippos (4Io B.C.) The series of these works is
continued so that about ten years later, under the archonship of
Laches (400 B.C.), and two years after that, under Euthykles
(398 B.C.), we have similar headings to inscriptions. In the
inscription in the Louvre we have the sacred olive in the centre,
on the one side Athene and on the other most probably the
representation of the Attic Demos. The action of the figures,
Athene pointing her lance at the olive while the Demos is
seizing hold of a branch, appears to me the ceremony for taking
a sacred vow. The other reliefs have similar representations.
~ *-*------ If we compare these reliefs and others of a kindred nature
among each other, we find that, though they differ in dimensions
and in the excellence of their execution, they all are of the same
character in composition and in the types of figures represented.
If we compare them with pre-Pheidiac reliefs, we perceive at a
glance that they have advanced far beyond these with regard to
1 Schöne (Griechische Reliefs &c.) enumerates eight such reliefs that belong to the
fifth century B.C. No. 59 (Pl. XI.) he considers cannot be placed later than the
Periclean age. According to the contents of the inscription, No. 5o (Pl. VIII.) is
placed by Köhler in the year 428, by Kirchhoff immediately after 424 B.C. --
* W. Froehner, Les Inscriptions Grecques du Musée Mat. du Zouvre. Paris,
1880, p. 9o.
3O4 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
conception and execution, in general character, attitude, modelling
of the nude and of the drapery. If furthermore we compare them
with reliefs succeeding the age of Pheidias, such as the frieze of
the temple of Apollo at Phigalia and the still later reliefs from the
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, we find that they differ essentially
from these in technique, and above all in the restful dignity of atti-
tude, the simple and quiet massing of folds and the run of lines.
If finally we compare them with the Parthenon frieze, the striking
correspondence becomes so evident that we need but place them
side by side to discover that of all Greek works the Parthenon
sculptures are those to whom they are most closely related.
The accompanying drawings will serve this purpose.
The figure representing the Demos on the inscription of the
Louvre (Fig. 13) is immediately composed out of the several
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FIG. 13. Head of an Inscription, 4 Io B.C. (Louvre.)
characteristics of the conversing magistrates on the eastern
frieze of the Parthenon, however inferior to them it may be in
execution. Take the attitude of No. 47 in Michaelis (Der
Parthenon, Plate XXXIV), three-quarters en face, the upper part of
the body undraped, the right hand extended, the peplos massed
in horizontal folds across the waist, the left leg bent and
dragging behind the right; see how No. 45 (Fig. I4), turned the




IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 3O5
other way, is leaning on his staff; and see finally how even the
FIG. I.4. Four Magistrates from the Eastern Frieze of the Parthenon.
end of the cloak is slung over the left shoulder in No. 43—and
it will be evident how dependent is this inferior relief from this
inscription upon the superior prototypes in the Parthenon frieze.
The same holds good if we compare the Demos on the relief
from the time of Euthykles (Fig. 15) with the group of the three
magistrates, 43, 44, and 45 (Fig. I4) from the same frieze—nay,
in Fig. 43 we have the same foldless surface indicating the
outlines of thigh and calf bounded by deep curved folds running
up the drapery at the ankle between the legs to the waist. The
figure of Athene on the inscription under the archonship of
Laches (400 B.C.)", though here in the end of her chiton hanging
down on either side we notice the first feeble introduction of an
absence of simplicity which characterises similar works of the
4th century, might in most respects be the figure of the Athene
from the Parthenon frieze after she has arisen from her seat, so
close is the correspondence between the two.
It is true these reliefs differ from the Parthenon frieze in
one point of the relief-technique peculiar to the Pheidiac relief.
Corresponding to the slightness and small dimensions of these
* Schöne, ibid. No. 54, Pl. X. '

W. 2O
306 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
headings, as well as from the fact of their calling for very
close inspection as surmounting an inscription, they are in very
low relief. The outline of the figures was evidently traced upon
FIG. I5. Heading of Inscription, 398 B.C. (Athens.)
the flat surface of the stone and thereupon incised; but, differing
from the Parthenon frieze, the ground was not worked away, so
as to leave a strongly marked perpendicular edge, but the
sculptor drove his chisel obliquely all round the figures, thus
gaining for them a limited depth from which they could to some
degree stand out. This peculiar modification of the technique
in instances of this kind is to be attributed to the peculiar class
of individual workers. The monument in question is not in the
first place a work of art, but a stone inscription recording a

IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS, 307
public proclamation. The inscription is the work and the relief
is an accessory appendage. That this was really viewed so by
the ancients is evident from the frequent notes in which the price
of erecting the proclamation is mentioned, the charge being made
only for the inscribing, whereas no mention is made of the carving.
The formula used is “for the inscription” (eis Tiju dvaypaſpijv').
The carver of letters who thus decorates his inscription is strongly
influenced by the peculiar technique of his chief vocation. Now
the incision of letters is always practised by oblique strokes with
the chisel, and thus a natural and habitual way of beginning to
work on this traced outline is for such a sculptor to cut in
obliquely as is here done, and not to work away from it in clear-
ing the whole of the plane which surrounds the figures. This
peculiar style I would call the Epigraphic style of relief-work,
and to this class belongs the relief of Glaukias and Eubule
published by Conze to which reference has been made above.
The peculiar technique of this relief is to be referred to these
circumstances, whereas we shall see that the other class of works
which we shall draw into consideration reproduce even the details
of Pheidiac workmanship.
I have begun with the reliefs surmounting inscriptions, not
because they were the first to suggest the close relationship to
Pheidiac art, but because, though they undoubtedly are depen-
dent upon them, they happen to be fixed in date.
Among the Attic sepulchral slabs there are specimens which,
decidedly not pre-Pheidiac, still point to an earlier date than the
relief of 4 Io B.C. which we have just examined. One of the
most interesting of these is a low relief slab, O'79 metres in
height by O'37 in width, of fine Pentelic marble, in the possession
of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey”. Though the
drapery of this relief manifests a freedom of treatment and a
richness of line which could only be given after the advance
made by Pheidias, there is in the composition and attitude of the
whole figure a certain severity, in part even awkwardness, as
well as a certain want of skill in the rendering of the face in
profile (especially with regard to the treatment of the eye), so
that this monument must be assigned to a date earlier than the
* See Schöne, ibid. p. 19.
* Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, Cambridge, 1884, p. 731, No. 1 oo.
2O—2
3O8 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
4th century, and even than the relief on the inscription fixed to
4IO B.C. If we omit the fact that this figure is clad in the
himation or over-garment, the simplicity of the attitude, the
measured dignified walk, remind us to a certain degree of the
Attic maidens walking in procession in the Parthenon frieze. The
relief-technique also is that of the Parthenon frieze: the edges
perpendicular to the background, the whole kept with evident
care at the same fixed depth. Nay, when it is found difficult to
produce the necessary depth of relief where the arm is pressed to
the waist in the centre of the figure, the sculptor sinks the whole
ground and produces his depth by working inwards, just as is
done in the case of the charioteer in the Southern frieze of the
Parthenon (Plate XI. slab XXX. in Michaelis' Der Parthenon),
where about the shield the relief is obtained by similarly
working into the ground. Though the innovations of the art of
Pheidias are thus to be noticed in this work, the spirit and
refinement of the master artist is not attained. The dignity and
repose of the walking maidens in the frieze here passes over into
severity and even awkwardness. Much nearer to these, though
still somewhat severe and devoid of the perfect freedom of
technical treatment, is a similar slab, of which I remember to
have seen a cast in the Museum at Berlin. Though the sculptor
of the Woburn slab has to some degree acquired the manipula-
tive treatment of the drapery of Pheidias, he has not acquired
the power of composition in giving a free attitude to the whole
figure and in modifying the parts of the body and their relation
in accordance with this peculiar attitude. Hence the clumsiness
with which the figure varies between profile and en face, the want
of drawing in the left arm, and in the attempt at indicating the
muffled right. So also, though in the head we notice some
reminiscence of the beautiful head of the Demeter (according to
Flasch) in the Eastern frieze of the Parthenon (see Fig. 9, No.
I2), the profile is managed so awkwardly, the eye is so much out
of drawing, the treatment of the head as a whole is so strikingly
out of proportion with the skill manifested in the technical treat-
ment of details such as the hair and folds of the drapery, that it
appears more like a caricature of the Demeter than like a copy or
a reminiscence of this work. I shall endeavour to account for
these discrepancies below.
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 309
We approach a great step nearer to the grace and delicacy
of the head of Demeter in the well-known relief bearing the
inscription Hegeso Proxeno’ (Fig. 16). The resemblance here
Fig. 16. Sepulchral Relief inscribed ‘Hegeso Proxeno’. Athens,

3IO . ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
is more than superficial. To begin with the head-dress, we find
this cap covering the knot of the hair at the back of the head
(opisthosphendone) on this relief found in Athens, on the
Parthenon frieze and on similar Attic works. There is every
reason to suppose that this was a fashionable head-dress in the
time to which the Parthenon frieze as well as the relief in
question belong. Dr Milchhoefer tells me that a head, doubtless
from an Attic sepulchral slab found at Athens and now in the
possession of the Conte Baracco at Rome, also possesses the
most striking correspondence to the head of the Demeter on the
Parthenon frieze. That there existed such well-marked fashions
in the head-dress of the ancients, especially with regard to
women, a study of Roman, late and even early Greek statues,
busts and paintings with this in view would immediately show.
But furthermore this intimate relation between Hegeso and
Demeter is carried out, not only in the general character of the
head, but also in the treatment of the details, such as, for
instance, the wavy line of the hair where it frees itself from its
cover, the line of nose and forehead, of chin and cheek, the
profile of the eye, and the straight line of the eyelid. If
further we compare the drapery of Hegeso with the drapery of
the Artemis seated among the gods on the other side of the
centre (Fig. 9, No. 5), we discover the most complete corre-
spondence, so great that it is physically impossible that the
artist of the one should not have seen and have been influenced
by the sculptor of the other. To begin with, the crease, or
rather the protruding angular fold of the drapery, just below the
neck, caused by the weight of the drapery held up on either
side of the shoulder, massing and bulging out at the unsupported
centre, is the same in both. This pleasant break of line was first
introduced by Pheidias, and is to be seen at the top of the thinner
under-garment in almost every one of his figures, whether of the
pediment or the frieze. It is indicated in a peculiar way in the
Athene of the frieze in profile, in the Artemis in three-quarter
view, in the Hera and in the figures of the pediment en face,
and in most of the sepulchral monuments that we shall consider.
Starting from this fold in the centre, with which we may begin
our comparison of the Hegeso with the Artemis of the frieze, if
we move from the right to the left shoulders of the figures we
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFs. 311
find that in both cases the peplos has been slung over the
shoulder, leaving the arm of the Artemis free while it covers
that of the Hegeso. There is a smooth and more or less foldless
space indicating the contours of the breast in both cases, and
below this follow the cross lines of the drapery, in many folds,
covering the lap and thigh. The bare right arm with upturned
hand rises above the right thigh, more extended in the case of
Hegeso, while it rises to the chin of Artemis. The treatment of
the folds of the drapery covering the thighs is on the same
System in both cases. In both cases we also have an end of the
over-garment hanging down over the side of the chair. The
legs below the knee of the Artemis are partly hidden by the
right leg of Apollo, yet in what remains visible we notice that
in the same way as in the case of Hegeso the drapery behind
the calf partly falls in straight folds down from the chair, while
the part immediately affected by the foot placed forward is in
greater tension and produces circular round folds passing from
under the knee round the back of the calf over the front of the
ankle. This class of folds is most clearly noticeable in the
Venice fragment (Plate V.). If now we turn to the figure
accompanying Hegeso, the servant offering to her a casket, we
notice how the action of this figure has immediately been taken
from the priest handing the peplos to the boy in the central slab
of the frieze (Plate XII.). Though the one be a bearded man,
the other a maiden, though there is less grace and movement in
the figure of the maiden than of the priest, still if we compare
the drapery of the one with the other we notice how the artist
of the sepulchral slab who wished to represent a figure handing
an object to another used, as a reminiscence, the figure perform-
ing the same action in the Parthenon frieze. We have here in
both cases the same large and smooth surfaces corresponding to
the peculiar class of drapery. The position of the right leg bent
inwards at the knee in the priest on the frieze is awkwardly
rendered in the servant on the slab. The creases thus produced
at the side of the knee and those running crosswise over the
ankle are reproduced from the frieze in a more clumsy manner.
If now we consult the epigraphist, we learn through G.
Curtius' that the forms of the letters, though they may point to
* Archaeolog. Zeitung, 1872, p. 19.
3I2. - ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
the beginning of the fourth century, may also lead us back to
the Peloponnesian war. We are bound to choose the alternative
which is in harmony with the internal evidence of the work
itself. The sculptor of the Hegeso relief when compared with
the sculptor of the slab at Woburn Abbey shows himself as an
artist of an essentially higher type ; he has much more of the
artist in him than the latter, who approaches more nearly the
class of artisans. Nevertheless, however admirable be the art of
the Hegeso relief the sculptor betrays himself in a few small points
as not being the full master of his art. This becomes evident,
not only if we compare the imperfections of the servant of the
slab with the perfect ease and natural attitude of the priest on
the frieze, but also if we compare the awkward pose and
execution of the right fore-arm and hand of Hegeso with the
natural pose and, so far as it is visible, the delicate execution of
the corresponding arm and hand in the Artemis of the frieze.
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FIG. 17. Sepulchral Relief of Myrtia Kephisia (Louvre).
One thing the works themselves, when placed side by side,
distinctly tell us, namely, that the sepulchral slab was imme-
diately composed out of elements contained in the Parthenon



IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFs. 313
frieze, or, that it was less consciously made up out of reminiscences
of Parthenon works lingering in the memory of the sculptor.
If we go still a step further in examining sepulchral slabs we
come to a sepulchral relief in the Louvre, No. 228, in the Salle de
(a Sculpture Grecque Primitive here reproduced (Fig. 17) from an
imperfect sketch taken from Fröhner". It was found at Athens
and given to the Museum by the Vice-Admiral Massieu du Cher-
val in 1850. It is O'96 m. in height by O'60 m. in width, and
is surmounted by a triangular space representing a pediment
containing the inscription, Mvptua: Kmºtorua. Kephisia is seated,
and her companion Myrtia is standing before her, probably
holding the burning lamp in her uplifted left hand. The relief-
technique of this slab with its strong straight edges is the same
as that of the Parthenon frieze, though the execution is of a
much ruder kind. The head, though turned the other way, is
very similar in character and in the arrangement of the hair, and
even in the treatment of the eye in profile, to that of the Louvre
plaque; while the manner in which the head rises out of the
drapery, together with the characteristic protruding fold in the
centre, and the treatment of the drapery as it covers the breast,
are strikingly similar in both cases. The motive of holding up a
part of the cloak, though here it is merely done from the
shoulder, is suggested by the Hera in the group of the Parthenon
frieze, as the female figure standing beside Kephisia seems
suggested by the Hebe standing beside Hera in the frieze.
If we proceed from low relief to high relief, we come upon
two slabs here reproduced in outline. The one (Fig. 18) is a
stele containing three figures: a seated female figure, whose
hand is clasped by a younger standing maiden, while behind the
seated figure is an upright bearded man resting his chin on his
left hand. The other (Fig. 19) is the famous life-size relief
containing a seated and an erect female figure, placed as it were
within a door-way, on the lintel of which are the inscriptions
Amaerpta and IIapºptAm. In the first of these two slabs, though
the relief is much higher than in the Parthenon frieze, we have
the same working of the edges and the same method of indicat-
ing the varied depth. There can be no doubt that both these
reliefs are the work of artists of some independence, who were
* Fröhner. Inscriptions Grecques du Zouzme. Paris, 1880, p. 290.
3I4. ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
not so immediately under the sway of the Pheidiac school, so
that they have introduced individual traits and sentiments into
their compositions. Still even here we notice a close relation to
the figures of the Parthenon frieze. So the general attitude and
FIG. 18. Sepulchral Slab, Athens.
movement of the standing maiden in the first relief (Fig. 18), as
well as the fall of drapery, reminds us strongly of the fully-draped
maidens forming part of the procession in the eastern frieze
and the maidens carrying chairs on the central slab (Fig. 9 B.);
while the head in its general outline, in the treatment of the
hair, in the modelling of the eye, corresponds in its profile to
the head of Athene in the Louvre plaque, and the skill with
which the three-quarter view is given approaches very closely to
the execution of the head of the Dionysos of the frieze (Fig. 9,
No. II). The head of the seated figure, whose hand the younger
maiden clasps, represents a less perfect and fresh type, and
indicates greater age, as the neck and breast are of more matronly
form. But here too we have the same type as in the Parthenon
frieze, the same treatment of folds, down to the peculiar crease

IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 315
at the top of the undergarment, though the ugly cross-fold
running from breast to breast is an unfortunate addition of the
sculptor of the slab. The bearded man standing in the back-
ground we immediately recognise as typically the same as the
magistrates of the frieze.
In the Demetria-Pamphile slab (Fig. 19) the artist seems
wavering between two styles, and not quite resolved whether to
introduce greater realism or not. So, while the seated figure is
purely ideal in the type of head, the head of the standing figure
is more fleshy and coarser in character. And while the treat-
ment of the hair of the seated figure is the same as that which we
* - 2 & 8
.*
pº. º.
º -
* —ſ
—º
1/
ºf 3 -
ſº º
º t º
i. ; :
ºf is
f
º
º
Tºd
{\º §
ſº º º
WAN §§
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*. º § - t
W º
2 : §1 E.---
| ze | -
S
}”-y *~-
FIG. 19. Sepulchral Relief, Demetria Pamphile, Athens.
meet with in the Parthenon frieze, the hair of the standing figure
manifests an entirely different system of small shell-like spirals,
which, if it were not for the perfection of the technique in the
rest of the figure as well as for a certain amount of irregularity
and boldness even in the hair itself, would lead us to see an
archaic constraint in the treatment of this hair; but as it is, it
appears to me rather to manifest an attempt on the part of the
sculptor to free himself from the system of modelling hair as in


316 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
the seated figure, and to try a new method of his own, which
would perhaps also tend to convey a difference existing in the
individuals whom he represented in the relief. We thus notice
a greater dependence upon Pheidiac work in the seated figure
than in the standing one. The head of this seated figure
corresponds completely to what the head of the Athene would
be if viewed from en face. Or rather, from the analogies of this
existing head and what remains of the head of Hera (Fig. 9,
No. 2), we should suppose that the correspondence between the
head of the Hera and that of Demetria would be very striking.
In other respects too the Demetria is closely related to the Hera.
The motive of folding her cloak which covers her head, the
turn of the figure from right to left which causes the left leg to
bend inwards, and the fall of the drapery as it covers the legs
and hangs down by the chair, manifest a similarity which
amounts to more than coincidence. Finally the chair, or rather
throne, upon which Demetria is seated is so similar to the throne
of Zeus seated beside the Hera that we cannot help attaching
some importance to this similarity. For there no doubt existed
fashion and local custom in chairs also, and to see what a chair
was like in a different country and a different age we need but
compare the throne of the archaic relief of Zeus at Ince Blundell
Hall, which probably came from Asia Minor". But when the
correspondence is so great as in this case, so that we not only
have the peculiar kind of leg common to the chairs of the
Parthenon frieze, but even have the sphinx supporting the arm,
just as in the throne of Zeus, we must consider this to be more
than a mere coincidence. It appears to me that we must see in
the sculptor of this sepulchral slab an artist of some power and
independence, who, though still on the whole under the influence
of Pheidias, is beginning to manifest some independence, and the
transition to a different phase of art in the fourth century.
I might continue to examine, describe, and compare Ill! Iſle1 OUIS
monuments of this description (such as the Monument of Dexi-
leos” the date of which is fixed to 394 B.C., and the votive offer-
ings to Asklepios, some of which F. von Duhn has compared to
* See Arch. Anzeiger, 1864, Pl. A. III.; Arch. Zeit. 1873, Pl. V.
* Wescher, Rezue Archéologique, Paris, 1863, p. 354.
* Mittheil, d. Arch. Znst. Athen, 1877, pp. 215 seq.
IX.] school OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 317
the Parthenon reliefs), which would all tend to confirm the chief
conclusion to which we have been led. Yet I believe that the
selection of these few typical instances will suffice to illustrate
the drift of my argument, especially as it is not my intention to
classify the whole number of sepulchral reliefs, but merely to
point out a decided relation which exists between the artistic and
technical character of a certain number of these reliefs and the
reliefs of the Parthenon frieze. The result of the comparison, so
far as we have gone, is to lead us to conclude that the artists of
the reliefs under consideration were immediately influenced by
the works which we attribute to Pheidias, and that their relation
to the sculptor of the Parthenon frieze is a real one, whether we
call them his followers, or consider them to have formed his
school, or hold them to be individual workers strongly influenced
by the art of the great master.
The question further arises: how immediate was the relation
of these artists to the person of the master himself? Or, in other
words, does the date of their activity admit of our considering
them to have lived in his time Or may we assume that the
tradition of his school lasted for several generations? Let us put
a possible case into exact figures: an apprentice Seventeen or
eighteen years of age works under Pheidias before his death, say
about 431 B.C. In the year 400 he would be about forty-nine
years of age, and for the next twenty years he may work in full
vigour (though many an ancient Sculptor still produced great
works in his eightieth year). This brings us well into the first
half of the fourth century, about 480 B.C., say the age of the
sculptor Kephisodotos the elder, the father of Praxiteles. Now,
in the relief heading the inscription, an inferior class of work,
we have the fixed date 410 B.C., and we have sepulchral reliefs
decidedly earlier than this; nay, from the fact that the sculptors
of these sepulchral slabs were so far superior in artistic power to
the sculptors decorating the inscription, we have reason to believe
that most of the reliefs were earlier than the actually dated
inscription, especially when we have such perfection of workman-
ship in the Parthenon sculptures themselves.
A possibility which may be advanced against this proposition
is, that sculptors may for many generations after Pheidias have
reproduced the technique and spirit of the Parthenon frieze
3.18 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
without being in any way connected with the school of Pheidias.
To this I would answer: that, in the first place, it is quite
contrary to the traditions which we notice in the history of
Greek art that one school should continue unchanged in the
same place after a great new school has established itself there.
Secondly, I hold it to be almost physically impossible for a
sculptor belonging to an age so essentially different in character
as was the age succeeding the Peloponnesian war as compared
with the age of Pericles, to reproduce in his works the spirit of the
art of Pheidias. And finally, our own view is borne out when we
consider the whole series of those Attic sepulchral slabs among
each other. We then notice in a number containing nude
youths resting opposite to bearded draped figures not only the
style and technique of the art of a Praxiteles, not only the
introduction of greater sentimentality into the action and pose, but
even the type of youth that we have learnt to know in the
famous Hermes of Olympia. We further have, in an advancing
warrior with helmet and armour and flying drapery, whose eyes
have that peculiar upward look, the style of a Skopas. And we
finally notice that this series reaches all the way down to the
clearly Roman instances, such as a relief with figures standing
within a piece of distinctly Roman architecture, the erect and
seated men being well-known portrait types of Romans. We
are thus forced to consider those sepulchral slabs which show
such evident similarity to the spirit and work of the Parthenon
frieze as being immediately influenced by the art of Pheidias.
Having, through the comparison of these sepulchral reliefs
with the works which we know to have been immediately inspired
by Pheidias, been led to the conclusion that these Attic sepul-
chral slabs are the works of what we may be allowed to call
the school of Pheidias, let us examine the conditions that existed
during this period, so far as we apprehend them from other sources
not immediately contained in the works themselves, and see
whether they speak in favour of or against our conclusions. Look-
ing at the literary and historical records concerning that period
of the history of Athens let us recall to life the artistic activity
of the age of Pheidias and the period immediately succeeding
his death. We may say that these conditions of actual artistic
life of the time will not only speak in favour of our conclusions
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFs. 319
with regard to the sculptors of these Attic sepulchral reliefs, but
would of their own accord even lead us to expect works of a
similar description.
If we read over the account which authors like Plutarch give
of the artistic activity at Athens during the age of Pericles, we
have before our eye a picture of skilled workmen and artists of
all crafts working in all kinds of material, streaming to this
great centre from all parts, and carrying out the designs of
Pheidias. In an incredibly short period of time numerous huge
edifices and temples, containing the elaborate works of sculpture
in the temple statues, were erected. Surpassing all others in
beauty and the wealth of its decorations was the Parthenon,
and among the decorations of this temple the frieze, running
round the four sides of the naos, was filled with the varied
designs of Pheidias, with the composition full of a new artistic
life both in the grouping and the pose and modelling of each
single figure ; and all in a new method of relief work, the
innovations of Pheidias in the technique of this form of decora-
tion. The assistants, who were charged with executing in marble
with the exactness prescribed by the technical conditions the
designs of this great composition, no doubt varied very much in
age, in their previous training, and with regard to the freshness
with which they met the peculiar tasks set them by the master.
As has been previously pointed out by writers on this subject,
the frieze itself, however great on the whole be its unity of
conception and execution, bears traces of the difference of the
hands that worked the various parts. Among these assistants,
or marble-workers, some no doubt were older men, who had
previous to their employment under Pheidias been under the
influence of other schools and masters, while it is most likely that
the greater number would either be devoid of any style of their
own or would be at once trained under the guidance of Pheidias.
Yet all thus employed at these works would be strongly
influenced by the character of the art and the technical manipu-
lation applied, and from sheer force of habit, to say no more,
would more or less adopt the methods of working which they
followed for so long a period. -
With great suddenness, stroke upon stroke, follows the
dissolution of this great organisation of artistic production.
32O ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
Pheidias is banished ; soon after the Peloponnesian war begins;
the pestilence rages in Attica; Pericles himself dies leaving
the public treasury exhausted. What is the necessary result 2
The great public works are either suspended, or at least no new
ones are begun. Now what in all countries and times will
become of these hundreds of assistants or marble-workers under
such circumstances Not finding employment in the great
public works, they will seek for employment elsewhere, even in
the humbler forms of private commissions. One form of work
that to a certain extent existed before, and for which the demand
readily exists or may readily be increased by an easy supply,
offers itself to the workers in marble relief. It is the decoration
of graves by means of sepulchral slabs. And thus it is that during
this time the relief slab becomes more and more common, and
gradually increases in size and in wealth of decoration.
Now what will such an assistant or marble-worker, who has
been occupied in executing designs such as the frieze of the
Parthenon, do when he is ordered by some wealthy Athenian to
fashion a relief slab to ornament the grave of one of his departed
relations 2 He is not a first-class artist, not possessed of great
inventive powers to create original compositions; on the other
hand his eye and hand have become thoroughly familiar, have
almost made their own the designs at which he had been
working under Pheidias. He will thus, more or less consciously,
by an act of volition or driven by instinct and habit, select some
of the figures or parts of the figures, or their attitudes, or the
treatment of their drapery or their hair, out of this frieze, and,
adhering more or less closely to the technique which he has
followed, he will make of them a new work similar in character
though of humbler form, and necessarily of inferior quality, to
the works in the execution of which he was trained. *
When left to himself, even for the choice of the elements
which he is to combine, this sculptor, half artist, half artisan,
will fall back into his previous or native idiosyncrasies and
imperfections, and thus in a work like the Woburn Abbey slab
the artist has failed in the drawing and composition of his
figure and has relapsed into a more archaic style of work in the
head of his figure; as in a very few instances we notice such a
relapse in details of the Parthenon frieze, and more especially in
IX.] SCHOOL OF PHEIDIAS–ATTIC SEPULCHRAL RELIEFS. 32 I
the Metopes. Thus too the artist of the Hegeso relief failed in
the drawing and modelling of the hand, thus too the Louvre
slab is coarser in the general modelling, and thus the sculptor
of the Demetria-Pamphile slab labours in the attempt at making
a first step towards some emancipation from that school.
So, if we consider and translate into terms of human life, the
actual events and social and political conditions of this period of
Greek history, we are led towards conclusions with regard to
the sculptors of these Attic sepulchral slabs to which the monu-
ments themselves so clearly point, and I may here repeat what
has been said once before: that, because the similarity of the
human mind as it is affected by its surroundings in various ages,
shows that men and their actions were affected by surrounding
circumstances in remote antiquity very much as they are in our
very modern times, we need not therefore assume that con-
clusions which point to and confirm such similarity are in so far
the less founded upon fact.
These sepulchral slabs, it may finally be stated, were not
without some immediate influence upon the general development
of the history of Greek art, in strengthening and accelerating a
tendency which we discover in the art succeeding Pheidias.
After Pheidias we notice how Greek sculpture more and more
descends from idealism towards realism, from the great con-
ception of gods to their smaller and more human aspects, from
the sublime and grand to the lovely and pleasing, from the life
of Olympos to the life of man's earth.
I am not only referring to the introduction of the actual
portrait statue in the time of Lysippos, and still less to the
realism of the schools of Pergamon and Rhodes, and of the
Roman portrait; but I mean the noticeable step from the art of
Pheidias to that of the younger Attic school in Skopas and
Praxiteles. It is the step from the Zeus of Olympia, evoking
reverence, to the graceful boy Apollo, towards whom we almost
feel protective tenderness, from the severity of the Virgin Athene
to the pathos of a Niobe and the passion of the Maenad. It is
the great step from religious art towards human, not to say
domestic, art. There can be no doubt that the sepulchral
monuments, referring on the one hand to that which succeeds
life and transcends it, to that which is most solemn and free
W. - 2 I
322 ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS. [IX.
from the actual small desires and disturbances of worldly life,
namely, death, partake in so far of a religious character; while,
on the other hand, they immediately relate to those who have
been with us in the flesh and are our equals, men as we are, and
thus represent scenes of actual life. There can be no doubt
that this class of works of sculpture bridged over the step from
the art of the fifth to the art of the fourth century, that they
were a stepping-stone from the divine and religious sculpture
to the sculpture that partook of a more human character, from
the art of Pheidias to the art of Praxiteles.
-
- - - - -
- - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
-
-
PLATE W, THE CHOSEUL-CQUFFER PUCLSI,


APPENDIX.
NO. I.
PYTHAGORAS OF RFHEGION AND THE EARLY
ATHLETE STATUES.
FIRST ARTICLE.
[Reprinted from the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. I. (1880), pp. 168—201.]
I.
THE earliest works of Greek art manifest the inability of the artist
to express all he desired by the inherent character of his work. The
most striking characteristic of Greek art, and a trait which runs through
the whole character of the ancient Greek race, is the simplicity with
which it attains its great effects, the perfect harmony which obtains
between the desire and conception and the realisation and execution.
But it is only in the highest stage that we meet with this power: the
genius of Pheidias is characterised by the perfect harmony that subsists
between the idea and its realisation. Full proficiency in the technical
handling of the material must precede the facile expression of inner
conceptions by means of material form; and the study of the history of
archaic art is the study of the struggle of the artistic spirit with the
reluctant material and its final victory over it. ºf
But the desire to give individual character to their statues was felt
by the artists, though they had not the power to put it into the essential
form of the work itself. This desire found an outlet in expression by
means of more accidental and attributive characteristics. The gods,
such as Hermes, Apollo, and Zeus, were characterised by means of
their distinctive attributes. The conventional and typical form of a
male figure, with the feet, one before the other, and firmly planted
in parallel lines, the arms pressed close to the body down to the elbow,
received on the extended hand a thunderbolt or a sceptre to indicate
Zeus, a bow or a deer to indicate Apollo, a caduceus to personify
Hermes. We also meet with an Apollo with a lamb or a Hermes with a
§
2I–2
324 APPENDIX. [I.
ram, while there is no markedly distinct feature in the personal appear-
ance of either. The same applies to the archaic representations of
Hera, Athene, or Artemis. Grace and beauty are not expressed in the
essential form of a female figure, but in mere outward actions and
positions, such as the light suspension of a part of the garment in one
hand, or the holding of a blossom'. The position of both hands in the
earliest Aphrodite type, which reminds us strongly of the Oriental
Astarte, was symbolic of fertility, and had not the moral significance
which a similar attitude has in the Aphrodite of Knidos, and still less
the morbid self-consciousness expressed by the same attitude in the
Venus de’ Medici.
But not only did they fail in indicating the individual character of
gods and their moral qualities by means of the bodily forms, but in the
earliest stages we even find that the artists were incapable of indicating
in the statues themselves the difference between the human and the
divine. This difficulty arose especially in drawing distinctive lines
between gods and athletes in statues. For besides the decorative,
architectural figures, we meet with no single statues besides those of
athletes in the archaic period. And the difficulty became most apparent
in dealing with a youthful male figure like Apollo. The statue of the
pancratiast Arrhachion in the market-place of Phigalia is described by
Pausanias” in a manner which makes him correspond exactly to works
like the existing statues of the Apollo of Tenea, Orchomenos, and
Thera. Apollo, in these early stages, has all the unadorned dryness of
a simple ephebe. He is the type of a youth. A later stage will
accentuate strength and muscular development on the one hand, to
indicate the athletic character of a human youth, and a more luxurious,
comely, physical constitution, fuller and softer forms, on the other hand,
to represent the god of male beauty. I do not mean to imply that
early Greek art will ever represent an Apollo in the luxurious, effeminate
softness which pleased the taste and corresponded to the spirit of the
age of decadence; but I simply mean that the incipient expressive
power in art will manifest itself in drawing the broad line between
strength and richness of form. And the manifestation of this power we
do meet with in one earliest instance of statuary, namely, the small
* A question well worthy of special investigation is, whether, as I am inclined
to believe, the frequent endowment of a female figure with a blossom, a fruit, or
a flower, as we have it on so-called “Spes’ figures and on reliefs, does not simply
point to an attempt to express the subjective nature of the figure bearing them,
maidenly, womanly charm, &c., and that it has no further mythological or mystical
significance as is generally assumed.
* Arcadica, VIII. ch. 4o.
I.] - APPENDIX. 325
bronze of an Apollo from Miletus in the British Museum, generally
assumed to be a replica of the Apollo by the sculptor Kanachos of
Sikyon. The exact date of this work is a matter of discussion"; we
may however fairly assume that the Apollo of Miletus falls shortly
before or after the 71st Olympiad (493 B. c.). However imperfect the
rendering of the original statue may be in so small a replica, and
however little adapted, therefore, as a criterion for the details of style,
still we cannot help recognising a certain power of giving softer human
forms which are clearly opposed to the dryness of the athletic forms.
There is no reason to believe that the artistic movement receded, and
that the expressive power was smaller after Kanachos than before ; the
Aeginetan marbles would immediately dispel such an assumption. On
the contrary we must assume, that after Kanachos the power to distin-
guish an Apollo from an athlete grew, and that a statue which in style
and technique belongs to a period subsequent to Kamachos is not an Apollo
if the bodily forms markedly bear the characteristics of the athletic youth.
Even before the times of Kanachos, however, the artists had means
of expressing the difference between the god and the athlete in their
works, yet in a less essential but a more accessory manner, namely, in
the difference of head-dress. A thorough investigation of the question
of ancient Greek head-dress which combines the literary and monumen-
tal evidence is as yet wanting; and as the following considerations are
merely part of a series which prove the importance of elucidating this
question, we must devote some space to it.
We are accustomed invariably to associate short hair with athletes,
and archaeologists have been up to the present day predisposed to
ignore the athletic character of a statue if it did not have short hair.
But it is quite impossible that athletes should have been represented
with short hair till after the Persian wars. Before this period and for a
good while after, the agonistic games and the exercises in the palaestra
were an important part of the training of Greek youths. Originally,
they were an institution with a fixed social and political aim. They
were a means to produce strong and skilled citizens. More and more
this institution, which was originally a means to some further end,
asserted its independence until finally it became the end to which the
whole personal existence became a means. In modern terms this
signifies that the young Greeks were ‘gentlemen athletes,' who indulged
in exercise to heighten their bodily proficiency, but that, more and
* Brunn, Sitzungsberichte der Ágl. bayr. Akademie, 1871, p. 518 seq. , Urlichs,
Abhandl. iib. d. Anfänge d, griech. Kilmstlergeschichte, Würzburg, 1872; M. Fränkel,
Arch. Zeit., 1879, p. 9o.
326 APPENDIX. [I.
more, sports became an end in themselves, until athletic exercise
became a profession, and all the time, the exertion and aspirations
of an individual became subservient to this acquisition. A similar
tendency may be noticed in modern times.
We know that the kapnkopóovres Axalot took great pride in their
long and thick hair, and it was not only the case in the heroic age, that
short or thin hair was considered ungainly. So the ugly Thersites is
described pečv) 8 &tevijvoffe AdXwm. Even in the historic age the same
tradition survived. Only the slaves were kekoppévot and were not
allowed to wear long hair". Long hair prevailed throughout the whole
of Greece. In Sparta Lycurgus fixed the custom by law”; the Spartans
not only considered long hair ornamental, but also useful, and devoted
great care to its preservation and adornment"; before the battle they
combed and braided their hair". In Attica, and especially at Athens,
long hair was also worn, and after the time of the Alkmaeonidae specially
luxurious and ornamental forms of head-dress, such as the KpoſłóAos,
seem to have come into fashion". .
Now it is evident that the free-born Greek youth was unwilling to
Sacrifice his long hair, in which he took such pride, to avoid inconveni-
ence during his exercises in the palaestra, or on every occasion that
he took part in one of the national games. On the other hand, though
long hair must have been a great impediment in many of the daily
exercises, and especially in the palaestra, we can still conceive of its being
less troublesome in some of the lighter games of the pentathlon, such
as running, jumping, throwing the discus or the spear. But in wrestling,
boxing, and in the pancration" (a combination of the two), the trouble
caused by long hair must have been too great. They were driven,
therefore, to have recourse to such a disposal of their hair as would
render it least in their way; this would consist in braiding the hair into
two long plaits, and in compactly laying these two braids round the
back of the head, along each side, and firmly tying them in front on the
top. This is a simple means of disposing of long hair, which we must
assume to have been adopted as the most practical.
* Aristoph. Az. 1, 911. -
* Xenophon, ZXe Republ. A.ac. c. xi. § 3 ; cf. J. H. Krause, Pločina, od. ziber die
Aostiime des Haupthaares bei den Völéern der alten Welz, Leipzig, 1858. Abschn.
III. * yº.
* Plutarch, Apophthegm. reg, et, imperat. T. i. p. 754; Zacon. Apophthegm. p. 917;
Lycurg. c. 22.
* Herodotus, VII. c. 208. * Thucydides, I, 6.
* Special mention is even made of a peculiar head-dress of the pancratiasts, cf.
Krause, Hellenica, Z. Gymnastić zund Agoniszić der Griechen, &c., p. 54.
I.] APPENDIX. 327
The need for such contrivances was done away with after the
Persian wars. The ancient customs were altered ; only children re-
tained their long hair, while so soon as they became ephebes, in a
Solemn act their hair was cut off to the length which we notice in the
youths on the Parthenon frieze. The feast connected with this act was
called oivuorſpa'. The hair thus cut off was dedicated to one of the gods
or a river-god", and frequently they made a pilgrimage to Delphi to
dedicate it to the Pythian Apollo". This change in custom may have
been brought about by the reformation in general customs which
developed the hardy, warlike spirit of the Greeks, who had learnt the
value of strong soldiers, through the struggle with the Persians; and
this spirit again may have led to a renewed cultivation and accentuation
of athletic sports to serve the common need.
According to the literary sources, therefore, we are led not to expect
short-haired athletes till some time after the Persian wars (for the new
fashion would not have transfused art until the old association had died
out, and the eye of the public had grown accustomed to the innovation);
and with works belonging to epochs previous to the Persian wars we
shall expect to find long-haired athletes.
The monumental evidence corresponds exactly to the literary tradi-
tions which we have just examined. Of the numerous athlete statues
which have been recognised as such, not one has been identified as
belonging to an earlier date than the Discobolos of Myron. Of this
statue there are numerous replicas. But if works have come down to
us by later artists and by the famous sculptor Myron, why should no
work have survived of one of the earlier artists who were also famous,
and of one of whom (Pythagoras of Rhegion) we know that he gained a
victory over Myron, his younger contemporary, with an athlete statue"?
And if furthermore we take into account that, as has been mentioned
above, the only single statues besides architectural groups and gods
were athlete statues, and if we but glance into Pausanias and see how
enormous was the proportion of statues commemorative of agonistic
victories to the number of other works of art, our astonishment will
rise to a doubt, whether it is not merely through some oversight or
prejudice that archaeologists have hitherto failed to recognise athletes in
* Hesych. T. II. p. 730; Pollux, VI. 22, Eupolis ap. Photium, Lexic. p. 321 ;
Eustath. II. XII. 311, p. 967, 18; cf. Krause, ibid, p. 76.
2 Aeschyl. Choeph. 6, Paus. I. 37, 2 ; Diphilos, troXvirpayu. I. 6 (Comic. Graec.
Fragm. ed. Meineke, t. 4, p. 4o?); Zio Chrysost. xxxv, p. 67. -
* Dio Chrysostom, l.c. -
4 : Pancratiaste Delphis posito, eodem vicit (Myronem).’––Plin. Mat. Hist. XXXIV.
59.
328 APPENDIX. [I.
many statues belonging to the archaic period of Greek art. And so it is,
The reason why such statues have not yet been identified among the
works belonging to pre-Pheidiac art is simply that the head-dress of the
Myronian Discobolos and of all later works has more or less consciously
Served as a criterion for the athletic character of a work.
The Attic sculptor Myron falls exactly into that period in which we
should naturally suppose that the new Athenian fashion had transfused
art, and his personal character as it manifests itself through his works
Was exactly of the stamp to delight in introducing an innovation. After
Myron we may always expect short hair with athletes, before Myron we
may expect long hair. But, as I have said, archaeologists have never
looked for athletes in pre-Myronic works, and so it has come to pass
that a certain type of head with the hair disposed in two braids wound
round and fastened on the top, has crept into literature as a type of an
Apollo. Now I have only found two cases in which this head-dress
undoubtedly belongs to a god. The one instance is the youthful Apollo
on a relief in the Capitol', an instance first noticed by Conze; and the
other is a Hermes on a coin from Aenos”. Yet in the first case we
have the youthful Apollo in an assembly of gods at home as it were, and
he is then no longer the god, but the ephebe beside Zeus. The artist
did well to distinguish him by this means from the other gods who
have long hair. In the second instance, Hermes wears the petasos,
and this sufficiently indicates the god Hermes; while the very petasos
shows that he is in action, and there he impresses the human, working
side of his person, and then he properly arranges his hair to suit his
swift vocation. In both these cases the gods are conceived in their
most human aspect, while the environment in the one case and the
petasos in the other indicate their character with sufficient clearness. In
all other cases the god Apollo is distinguished from statues of human
beings by the ornamental treatment of his hair. He has long curls. So
in the above-mentioned Apollo of Kanachos, in the similar marble head
in the British Museum", on the numerous vase pictures and reliefs”,
representing the contest between Apollo and Heracles for the Delphic
* Conze, Beiträge zur Geschächte der griechischem Plastić, p. 15 ; Braun, Vorschule
der Kunstmythologie, taf. 5; Kekulé, Bullettino dell’Inst. di Corresp. arch., 1866, p. 71.
* Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler d. alten Kunst, II. Pl. 28, 302.
* Overbeck, Geschichte der Griech. Plastić, Vol. I. p. 109; Müller-Wieseler,
Alemámäler, &c., I. Pl. xv. 61 ; cf. Millin, Aierres gravčes, P.I. 6.
* Though many of these representations may not be genuinely archaic, but later
imitations of the archaic, what is called archaistic, this does not affect their importance,
as the imitator had the archaic before him. I shall deal with this question at greater
length in the course of our inquiry.
I.] APPENDIX. 329
tripos; so also in the Eidolon of Apollo on a bas-relief representing a
‘fatto di Paride'.’ Frequently, especially when in action, Apollo wears
the braid twisted round his head, but this dry and “every-day’ appear-
ance is always mitigated either by a curl”, however short, or by a swell-
ing mass of hair on the back of the head", a compromise between short
and long hair which counteracts the compactness which we consider
characteristic of early athlete figures. Even in later art Apollo retains
his long hair, which varies in its arrangement with the fashions of differ-
ent places. But unless a fashion in head-dress, like that of the Apollo
Belvedere, prevail, or unless he is represented as a boy, as in the Apollo
Sauroktonos, the long curl generally remains his characteristic. It is
Hermes, if any god, who in later times partakes more and more of the
athlete type, even in the arrangement of the hair; but this is not earlier
than the age of Praxiteles".
On the other hand, though we notice that while on festive occasions
(as may be seen on archaic vase representations) and in solemn
moments (as on the archaic Peloponnesian sepulchral stele)", men wear
their hair long; yet in moments of physical exertion or moments
preceding it, in warlike contests, and especially in athletic sports, the
braid wound round the head prevails". Athletes on black-figured vases,
and even on the red-figured of the severer order, all have this head-
dress, though the technical execution in indicating the details of the
hair does not belong to the earliest vase-painters, and is not added by
those who in later times imitated the conventionally archaic. The
drawings are merely in outline, and the braid is generally indicated in
* Guattani, Monumenti antichi imediti, Roma, 1784–5.
* Archaic silver coins of Leontini, z. laureate, hair short over forehead in formal
curls over temple, plaited behind, with long curls falling behind the ear. The curl is
to be noticed in coins even of later type. In the one belonging to the best period the
curl is very short. Catal. coins in British Museum. Sicily.
* Lenormant and De Witte, Elite Ceramographique, II. Pl. 57, 55, 5. A marble
head recently found in Rome represents the type of an Apollo with the braid, but
there is something soft and luxurious in the rest of the hair, and he has a curl on the
side.
* On the François vase all the gods have long hair.
* Dressel and Milchhoefer, Mitth. d, deutsch. arch. Instituts in Athen, ZI., p. 301,
seq., Taf. 20 & 24; also Milchhoefer III. p. 163; Overbeck, G. d. Gr. Pl. I. p. 83, 84,
85.
* I have found one instance, in a small bronze in the British Museum, in which a
youth is represented with long hair, like the Apollo of Tenea, holding a discus in his
hand. In the lighter sports there may not have been the need of the typically athletic
arrangement of hair. This would even tend to throw some doubt upon the “Apollo
character’ of another group of archaic statues.
33O APPENDIX. [I.
the outline by an elevation in the back, or on the top of the head.
There are, however, many instances in which the typical head-dress is
clearly given. The finest instance of this is the Achilles with Briseis
on the beautiful vase in the Vatican published by Gerhard'. Achilles
stands in armour without his helmet, the type of a strong youth, while
the artistic style of the work leads us to a period shortly before
Pheidias. We notice the same in an Achilles on another vase, ‘Ira di
Achille”,” formerly in the Campana collection, and now at Paris.
There is also a young man with arms, about to take leave of his father;
painted by the vase paintér Duris”. The same occurs also on an Athenian
Lekythos, published by De Witte‘, on a vase picture published by
Panofka", on several others published by Gerhard", and on many others.
In marble we meet with this mode of wearing the hair in the
pedimental statues from the temple of Athene of Aegina. Most of the
warriors wear helmets, but even then we can perceive this arrangement,
and it is especially clear in the forward-striding nude figure without a
helmet from the western pediment. The two figures on either corner
of the pediments, it is true, have long hair, but then they are wounded
and dying, and by their action, as well as their position, are literally
hors de combat. Artistic reasons, such as variety and harmony in the
relaxed lines of the figures, must also have prompted the sculptor to
make this change. We have mentioned before that earlier Greek art
did not represent single statues of warriors, and that we only meet with
groups. The only single statues are gods and athletes. Were the
early artist to render a warrior in a single statue, he would always
represent him armed and with his helmet. In active combat the
warrior is an armed and seriously aggressive athlete, and no doubt the
sculptor studied in the palaestra the attitudes he rendered in his group.
Besides the numerous vase pictures which represent athletes with
the braid, so numerous that it is needless to attempt at enumerating
them, we also find a similar head-dress on a gem representing an
athlete". But what is most conclusive is the evidence afforded by
statues. In the Palazzo dei Conservatori there is a mutilated marble
I See Auserwählte Pasenbilder, III. Tf. 184, and the same, reproduced in the
original issue of this paper, in the journal of Æellenic Studies, Vol. I., Pl. vi.
2 Monumenti dell' Instit. di corr, arch. Vol. VI. tav. 19, also on tav. 20; E. Braun,
Annali dell’Anst. 1858, pp. 374-383.
* Mon. Vol. VIII. tav. 41 ; Roulez, Annali, 1867, pp. 157, &c.
* Gazette archéologique, 1867, p. 141, Pl. 34. -
* Vasenöilder, Taf. i. 1. * Trinkschalen und Gefässe, Taf. 13, 14, 15.
7 Visconti, I. p. 276, and Pl, A. Iv. 7; Winckelmann, Mon. ant, inedit. No. 106;
Gemme Stockmar. p. 348.
I.] APPENDIX. 33 I
figure with braided hair, with legs drawn up, and what remains of the arms
extended, so that this figure evidently represents a charioteer. This in-
stance still admits of debate, but not so two bronzes from the numismatic
cabinet in Vienna'. Here we have a figure with a discus, undoubtedly
an athlete, and with the head-dress most clearly indicated. Besides
these two bronzes I found several others corresponding exactly to them
in the bronze room of the British Museum. A similar discobolos is
also published by E. Braun”. Single heads of this type occur very
frequently: the Neapolitan bronze head, a marble head in the Sala
Chiaramonti of the Vatican Museum, another in the British Museum
from Cyrene (Hellenic Room, No. 53), and two in the Museum of
Berlin”. One of these two heads (Plate V., Fig. 5 in the first publication
of this paper) is of special interest. Conze says of it that there is great
negligence in the execution of the braid, that it can hardly be recognised
as hair; in fact it seems to me to be more of a mixture of a braid and
an ornamented band, almost partaking more of the character of the latter.
Now I venture to formulate an hypothesis in connexion with this head,
but I must impress upon the reader its purely hypothetical character. The
band was originally not an essentially athletic attribute. The wreath, of
which there were different kinds for the different local games, and the
palm-branch were the original prizes, while the band was a general article
of adornment used on many other occasions. It is only in later times
that it became so general in art as an athletic attribute, and I believe
that it was from a desire to compensate the eye, which had grown
accustomed to the line round the head from the time of braids, that the
band was freely adopted. The Berlin head would be the monumental
boundary-line of the transition from one custom to the other, and though
it has a band, the band is decorated with a zig-zag line as a reminder of
the antiquated braid. -
The evidence, both literary and monumental, which I have adduced
with regard to the head-dress of statues belonging to the period previous
to Myron leads us without fail to conclude that if a statue has no long
hair or ornamental attributes, such as curls, it is in all probability not an
Apollo; and if the hair is arranged in two braids on the back of the head,
wound round and fastened on the top, the statue is in all probability that of
an athlete.
* Von Sacken, Die antiken Bronzen des königl. Miinzcabinets in Wien, Taf. 45,
fig. I., und Taf. 37, fig. 4. The latter is reproduced in the original issue of this paper,
journ. of Hell. Stud. Vol. 1. Pl. v, fig. 1.
* Mon. dell’Inst. Vol. II. tav. 29, and Annali, 1836, p. 54.
* Conze, Beiträge, &c., Taf. viii.
332 APPENDIX. - - [I.
II.
THE so-called Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo in the British Museum"
(Plate XV.), one of the finest Greek statues in the Museum, evidences
in its technical execution a style later than the works of Kanachos.
Upon examining this statue we are first and chiefly impressed with the
high muscular development, with the physical power of the youthful
figure. Nay, apart from the heavy youths considered to be replicas of
the Polycletian Doryphoros and Diadumenos, there is hardly another
athlete statue which represents so strong a man. There can be no
doubt as to the intention of the artist : he desired to fashion a statue
whose chief characteristic was to be physical strength. The long hair
is neatly and firmly plaited into two braids, which are wound round the
head and are tightly fastened together on the top: the head-dress which
we have found to be typically that of an athlete before the time of
Myron. This suffices to show that the statue is not an Apollo, but an
athlete”. It will become more evident the further we proceed. It is
also a signal confirmation that a statue on the staircase of the Uffizi in
Florence", stupidly restored with a short staff in the one hand and a
shield in the other, has been generally considered an athlete, and by
some even a Doryphoros of Polykleitos, simply because it has a head
with short hair, which does not originally belong to the statue at all.
Anybody with a trained eye will immediately recognise that the body
of this statue, so far as it is genuinely antique, is exactly the same as
the London statue, and the other replicas which we shall consider
hereafter. The attitude, the outline of the figure, the bodily propor-
tions, the technical handling of the surface, the modelling of the
muscles, down to the peculiar flatness of the abdomen and the straight
line that marks the beginning of the pubes, the back and the strongly
prominent nates, the peculiar form of the navel and the strong
accentuation of certain veins—all is identical in both.
1 Specimens of ancient sculpture in the British Museum, Vol. II. Pl. v. ; Conze,
Beitrage, Taf. vi.
* Clarac (Vol. III. Pl, 482, 931 H. Text, Vol. III. p. 213), who is relatively unpre-
judiced, expresses his doubt whether this be an Apollo and not an athlete: “ce
pourrait etre un athlète.” The Capitoline replica he simply calls an athlete.
3 Dütschke, Antike Bildwerke in Obezitalien. Griechische Ephebenstatue, p. 8,
No. 27. I subsequently find that Dütschke has also noticed that the head does not
belong to the statue, and that he points to a relation between this statue and the
‘Apollo on the Omphalos.’
I.] APPENDIX. 333
But that the London statue is an Apollo has been fastened into the
minds of archaeologists by the fact that it has been published and
discussed by Conze (Beiträge, ii.), in connexion with the almost
identical statue in the Patissia Museum of Athens known as the Apollo
on the Omphalos' (Fig. 23 a), and that it has since then been looked
upon as a kind of replica of that statue. The truth is that the London,
the Athenian, and the Florentine statues are co-ordinate in artistic
excellence, and that they most probably are replicas of an original which,
to judge from traces in the marble in the treatment of the hair, from a
certain sharpness in the modelling of the brows and bones, and other
subtle indications, was most probably of bronze. The other replica
mentioned by Conze” is in the Capitoline Museum”, and is of inferior
workmanship.
Now if the Athenian statue really was on an omphalos, then it most
likely was an Apollo, and at all events could not have been an athlete.
I was fortunate enough to find the statue and the omphalos which is
supposed to have served as its base separate in the Museum, and I
immediately convinced myself and others by the simplest means (namely,
by standing on the omphalos in the position of the ‘Apollo') that they
do not belong together. But as statements once printed have a strange
power of clinging, and as a mere personal assertion on my part will
not suffice to disprove an opinion now generally adopted", I hope
to prove it conclusively with the assistance of the exact illustrations
(Plate V., Journal of Hellen. Stud, Vol. I.).
Now, in the first place, the circumstances of the discovery are far
from furnishing any evidence that the statue and the omphalos belong
to one another. It is generally assumed that they were found together.
But Conze himself says (p. 14): ‘A’s isł zuzugeben, dass eine volle durch
àussere Umstände erwiesene Sicherheit für die Zusammenghórigkeit micht
worhanden ist. Mamentich darf Köhlers Ausdruck, der Omphalos sei
* Pervanoglu, Bull. dell’ Inst. 1862, p. 168 seq.; Köhler, Bml/. 1865, P. I34 3
Lützow in Z.'s Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, 1868, p. 24, 1869, p. 283; Kekulé,
Beschreib. d. Theseions, p. 36, No. 70, in Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie, 1869,
p. 85, ff.; also Die Gruppe des Künstlers Menelaos, &c., p. 41; Schwabe, De Apolline
in Omphalo, Programm, Dorpat, 1870; Bursian, Literarisches Centralblatt, 1869,
p. 592. \
2 Ibid. taf. vii. * Clarac, Musée de Sculpture, 862, 21.89.
* Köhler says, (l.c.) : “Un nuovo esame dei due pezzi ci ha verificato pienamente
questa congettura, dimodo che anche Sulla denominazione della statua non pub cadere
piu alcun dubbio.' This is a step from the probable to the certain; for Pervanoglu,
who first wrote about the statue (see previous note), merely says, “Al quale (Apolline)
forse potrebbe aver appartenuto un onfalo di marmo bianco,’ &c.
334 APPENDIX. [I.
nahe bei der Figur geſunden zworden, nicht daſiir geltend gemacht werden.
APer Vorsteher der Alterthümer 2n Athen Eustratiadis haſ mir z/ie/mehr
auf meine Anfrage durch Postolakkas mittheiſen lassen, der Omphalos sei
ausserhalb der Orchestra 2wischen den parallelen Mauern der zvestlichen
Parados, die Statuenstücke seien hinter den mittleren Inschriftsesseln [of the
theatre of Dionysos], beide Zhejle also doch in einigem Abstande von
eimander, auſgegraben.” If the Greeks who were present during the
excavations, and had the supervision over them, state that the statue
was found within, the omphalos without, the walls of the theatre, some
distance apart, then no great weight can be attached to the mere
conjecture that they were connected. It would be different if the
foot-marks on the omphalos did really, as has been asserted, correspond
to the position of the legs of the ‘Apollo’ so far as they are preserved.
But this is not the case. In the first place, the feet, as indicated on the
omphalos, would be too small for the statue, but furthermore; what is
most manifest, the feet of the “Apollo’ could not have stood in that
position. On the omphalos the left foot was nearer the centre than the
right foot, while the left leg of the statue is projected beyond the right
leg, and so the left foot would have been nearer the circumference of the
Omphalos, nay, would have projected beyond it; that is, it would partly,
yet firmly, have rested on-nothing. In the drawing (Plate V., Fig. 6,
J. H. S. Vol. I.), the outline shows the footprints as they are, the broken
line (- --) the position of the right foot as it ought to be according to the
position of the ankle of the statue as it is now placed on the omphalos
in the cast copies of many museums in Germany, the dotted line (. . . . . )
as the left foot ought to be, if the right foot of the statue corresponded
to the position of the right foot on the omphalos. At all events it
becomes evident that, if one of the feet of the statue held the position of
the corresponding foot on the omphalos, then the other foot could not
have corresponded.
It is difficult to see, moreover, how another circumstance did not at
once serve to show the impossibility of the received view. On the right
leg on the left side, somewhat towards the back, a piece of marble runs
from above the knee to below the middle of the calf. Conze draws the
following conclusion: because the statue “doubtless belongs to the
omphalos, this addition can surely not have been the connexion with
the stem of a tree attached to the statue’ (as is the case with all the
other copies and with most marble statues of this kind), “for there are
no traces of a tree stump on the omphalos behind the right foot.’ It is
strange when we compare with the premiss to this conclusion the
passage several lines below in which the author says, that in placing the
I.] APPENDIX. 335
cast in the Museum of Halle, he followed the assumption that the
omphalos and the statue belonged together, and that ‘this attempt had
made the assumption even more probable.' Pervanoglu thinks it
probable that the statue and omphalos belong together; but he entirely
forgets that he before said, ‘Le braccia pendevano allato del corpo, e
da alcuni vestigii riconoscibili dietro al piede destro risulta esser ivi
stato un tronco forse d' albero, come spesso lo troviamo in statue
reputate copie d' originali di metallo.’
Conze supposes this projection to have been the rest for an attribute
which the statue held in its right hand, but it is too large for this
purpose and too far back. It decidedly was the bridge which attached
the statue to the stem of a tree, and which the artist placed between the
tree and the body (as is frequently the case), to give as much as possible
of the roundness of form. But there is no room for a stem on the
omphalos, apart from there being no vestiges of such an appendage.
This was also seen by Bursian (Z. c.); but he furnishes an instance of
how difficult it is to dissociate two things that have been bound together
with printed paper. Because the Apollo could not have stood on the
omphalos, therefore he assumes that the Apollo stood beside the
omphalos, and another statue, perhaps an Orestes seeking propitiation,
stood on the omphalos.
The statue has, in fact, nothing whatever to do with the omphalos.
The position of the legs is the same in the London and in the Athenian
statue; and I shall mention a final test, which, together with what has
been already said, will, I hope, once for all clear the statue of any
connexion with the representation of the sacred omphalos of the earth
at Delphi. I suspended a plumb-line from the parting in the hair on
the forehead of the London statue, and found that the lead touched the
right half of the great toe of the right foot; the line applied to the cast
of the Athenian statue in Munich, here placed on the omphalos, showed
that the lead fell slightly over two inches from the great toe of the right
foot-mark on the omphalos towards the mark of the left foot. As there
might be some slight difference in the position of the head in these two
replicas, and to verify any resulting inaccuracy, I let the perpendicular
fall from the middle of the navel in the London statue, which fell about
half an inch to the (our) right of the great toe of the right foot, while
applied to the Athenian statue it fell slightly over three inches from the
right foot-mark.
The omphalos is therefore fairly got rid of, and we may now return
to the consideration of this athlete statue. The question now arises, to
what class of athletes does this representation belong?
336 APPENDIX. - [I.
The intention of the sculptor to present the heavy type of strength
is so manifest in the London statue that, negatively, we cannot consider
him to belong to the category of light athletes, those, namely, of the
pentathlon; and the sculptor who could make such a statue undoubtedly
had the power to distinguish different types of men. This statue belongs
to the heavier genus of athletes, the boxer or the pancratiast. In the
earliest period, as we have mentioned before, the artists were not able
to confer individual character upon their statues, and the difficulty must
have been greatest in cases where a spear or a discus, or halteres, could
not be added as attributes to make the nature of the athlete clear.
This kind of athlete had to be expressed in the figure itself. In reading
Pausanias we notice that the greatest number of statues of Olympian
and other victors which he mentions were pancratiasts and pugilists;
but no pancratiast and no early pugilist has as yet been identified,
because they were wanting in so simple an attribute as the discus. Such
an athlete could, however, be clearly indicated; not as the distortus and
elaboratus of some of the pugilist statues of later times, but by the
sculptor's power of expression by means of the bodily rhythm even in
quiet attitudes. On vase figures we generally see them in action, and
there is no difficulty in indicating them ; but these very vase figures
show us an attitude characteristic of these games, one which is not
restless and dramatic, but is most suitable for plastic art. It is in
figures representing the ephedros. Before a contest the combatants
drew lots, and each pair that had drawn the same letter fought; but if
there was an uneven number of combatants, the third had to wait until
the two had finished, and then he fought the victor. This man was
called the ephedros, and he is represented on vase pictures" waiting,
while two are boxing or wrestling, in a peculiar attitude which seems to
have been characteristic of a heavy athlete. This position is the same
as in the statues we are discussing. The ephedros stands firmly, while
the upper part of the body, chest, shoulders, and arms are especially
accentuated. Involuntarily the eye of the spectator was drawn to those
parts which were of greatest importance in this sport, and when highly
developed were the chief characteristics of a pugilist or a pancratiast.
* Laborde, Vases de Lamberg, I. Pl. 74; Gerhard, Antike Bildwerke, Taf. vii.
No. 787, 497. A relief in Clarac (I. Pl. 200, 271), though very late in style, shows
how the chest was drawn back.—Mus. Bouillon, t. iii. suppl. Pl. 2. No. 15 ; Jahn,
Beschr, d. Vas. Sam, K. Ludºw. Z. See also }ozurn. of Hellen. Stud. Vol. 1., Pl. v.1,
fig. 2. The illustration there given of an ephedros does not correspond to the statue
with regard to the position of the feet; in the other instances from vases which we
quote, and in many not quoted, the position is the same even in this respect.
I.] APPENDIX. 337
The shoulders are drawn back and the chest protrudes, while, by this
movement, the skin is tightly drawn over the ribs, which therefore
become conspicuous. All lines of the statue converge towards the
chest, as in the Pallas of Velletri all lines meet in the forehead. This
will account for certain characteristics which Köhler ascribes especially
to the archaism in the work, when he says (J. c.): “Il carattere arcaico.
si manifesta sopratutto nell' attitudine della figura, che e quella di un
uomo, che con stento torce le braccia e le spalle in dietro di modo che il petto
sporge al di fuori, mentre le parti di dietro fin la dove finisce la schiena
sono molto incavate.” The veins, which are, in any case, accentuated
with a certain exaggeration, are most visible and protruding on the
shoulder and upper arm, a means, in the early times, of indicating which
parts are momentarily or habitually more especially exerted. On the
figures from the western pediment of the temple of Aegina the veins are
not generally indicated. But in a few instances, as the so-called Achilles',
as Brunn has remarked, they are indicated on the right arm to suggest
the exertion of the wounded warrior who is struggling to rise.
The question then is narrowed to this: Is this athlete a pancratiast
or a pugilist? At first I supposed that the statue represented a victor
in the pancration, the game which, as the name indicates, demanded
the greatest strength. The pancration” was a combination of wrestling
and boxing: the combatants could use their hands and feet, they
fought standing, and continued fighting while on the ground; it was
the most violent of contests, easily became brutal, and not unfrequently
brought on the death of a combatant". A very favourite and advan-
tageous method seems to have been for a pancratiast to get his
adversary in what is called with us ‘in chancery”,” to catch the oppo-
1 Brunn, Beschreibung der Ágl. Glyptothek zu München, No. 60, p. 87.
* Cf. Annali, II. 1830, Gerhard, p. 215, 216, &c.; Monumenti, Pl. XXII. 56, s. 6,
also on bronze vase, Mon. v. Pl. 25 (1857); Clarac, II. 616, 17, I. Pl. 200, 271 ;
Bouillon, Vol. III. Suppl. Pl. II. No. 15. The Florence group of ‘wrestlers’ is also a
scene from the pancration, Real Galleria di Fir. ser. iv. Vol. III., Pl. 122.
* Paus. viii. 4o.
* On an Archaic tazza, Annali, ië, 1878, p. 34, tav. D., Heracles has the Titan
Anteus in chancery; the same Heracles and the lion (Gerhard, Auserl. Vasenb. IV.
Taf. 266), and Theseus and the Minotaur (Gerh. Auserl. Vasenö. Vol. III. Taf. 16o and
161). Prof. Colvin directed my attention to a vase published by Heydemann (third in
Hallisches Winckelmann's Programm) in which a Lapith holds a Centaur in a similar
position. Cf. also Jahn, Beschreibung der Vasensamml. König Zudwig's Z., No. 307,
476, 1199, on which vases with mythological-combats even the ephedros appears.
Motives from the palaestra were transferred to mythological scenes to illustrate the
contest for which the vase was a prize. I take this opportunity to make one general
hypothetical remark which is of importance for the general method of vase interpreta-
W. 22
338 APPENDIX. [I.
nent's neck in the one arm, and to strike with the fist of the other
hand. What chiefly distinguishes the pugilist from the pancratiast is
the caestus, which the boxer always has in artistic illustrations, though
there are a few cases in which pancratiasts (evidently from the fact of
their using their hands to wrestle, and not only to strike) also have the
caestus; but these are quite exceptional. The pancratiast is dis-
tinguished from the wrestler in that he strikes. A frequent motive is
that of one of the combatants catching the leg of his adversary with the
one hand, and giving him a blow with the other, as, for instance, on the
above-quoted vase of Lamberg, published by Laborde. The pugilist is
typically indicated in illustrations, in that he is merely striking, and has
the caestus'. In the earliest times the caestus corresponded some-
what to our boxing-gloves; it was called peºixm”, and was not meant to
enhance the severity of the blow, but, as the name indicates, to avoid
pain to the striker, and perhaps even to weaken the blow for the one
struck. The next stage, still belonging to the early period, which
probably continued till near the decadence, was the stiff thong of hide
ipºds dé's, which doubtless more effectually spared the fingers and
tion, and which space will not allow me to deal with at greater length. The Greek
vases of better quality may be classed, according to their original destination, into two
great classes, sepulchral and agonistic. The sepulchral vases were meant to be placed
within the graves; the agonistic vases contained the oil which was given as a prize to
the victors in the games. A third class may be added, namely, those that were given
as presents between lovers. I do not refer to common vessels that were used to
convey oil and merchandise. I doubt whether these were ornamented in an artistic
style. Now the illustrations were influenced by their destination. A sepulchral vase
destined for the grave of a youth would be decorated, e.g. on the one side with a scene
from the Triptolemos myth; on the other side it may have genre-scenes from the life
of a Greek youth, as I have shown in the Poniatowski vase. For the graves of
warriors fallen in battle, corresponding scenes from the Trojan war, &c. In the case
of athletic vases, even in the mythological scenes, attitudes and situations will be chosen
from the game for which they were offered as prizes. Jahn etc. 584, has a representa-
tion of the contest between Peleus and Atalante, while the back is decorated with a
scene from a truyuh. The KaNós, or tra's ka?,6s, seems to me to be a token of approba-
tion and congratulation for the winner, the recipient of the vase. Vases as gifts
between lovers will also be decorated with corresponding love-scenes and myths. Of
course a köXuè given as a prize will appropriately be ornamented with a convivial
scene. I do not mean that this is the only and exhaustive point from which vase-
pictures ought to be viewed; but what I here suggest is, that it is an important point
from which to view vase-pictures, and that if it were carried out it would no doubt
throw much new light on these representations.
1 For illustrations, cf. Inghirami, Pittzure di Vasi Fittili, vol. III. tav. 232; Clarac,
Pl. 851, 2180 A; 1788, 855, 2182; 856, 2180, 858, 2181, 858 d. 21.87 a, &c.;
Gerhard, Auserl. Vasenö. IV. Taf. 272 and 271 ; Jahn, 411. -
* Paus. VIII. 4 o.
I.] APPENDIX. 339
knuckles of the boxer. The boxer generally covered his hand and
wrist with some soft material and fastened it by winding the thong
round: he placed one end of the thong longitudinally along the wrist,
and then wound it tight round the wrist and the hand, passing the other
end through the palm of the hand. On a Panathenaic vase published
by De Witte', a truyuſ is represented, and an ephedros is standing on
one side of the combatants, holding his hand to his lips, evidently in
the act of pulling the end of the thong between his teeth to tighten it
round his hand, which is covered with some cloth or skin. This kind
of caestus I believe to have been prevalent during the early Greek age,
while it is to the decadence and brutalisation of athletic games that the
barbarous caestus of Roman ages belongs, which was furnished with
leaden and iron balls,
‘Terga boum plumbo insuto ferroque rigebant; ’
(Verg. Aen. v. 405);
and with which defeat produced results as described by Vergil (Aen.
v. 468),
‘Ast illum fidi aequales, genua aegra trahentem,
Lactantemque utroque caput, Crassumque Cruorem
Ore eiectantem, mistosque in sanguine dentes,
Ducunt ad naves.’
On the tree stump of the London statue there runs a band or strap
about half an inch in width, and about two and a half feet in length.
This strap puzzled archaeologists, especially as they considered the
statue to be an Apollo. I at first supposed that it was meant to repre-
sent a victor's band; but I found that the artist of the statue could
have indicated far more clearly the texture of a band, and here there is
a decided intention to render the stiff texture of leather, while the
thickness and narrowness would not suit a band. It immediately
became clear to me that we here have to deal with the leather thong,
the ipês déðs, which shows this athlete to be a pugilist.
If, finally, I were to attempt a restoration of this statue, I should
give him in his left hand a palm-branch, which would account for the
notch on the side of his left leg near the knee. The Athenian statue
* Monumenti dell' Inst. vol. x. tav. 48. The ephedros quoted above from
Gerhard's Antiće Bildwerke, Taf. vii. is to the left of the two boxers who have
the caestus; on the right is the agonodikes. This ephedros holds a thong in his left
hand (the iuds āśās), while his right hand is violently drawn back as if about to strike
a heavy blow.
22—2
34O - APPENDIX. [I.
has a similar remnant of marble, which shows that he also held a long
attribute in his left hand. The palm-branch was one of the essential
prizes awarded to victors in all the games', and they are frequently
represented on vase-figures (e.g. on the one above mentioned, published
by De Witte) bearing it. Though it could easily and lastingly be given
to bronze figures (of which material the athlete statues generally were),
it was most easily broken in marble statues. But if a hand with a piece
of a palm-branch was found by one of the restorers during the Renais-
sance in Italy, and even were found to-day, it would be considered a
‘pezzo d'arco' of an Apollo; for the tendency prevails to see in every
youthful male figure an Apollo, as nearly all the female figures are
termed Venere.
It now remains to ask, to what period does this pugilist belong?
Several of the above mentioned writers on this statue have considered
the archaic elements in it to be conventional, and not genuine; what
is called archaistic, or ‘archaisirend, in contradistinction to archaic.
Ever since statues like the Dresden Athene” and the Neapolitan
Artemis" have been found, in which the intentional rendering of imper-
fections belonging to early art is manifestly connected with considerable
power of freedom in execution, and especially since Kekulé has traced
the eclectic style of Pasiteles in the work of one of his pupils, Ste-
phanos, these discoveries, as is so frequently the case, have led to
extremes, so that archaeologists nowadays see ‘archaisiren’ and Pasiteles
in a disproportionately great number of ancient statues. This exagger-
ation cannot but be harmful to the investigation of the style of ancient
works. Those who merely look for archaising forget one important
factor in the copies of the Greek originals from the Roman era which
have come down to us—namely, what may be termed modernising.
Anybody at all acquainted with the peculiarities of “old masters’ knows
how difficult it is for artists of a later time to copy exactly the works of
their forefathers: modern and subjective elements will invariably creep
into the work of the copyist. This is most evident in copies from the
paintings of old Italian masters. But it can be seen even if we compare
* Paus. VIII. 48; Vitruv. Preface to lib. ix. In the Patissia Museum at Athens
there is an unfinished marble statue of a young athlete who holds a palm-branch in
his hand. In this case the palm has withstood the effect of time, because the statue
is merely blocked out, and all presented one firm mass.
* Overbeck, Gesch. d. Gr. Pl. I. p. 195. -
8 Raoul Rochette, Peintures de Pompeii, pl. 5, and Overbeck, Gesch. d. Gr. Pl. I.
p. I94. -
4 Annali, 1865, p. 56 segg., “Statua Pompeiana di Apolline,’ and in his above-
quoted work on the Gruppe des Künstlers Menelaos.
I.] - APPENDIX. 34. I
the various replicas of the same work in ancient marbles which lead
back to a common original, as, for instance, the Discobolus of Myron,
the Boy with the Goose, the Thorn-Extractor, &c. We then see how
they vary, how the hair—nay, even the position of the head, varies in
the Discobolus in the Palazzo Massimi in Rome, and the one in the
British Museum. And these works in the original moreover did not
belong to the markedly archaic class whose characteristics are so difficult
to imitate, because they belong to a period so remote and essentially
different in spirit from the age of the copyist. A very clever copyist will
be able to avoid to some degree this discord between the modern and
the ancient. A comparison, even hasty, between our statue and the
ephebe by Stephanos and the manifestly Pasitelean statues will im-
mediately show that there is not the slightest relation between them.
The simple fact that there exist four replicas of this work proves
that it could not have come from the studio of an obscure imitator, but
leads us back, in all probability, to a famous Greek original. An
archaeologist in whose artistic tact and thoroughness I have the greatest
faith objected to me that he found a lack of unity in the “Apollo of the
Omphalos' which made him doubt its genuine archaism. With this
feeling I can thoroughly sympathise, and it can readily be accounted
for. Thus an athlete on an omphalos is in itself a contradiction which
robs the statue of its unity of composition. The first stimulus to this
inquiry was the feeling of incongruity which I experienced upon seeing
the London statue with the subscription “Apollo.’ Then again the
head-dress, which was not accounted for, and furthermore, the attitude,
which seems constrained unless we recognise the intention expressed in
it, must produce such an impression. And finally, this statue, as will
become clearer, belongs to that very period of transition from the
archaic to the greatest freedom, in which we necessarily expect a
mixture of the two elements. On the one hand the head-dress, the
peculiar formation of the navel (not perpendicular, but the lower half
running inward, and furnished, as it were, with an eyelid—this pecu-
liarity is in all the replicas), the flatness of the abdomen, the straight
line of the pubes, the Swelling glutaei, &c., all these are archaic
elements. On the other hand, the general modelling and the rhythmical
treatment of the whole figure are not far from the perfection of the
masterpieces of Pheidias. Whoever has studied the anatomical pro-
portions of the human body cannot fail to see that there is the greatest
organic unity in this work".
* I cannot refrain from quoting the exclamation of an artist of repute upon
examining the London statue in my presence; it was: “Mantegna!’ -
342 APPENDIX. [I.
According to its execution it cannot be of earlier origin than the
Aeginetan marbles, and not later than the Discobolos of Myron.
Conze and several other archaeologists have thought it probable that
the Apollo was the work of the sculptor Kalamis, whose life falls within
this epoch, and he conjectures that it may be a replica of the Apollo
Alexikakos' in Athens by that sculptor. But this statue has not the
pºetótapa orepºvěv kai Xexmóðs', not the softness and sweetness which is
chiefly characteristic of this sculptor. A small Athenian altar with
relief, which Overbeck” believes to illustrate the style of Kalamis,
together with a Calabrian terra-cotta representing Hermes and Aphrodite
with Eros in her arms, published by Michaelis", may give us an im-
pression of what the style of Kalamis was like. Far more unfounded
is the recent assertion of Furtwaengler" that the “Omphalos Apollo
corresponds to the style of Alcamenes.’ In fact the style of our statue
is not purely Attic; it has a large admixture of the Peloponnesian
severity and dryness, while again it cannot be classed among the
Peloponnesian works, and cannot be ascribed to any of the artists of
Argos and Sikyon. By this negative method of exclusion there remains
but one sculptor in this age, Pythagoras of Rhegion, famous for his
athlete statues, who was neither an Attic nor a Peloponnesian sculptor.
III.
PyTHAGORAs of Rhegion" flourished between the 70th and 8oth
Olympiads. We have two fixed dates on his works, Ol. 73, and Ol. 77.
Pliny’s statement that he flourished in the 90th Olympiad, is decidedly
an error, and is to be attributed (as Brunn has shown) to his assumption
that, as Pythagoras was contemporary with Myron, and Myron with
Polykleitos, Pythagoras lived as late as the latter. According to
Pausanias', he was a pupil of Klearchos, who again was a pupil of
Eucheiros of Corinth, whose master was Syadras of Sparta. He is
* Paus, I. 3, 4. -
* Lucian, Imagg. 6. Cf. Overbeck, Antiken. Schriftguellen zur Gesch, d. bild.
Riinste bei den Griecheze. Pp. 95, 98.
* Gesch. d, griech. A lastić, I. p. 219.
4 Annali dell” Inst. 1867, tav. d'agg, D.
* Mittheilungen des deutschen archaeolog. Instituts in Athen, 1880, p. 37.
6 Brunn, Geschichte der Griech. Künstler, I. pp. 132, et seq.; Beulé, Histoire de
l'Art grecque avant Péricles, p. 405; Overbeck, Gesch. d. griech. Pl. I., p. 202.
7 vi. 13.
I.] APPENDIX. 343
chiefly known and praised for his athlete statues. And that this was his
strong point is evident from the simple fact that of his fourteen statues
which are mentioned by ancient authors, eight were of athletes, while of
the remaining six, two again, the winged Perseus' and the contest between
Eteokles and Polyneikes”, were athletic in character. Only one female
figure is mentioned as by him, the Europa on the Bull"; here we do not
know enough to form any opinion. The remaining statues were pro-
bably all nude men.
It appears that he excelled in rendering the nude male form. How
excellent his work was and how highly it was appreciated becomes
evident not only from the fact that, as has before been quoted from
Pliny, he gained a victory over Myron with his statue of a pancratiast,
but from the praise which classical authors bestow upon him. If we
bear in mind how sober an author Pausanias was, and how sparing he is
with his praise, we can appreciate the weight of his remark on the statue
of the pugilist Euthymus by Pythagoras, 6éas is to pºwta dévost; and
when we bear in mind that, a few lines after his high praise of the artist
Pythagoras with regard to his statue of the wrestler Leontiskos" (etirep ris
Kai d\\os dyadès rê is tradatukºv), he simply says of Pheidias, Évéka kai
tºs és rā dyáApata toû Pelôtov oroghias, we can then see in what high
appreciation this artist was held. *
But we know that he was not merely a clever follower of his masters,
but that he greatly contributed to the advancement of art, that he was
an innovator. So we learn from Pliny". Hic primus nervos et Zenas
expressit capillumque diligentius. The primus and trpárov in such a
context are not always to be translated literally ‘the first, or ‘the first
time,’ but they mean that something has been done with full conscious-
ness, that it is a marked step in advance. The hair of our pugilist is .
more carefully worked than in similar earlier or contemporary works,
e.g. the Aeginetans. Merzos really means sinews, and Pliny means that
he essentially advanced in the rendering of muscles and sinews. The
way in which the muscles and sinews are treated in the pugilist we are
dealing with is unprecedented in early art. Finally, I have already
mentioned the veins as peculiarly pronounced in all the four replicas of
this statue. They are no doubt exaggerated, and I have attributed this
* Dio Chrysost. Orat. 37, Io.
* Tatian, c. Graec. 54, p. 118 (ed. North).
* Tatian, c. Graec. 53, p. 116; Varro, de Ling. Lat. v. 31; Cic. in Verr. IV.
6o, 135. - * *
* VI. 6, 4.
* VI. 4, 3. * 34, 59.
344 APPENDIX. [I.
to the desire of the artist to express the habitual exertion of the upper
part of the body in this person; yet even with this consideration there
remains a degree of clumsiness and exaggeration in the pronounced
indication of veins in this statue which points to the fact that it is a new
thing. Moderation is a result of maturity. A beginner in art is apt to
exaggerate in drawing and in colour; an artist who begins to indicate
that which was not indicated before will render it more pronouncedly
than he will later on, when he is accustomed to it. From the way in
which the veins are here indicated, not only on the shoulder and the
upper arm, but on the inner side of the arm down to the wrist, and on
the foot (sometimes not quite with anatomical correctness) we feel that this
was an early attempt. On earlier archaic statues there is no indication
of veins. I have carefully examined the Aeginetan marbles, and have
found that on the western pediment the indication of veins is very
rare, and so to say, timidly ventured upon. Besides the Achilles there
are three others who have very slight indications on parts that are
strained'. On the eastern pediment, however, the figures have a highly
developed system of veins, as clear as in the case of the pugilist. It is
universally accepted that the temple of Athene at Aegina was built
about the 75th Olympiad. Now it is also accepted that the style of the
eastern pediment is far more advanced than that of the western pedi-
ment. Either there was a great revolution, or rather reformation, within
the style of the artist after he had completed the western pediment, or else
the older artist died before the temple was completed, and one of his
younger pupils or sons who was of the “more modern’school, completed
the work of his father or master in the eastern pediment, while he in
general retained the style of the western pediment, but especially in the
execution of details gave way to his later acquisitions. Pythagoras was
already an artist of repute in the 73rd, or at least the 74th Ol., and the
striking difference in the eastern and western pediment with regard to
the expression of veins justifies the hypothesis that in the western
pediment the artist was not wholly under the influence of the innovation
of Pythagoras, while in the eastern pediment he freely laid himself open
to it”.
* The dying one to the left, the arm on which he rests; so also Achilles; also the
second figure to left, and on the foot of the kneeling hoplite on the right side.
* Instances in which younger artists have influenced the style of their older con-
temporaries are frequent. I need only adduce Raphael and Francia. To make a
clear but simple chronological statement, I may merely say that Pythagoras was to
his older contemporary, Onatas of Aegina, as Myron was to Pythagoras, and as Poly-
kleitos and Pheidias were to Myron. -
I.] APPENDIX. 345
But this passage in Pliny is not restricted to the three points
(nervos, venas, capillum) which he enumerates, but seems to express the
general excellency of the modelling, the indication of texture in the
statues of Pythagoras. And the whole weight of this dictum can only
become clear to us when we bring this passage into connexion with
what Diogenes Laertius says of Pythagoras': trpórow Sokolovra fiv6pod kai
avpperpías €otoxdorffat. -
Now this word Évêuós, whatever its application may be, necessarily
embodies the idea of flow”. While symmetry is an architectural idea,
the exact accordance between the two halves of one body, which forms
the essential quality of architecture, rhythm is a plastic idea, has its
essence in a certain deviation from this absolute equality, and is the
characteristic of sculpture. Symmetry implies and expresses the lasting,
uniform and inorganic; rhythm implies change, the organic, as sculpture
deals with animal life. Life manifests itself to our senses in motion,
flow, and change; life is individual, and the individual consists in a
deviation from the absolutely regular. Archaic sculpture was too archi-
tectural, and in the regularity of its figures it counteracted all appear-
ance of individuality, and the statues did not produce the effect of
vitality. It expressed symmetry to the exclusion of rhythm. The
innovation of Pythagoras was, that he added this flowing, irregular
element to art, and thereby contributed to the appearance of vitality.
But he kept within the bounds of what is pleasing to the human eye,
which demands a certain regularity; and though he furthered rhythm,
he did not do it to the exclusion of symmetry. While infusing the
greatest life into his statues, he kept within the bounds of what we
should call plastic composition, in which certain elements of living
nature are eliminated, others accentuated, and all are bound together
by the unity of form. This harmony between life and form is the most
characteristic feature of Greek art. -
Now within this general definition of rhythm and its relation to
symmetry, we can distinguish several stages:
a. Vitality is in the first place given to the statue by means of the
continuous ſlow of the surface. Each smallest part of the surface in
a good statue must have the semblance of moving and vibrating like
the skin of a real body, which never presents a geometrically straight
* VIII. 46. #
* Nothing that has since been said by the critics of this article as to my use of the
word rhythm in sculpture has at all altered my conviction. On the contrary, I have
become more convinced that in poetry as well as in sculpture the function of rhythm
in contradistinction to metre is to give this zaried life and flow.
346 APPENDIX. * [I.
line, but is a continuous succession of elevations and recessions, arsis
and thesis—that is, it flows. Vitality must, as it were, stream into the
clay through the fingers of the modelling artist. The difference in this
respect between Greek works and Roman copies that were made to
order like mechanical ware will illustrate the difference between a statue
possessed of this vitality of texture and one which is wanting in this first
requisite. The statue we are dealing with, though a copy from the
bronze original, is still an excellent Greek copy. Each part of the
surface is carefully and thoroughly executed, and the difference in
texture between the hair, the skin, and the stem of the tree is clearly
indicated. To attain this effect, besides the feeling of form which must
be inherent in the artist, much and intense work is needed. Hasty
modelling (unless it is meant to be a sketch) can never convey vitality.
The same holds good in all arts. The organic quality, the continuity of
composition in literary work can only be attained when the subject has
been thoroughly and for a long while revolved in the brain of the
author, or has been modelled and remodelled during the process of
fixing it on paper. But the texture of the surface varies in appearance
in accordance with what is below it, which it covers. As it covers bone
or muscle or softer material, so will its appearance be different. This
difference the sculptor must indicate by means of modelling, he must
look deeper than the mere superficial appearance to what anatomically
lies below, as the cause of the phenomenal difference. But in poor
work the muscles, joints, &c., are indicated by means of simple
elevations that do not gradually rise and fall, are not intermediated—
they seem put together; while in good work the transition is gradual,
the lines are not torn asunder—all flows together, as in nature. An
excellent instance of this is furnished by our statue, the earliest statue in
which we notice this quality. Finally, each distinct part of the body
has a character of its own : an arm, a leg, the neck—all have a
distinguishable character in their form and texture from the torso itself,
and this difference of appearance must be rendered in a good statue.
The artists who made the earliest works which have come down to us
could not do this. What Pliny says of Pythagoras, that he was the first
clearly to express sinews and veins, and that he rendered hair more
carefully, is an incomplete way (by enumeration of a few attributes for
the essence of the thing) of expressing, that Pythagoras was the first to
infuse vitality into his statues by means of the indication of natural
texture in the surface of the human body. And this is the first stage in
the realisation of plastic fivöpids.
b. Rhythm, the organic quality of a work of sculpture, is further-
I.] APPENDIX. 347
more to be found in the relation which subsists between the parts of the
body among each other and between the parts and the body as a whole.
Here symmetry begins to be manifestly and organically connected
with rhythm. In the first place, no part must be out of proportion with
the whole. The leg must be of a certain dimension in proportion to the
arm, the neck of a certain thickness and length in comparison to the
width of the shoulders, &c., and all members must bear a certain
relation to the size and physical character of the whole figure. But in
the second place this well-proportioned figure must not appear architec-
tural, but must impress us with the life which is essential to the animal
organism which it represents. Such life manifests itself to us in the
moving power of the organism. An architectural edifice must above all
impress us with its immovability; its power of lasting and remaining
unchanged. This quality becomes manifest to our senses, e.g. in that the
columns are all parallel and of equal height, so that the roof rests firmly
on them. But movement in nature, physical motion, is a deviation
from this absolute regularity and sameness; it is not represented by a
straight line, but a spiral, wavy line—it flows. We notice this through-
out nature; in its grosser appearance it is the system of alternation.
A diagram of the succession of the branches of a tree shows us a
spiral growth. Animals and human beings in walking move their legs
alternately; nay, in walking we move the arm and the corresponding leg
in an opposed direction, and this very opposition between the upper and
lower half of our body is one of the chief causes of progression in
walking. Now the archaic statues of a date before our athlete have
both legs firmly planted, the one before the other, and the body is
equally balanced between the two. It is the same principle as that
which subsists in the columns in architecture, and this adds to the
impression of lifelessness which these early works convey to us; they do
not suggest movement. In our statue, however, the weight is thrown
upon the right leg, while the left leg is comparatively unfreighted. This
is the plastic rhythm which has been introduced into this work, and
has superseded the autocracy of architectural symmetry which reigned
supreme previous to this epoch. This gives the statue the potentiality
of moving, and actually gives it the appearance of inner movement to
and fro, and from one leg to the other (as in the indication of texture
the skin seems to vibrate), while the restful firm position on the one leg
gives the monumental quiet which works of sculpture need. We shall
presently see how this position of the legs in connexion with the
attitude of the upper part of the body serves to give expression to a still
higher stage of rhythm. The Germans express this in distinguishing
348 APPENDIX. [I.
between Standbein and Spielbein, the leg of rest and the leg of play; and
it was generally believed, from a note in Pliny that this was an innova-
tion of Polykleitos. But this cannot possibly be so; for the violently
moving figures of Myron, and even the Aeginetan marbles, are a stage
further in the expression of motion. And yet, when Pliny says of
Polykleitos, Proprium eius est uno crure ut insisterent signa excogitasse",
there must be some meaning and truth in what he says, though again
we need here not conceive this as if literally for the very first time such
a thing had been done, but as habitually, with full consciousness and
accentuation. It is clear that some innovation must have been intro-
duced. The mere resting on one leg it cannot mean. As is so
frequently the case, the monuments lead us to the correct interpretation
of the literary passage. All the numerous replicas of the Doryphoros
and Diadumenos of Polykleitos represent the figure as striding forward.
The one leg is placed forward, while the other, merely touching the
ground with the toes, is dragged behind. This is no doubt a step in
advance in the expression of motion, and is much more “uno crure
insistere,' than in our statue, where the left leg, though relatively free, still
fully touches the ground and bears some part of the weight. Michaelis”,
I am pleased to find, has given exactly the same interpretation to this
passage. -
c. The third stage, in which rhythm and vitality are expressed
in statues, is in the harmony between all parts and the uniform
physical character and the situation of the figure. This would be, for
instance, if all the parts united to convey the impression of a strong or a
weak man in relaxation or exertion. This statue of a pugilist must
represent a strong man, and so each part of the body is in keeping with
this salient feature; an arm or leg, or a foot found alone could immedi-
ately be identified as belonging to a strong man. But it is in the way in
which the parts combine to one attitude that the special nature of this
athlete is expressed. He stands firmly, and we almost feel how he
presses the ground with his right foot; and this is indicated in the way
in which the muscle above the knee stands forth markedly, and the
ankle is curved,—he is pressing back the knee. The muscles of the
calf are also strongly pronounced. The shoulders are pressed back in
the position of the ephedros, while the chest is pressed forward. The
more the chest is pressed forward, the more must the lower part of the
* AW. H. xxxiv. 56.
* Annali dell’Anstit. 1878, pp. 28 and 29. Cf. Blümmer in Rhein. Museum, Vol.
XXXII. p. 593, and Petersen, Arch. Zeit. 1864, p. 131.
I.] APPENDIX. 349
back and the spine recede. This position, however, if we stand equally
on both feet, becomes stiff and unnatural; but the exertion of the upper
part of the body is compensated as soon as we throw the weight more
on one leg". This compensation of rhythm is carried still further in
what may be called ‘crossed rhythm' (xiaopés), to which Brunn has
drawn attention in his recent article on a “Tipo statuario di atleta”.”
This rhythmic compensation becomes still more evident in the fact that,
while below the waist the balance of our figure dips towards the right,
that of the parts above draws towards the left. The palm-branch he
held in his hand no doubt added to this effect, and counteracted the
heaviness in composition produced on the right side below by the tree-
stem. Were we to imitate an orator projecting his left hand, we should
naturally throw the weight of the body on the right leg. This is in
figures in rest. In actual movement in a forward direction, the right
arm will recede while the right foot advances, and vice versá. This, as
Brunn has pointed out, is not to be found in the earliest works. We
meet this expression of rhythm for the first time in our statue. How
far Pythagoras had advanced in rhythmical expression becomes evident
when Pliny” tells us that the spectator almost felt the pain of the
‘limping one’ (Philoctetes) by Pythagoras. But this merely means
physical pain, and not moral grief. And here we have the limit of the
artistic powers of Pythagoras.
There are still higher stages in the development of plastic rhythm",
to which Pythagoras did not attain; but these belong to a later period.
They are the expression of moral character and individual mood in
plastic rhythm.
The statue of the pugilist which we have been considering affords
the best illustration for the various stages of rhythm, so far as we have
traced them. At the same time the pleasing outline of the composition,
the symmetry of the whole, is blended in harmony with its flowing
vitality. And thus the positive evidence also leads us to assign this
work to Pythagoras. -
If, finally, we look amongst the recorded works of this sculptor for
* It is most important for one who studies these questions to imitate himself
the position of statues. In many cases this is the simplest method of recognising
how a statue must have been, which we see in a very fragmentary condition.
* Annale, 1879, p. 201, segg. .9
* XXXIV. 59. “Syracusis autem claudicantem, cujus ulceris dolorem sentire etiam
spectantes videntur.” Overbeck, Schriftguellen, &c. No. 499.
* The completion of the examination of this most important factor of plastic art I
must defer to a special inquiry on rhythm. -
350 APPENDIX. [I.
one which corresponds to this statue, we find that we can, with the
greatest hypothetical probability, consider this a copy of the statue of
the pugilist Euthymos", which Pausanias considered so worthy of
admiration; we know that this statue existed in many copies.
To account for the great strength of very famous athletes, the
Greeks in several instances ascribed to them divine origin. So the
Thasians maintained that Herakles took the form of the father of the
famous athlete Theagenes” and begot him. Euthymos” was reputed to
be the son of the river-god Kaekinos. After death they became heroes:
so the pugilists Kleomedes”, Theagenes, and Euthymos. They were
then adored, as was natural, as a kind of minor gods who bestowed
physical strength upon their adorers. Their statues were placed all
over the country, at the roadsides, in public places, and in the
gymnasia. Pausanias says of Theagenes: ‘I also know that statues of
Theagenes are erected in many places within and beyond Greece, and
that he heals sicknesses and receives adoration as a god. The statue
which he has in the Altis is by Glaukias of Aegina.’ I think it not
improbable that the so-called Strangford ‘Apollo",’ which is doubtless
1 Since the above was written Mr. Percy Gardner has drawn my attention to an
inscription from a base at Olympia, published by E. Curtius, Arch. Zeit. xxxvi.
p. 83. This base belonged to the statue of Euthymos:
Eúðup.os Aokpós 'Avrukkéovs Tpts 'OMápatriº Évikov,
elkóva 6' earngev rávöe Sporoſs éoropáv.
Eúðvaos Aokpós dro Zepvptov divé6mke
IIv6ayápas 26puos émotmorev,
Dr. Weil mentions a cavity on the top of the base, o,41 metres in length, probably
admitting a plinth. If anything could be ascertained with regard to the position
of the feet of the statue that stood on this pedestal, my hypothesis would be
finally verified or disproved. Pythagoras here calls himself a Samian. Pliny
(xxxiv. 60) is the only author who makes two persons of the Samian and Rhegian.
Urlichs has shown some time ago (Chreszomathia Plzniana, p. 320) that Pythagoras
belonged to the Samian emigrants who were induced by Anaxilas the tyrant of
Rhegion to settle in Zankle (subsequently called Messana). This town came under
the sway of Anaxilas, and so Pythagoras could naturally call himself a Samian or a
Rhegian. This may have induced a Syracusan comic writer to make a jest of ‘the
two persons who looked so very much alike,” and this was probably the source from
which Pliny gathered his information regarding the two sculptors and the striking
resemblance between them.
* Paus. VI. II.
* Paus. VI. 6.
* Paus. VI. 9.
* Said to come from the island of Anaphe.—Newton, Essays on Art and A rchaeo-
logy, London, 1880, p. 81.
I.] APPENDIX. 35 I
an athlete, and in the style of work corresponds exactly to archaic
Aeginetan art of the time of Glaukias, may be a copy of the statue of
Theagenes. Now Euthymos is held in equal honour. Fabulous feats,
such as the expulsion of the Black Spirit who haunted Temessa (or
Thempsa), are ascribed to him. Pausanias also saw an illustration of
this feat on the copy of a painting. ‘He arrived at a very advanced age
(so Pausanias proceeds), and left this earth, without dying, in a peculiar
manner.” He was worshipped as a hero, and, as we know from a
passage in Pliny, there must have been many copies of his statue
scattered about, for Pliny tells us of two that were struck by lightning
on the same day'.
All these circumstances make it highly probable that the so-called
Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo, together with the so-called Apollo on the
Omphalos and the other replicas of this statue, are copies of the statue
of the pugilist Euthymos by Pythagoras of Rhegion.
In the beginning of this inquiry I pointed to the fact that before
Greek art could arrive at the height in which at Athens Pheidias infused
with ideal forms the figures which he rendered true to nature, per-
fection in the technical handling of the material had to precede. The
history of archaic art in Greece is the history of the struggle of the
artistic spirit with the reluctant material, and its final victory over it.
Now if we consider the sculptor Pythagoras in this connexion we find
that he holds the most prominent position in the consummation of this
end. The earliest works are architectural, to the exclusion of vitality.
And the struggle will now be for a combination of vitality and regularity
of form in the full harmony of the organic body. But the progression
was not simple; we find extreme action in one direction, and reaction
back to another. And yet the whole movement is progressive. Greek
art was not like Oriental art in clinging to fixed forms. The Greeks
clung to nature, and learnt from her. In the seated figures of the Bran-
chidae from the Sacred Way near Miletus we have this want of vitality,
and the extreme reaction to a formless attempt at imitating nature sets
in in works like the earlier metopes from the temple of Selinus. In
Athens there will be this harmony; but the Athenian spirit, with its
keen sense for movement and vitality, will transgress the bounds of the
* M. H. vii. 152. “Consecratus est vivos sentiensque eiusdem oraculi iussu et
Iovis deorum summi adstipulatu Euthymus pycta, semper Olympiae victor et semel
victus. Patria ei Locri in Italia. Ibi imaginem eius et Olympiae alteram eodem die
tactam fulmine Callimachum ut nihil aliud miratum video,’ &c. Overbeck, Schrift-
quellen, No. 494.
352 APPENDIX. [I.
Jaw of form which we notice in the dry and stern figures of early Pelo-
ponnesian reliefs. And so, though a keen sense for rhythm and texture
is already manifest in the archaic seated Athene on the Acropolis, still
there is an absence of the stern regularity which exists in archaic Pelopon-
nesian work to the exclusion of vitality. The Athenian spirit for rhythm
will have to be transfused with the Peloponnesian spirit for symmetry.
Symmetry and rhythm were first combined by Pythagoras of Rhegion,
and it is more than mere chance that Rhegion, originally a Chalcidian
settlement, received a large body of Messenians at the close of the
Messenian war, and that the teacher of Pythagoras held Peloponnesian
traditions in his art. No fitter person could have effectuated this final
step. But Pythagoras was not universal. He did not excel in render-
ing the female figure, and though he was proficient in the correct
modelling of the form and the manifestation of masculine strength, he
was wanting in the power to give expression to grace and Sweetness.
The female form and the treatment of drapery were also neglected by
him. This gap was filled by Kalamis. Now the soil is prepared for the
richest fruit. But again the restless Athenian spirit is about to trans-
gress in the direction of rhythm, to the detriment of symmetry, in the
distorta and elaborata (as Quintilian would call them) figures of Myron.
But the artistic tact and the power and genius of Pheidias are a
safeguard against any violent reaction, and the highest period of artistic
manifestation is arrived at, in which great and beautiful ideas and
natural and pleasing forms are united in the harmony of one work of
art.
I.] APPENDIX. 353
SECOND ARTICLE.
[A’eprinted from the Şournal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. II. (1881), pp. 332—351.]
I.
SINCE I last wrote on the subject of Pythagoras of Rhegion in this
Journal', much evidence has accumulated to verify what was then brought
forward in a more or less hypothetical form. I was greatly encouraged
to carry on this research by the sympathetic criticism of archaeologists
both published and privately communicated, but all, with one slight
exception, evidently written with the view of facilitating an increase of
information, of advancing the common object—the study of classical
archaeology. Among the published criticisms, I have received the
greatest stimulus to continue my research from the reports” of a lecture
delivered by Professor C. T. Newton at University College, London, in
January of this year; and, among the unpublished, a letter from Pro-
fessor Michaelis with a full and detailed criticism; while the fact that
in the Berlin Museum of Casts the “Apollo’ is now entirely severed from
the “Omphalos,’ and that in the new catalogue” of the Museum of
Casts at Munich the words “nicht zugehörigen’ are inserted into the
phrase “Apollo auf dem Omphalos', is the most important of confirma-
tions I have received from without : for it was the possible, and
formerly firmly maintained, association of the statue with the omphalos
as its base that I felt to be the only positive evidence against my hypothe-
tical assumption. Since this was first published Professor Overbeck in
the new edition of his Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik (3rd edit. Vol.
II. p. 414) has fully accepted all that I maintained in this and the pre-
vious article on this subject. In holding that certain statues are not to
be ascribed to Pasiteles he says: “nor the so-called Apollo on the
Omphalos and the replicas of the same, concerning which, moreover, it
has recently been proved beyond a doubt that they do not represent Apollo,
but an athlete, and perhaps go back to the statue of Euthymos by
Pythagoras of Rhegion".”
* No. I. pp. 168-201.
* The Times of January 10th, and fuller in the Builder of the same week.
* Kurzes Verzeichniss des Museums von Gypsalgässen, Klass. Bildwerke in München,
No. 218, B.
* ...... oder dem s.g. Apollon auf dem Omphalos und seinen Wiederholungen offen-
bart, zon welchen letzteren ilbrigens neuerdings mit Sicherheit erwiesen ist, dass sie
nicht Apollon, sondern einen Athleten darstellen und zielleicht auf die Statue des
Euthymos zon Pythagoras von Rhegion zurückgehem.
W. - 23
354 - - APPENDIX. [i.
Still, it will ever remain a most difficult task to convey to others,
with anything like adequate convincing power, the actual weight of an
inner conviction which has grown gradually in time, passing through
many stages of individual confirmation, and confirmation, moreover, which
often came from quarters where the facts seemed at first to run counter
to it. Such inner workings of the mind which lead to conviction cannot,
from their very organic quality, be imparted fully and at once to others,
even if they are not previously biassed in having formed differing
opinions on the same subject. It is like attempting to transfer to a
third person the faith one has in a friend, which has arisen almost
unconsciously with the first touch of sympathy, has grown with long
acquaintance, and has become fixed and fastened by his actions under
the most varying circumstances. Such an organism of faith and well-
founded inner feeling cannot be taken asunder into words and reunited
together in half-an-hour's conversation, so that it will present a new
organism with all the life which growth in time and under favouring
circumstances has given it. To Continue the simile : it is in some cases
only the specialist who has the means of forming so intimate an
acquaintance with certain questions of his study, it is only he who lives
in that atmosphere in which he can see the subtle bearing of each
smallest manifestation upon the particular question and can feel and
appreciate the relation it holds to the whole—as the friend can see the
weight of each trivial action in the light of the whole character of his
friend. But science cannot heed the inner workings of the mind of even
the greatest of its special professors, it cannot attach any weight to the
feelings of the researcher—so long as they remain feelings. It is one of
the great tasks of the man of Science to study, to recognise, and to
enumerate the causes of his belief, recognise and impart the origin of
his feelings. He must, by his method of exposition, force the reader to
make the synthesis anew, so that he re-creates in the reader the convic-
tion which before was only in his own mind. But if the exponent is not
to depend upon subjective support he can at least claim that the reader
be not subjective in the way he receives the evidence. Yet here it is
frequently the case that each exoteric reader sets himself against making
any attempt at combining into life the various arguments, but selects
from them all one or a group which, by experience or disposition, lies
nearest to him, and bases upon this his acceptance or rejection of an
hypothesis. The nature of an hypothesis, however, generally is that it
does not originate from or wholly depend upon one argument only, but
that the sum of all the reasons together produces that high degree of
probability.
I.] APPENDIX. 355
In the present case of the identification of the Choiseul-Gouffier
statue with Pythagoras of Rhegion, we must also not forget that there is
a negative way of testing the tenability of the hypothesis, and we must
ask: if not this, what then P. The third possibility of entirely withhold-
ing our judgment will not hold good. For the statue exists and has
been the subject of published discussion (and if it had not it would be
high time that it should be); and the notices concerning Pythagoras
exist and have been commented upon, and an omission of this important
figure in the history of Greek Art would make that history incomplete ;
it is therefore the duty of archaeologists to fix and make perfect our
notions both about the statue and about the sculptor Pythagoras. The
question then must be asked : If this statue is not an athlete, what is
it? If an Apollo, enumerate the reasons for this belief, and compare
them with those in favour of an athlete. For the fact of his having
previously been called Apollo, does not, to say the least, make it
unnecessary to prove why he is so called. There can be no question of
a shifting of the burden of proof in such a case. Priority or antiquity
of statement is not, as it may be in the practice of law, equivalent to a
certain quantity of evidence which gives it a start in proof before all
other claimant propositions. It is this very unconscious inference by
analogy which makes people set themselves against a correction of an
earlier statement, even though it be manifestly more probable on equal
grounds of inquiry. On the contrary, we may say, that the tendency in
modern times, ever since the mania for seeing subjects representing
scenes from the “mysteries’ which raged even thirty years ago has
subsided, has been to rob many an illustration of its divine or religious
character, and to bring it much nearer the hearth and human life.
Greek art represented much more of the life that was about it than was
formerly supposed : the sepulchral slabs have been most instructive in
this respect. Many a so-called Apollo and Hermes will have to quit
his divine epithet and descend to the character of a simple ephebus or
a particular athlete'.
The question must further be asked: If this statue represents an
athlete and is not by Pythagoras, by whom is it? Exception might be
taken to the putting of this question; for it may be objected, that it
may belong to a sculptor or a school unknown to archaeologists. Yet
* But we must also take a warning from the evils of a former ‘fashion,” and not, in
combating this very exaggeration, run to the other extreme of over-humanising Greek
art, of seeing scenes from human life everywhere, and of ignoring the fact that, after
all, divinities were the subjects most commonly thought worthy of artistic representa-
tion by the Greek artists.
23–2
356 APPENDIX. [I.
this objection will not hold good, for the host of passages in the
numerous authors relating to Greek art make it more than probable
that no great sculptor and school have been omitted, and no very
celebrated work of such a sculptor. Now, if any athlete statue exists
in as many replicas as does this statue, one is justified in concluding
that it must have been, not only the work of a celebrated Sculptor, but
also an individual statue of much repute. Then let the answer to both
these questions be compared with the reasons for this attribution of the
‘pugilist’ to Pythagoras of Rhegion on equal grounds, and whichever
is weightier let it be considered the better hypothesis, that is, the best
explanation of facts about which it is our duty to know something.
But I may hope that with the confirmation now given the subject
has been, if not lifted entirely out of the sphere of the probable into
the sphere of the certain, yet at least placed so high in probability that
it practically is on the very boundary line between these two phases of
human knowledge.
II.
IT appears from the report of Mr Newton’s lecture that he ranges
the arguments adduced in the first paper under two heads, those that go
to prove that the statue under consideration is not an Apollo, and those
that tend to show that it is an athlete and the work of a particular
sculptor, Pythagoras. Strange to say, Mr Newton looks with greater
favour than I could have possibly expected upon the arguments I have
adduced to show that the statue is an athlete and may probably be the
work of Pythagoras, yet does not consider that the arguments that go to
show that it is not an Apollo are so conclusive. Others, however,
consider the first part of the paper to prove its point beyond any doubt,
while they hesitate to accept the second half. Some archaeologists think
I am right in the positive part and wrong in the negative, others, that I
am right in the negative and wrong in the positive; so that between
the two I am either wholly right or wholly wrong. However, I prefer
to accept their joint verdict in so far as it is positive.
No evidence has been adduced to show that the conclusions I
arrived at in the first paper concerning the typical head-dress of the
early athletes, in contradistinction to divinities, were unfounded. These
conclusions were based upon a great number of instances of ancient
monuments quoted in that paper, and a considerable number which I
met with in the various museums of Europe, and which I judged
unnecessary to add to the list of evidence. Quite recently again I
I.] APPENDIX. 357
have seen several bronzes in the museum at Berlin which entirely bear
out my conclusion—nay, even serve to show that for some of the
lighter games, such as the throwing of the discus, even long hair floating
down the back was worn. A most noteworthy instance of this is the
stelé with a diskophoros', an archaic monument found under the ruins
of the old Themistoclean wall at Athens. At all events, I may say
that I have found numerous archaic figures whose attitude, attributes, or
(if paintings) environment, evidently show them to be athletes with the
hair braided after the manner of the Choiseul-Gouffier statue ; while I
have not met with a single work with similar hair which, from other
reasons, can be shown without a doubt to be an Apollo. It is hardly
necessary to say that the enumeration of a number of busts or heads, or
ignorantly restored statues, which have been called Apollos, can not be
used as evidence on either side of the question, especially since the
Athenian statue and the Omphalos have been shown to be in no way
connected. I have vainly endeavoured to find the first instance in
which this type of head has been described in print as that of an
Apollo, and which since has fixed it in archaeological literature; and I
must attribute it to the habit of early archaeologists to consider every
youthful and beardless figure that came to light from the classical world
to be an Apollo, as most bearded figures were named Zeus or Jupiter.
But as I have before said, the prolonged continuance of a proposition
put forth in a period when archaeology was comparatively in its infancy
cannot be a claim to more ready acceptance. To show that this type of
head is that of an Apollo, it will be necessary to adduce at least as
many figures undoubtedly Apollos with this arrangement of hair as I
have enumerated instances of undoubted athletes. And this will be
especially called for in an instance in which we have to deal with that
marked illustration of bodily strength and with that peculiar athletic
attitude which is found in the Choiseul-Gouffier statue.
I may here say that an anatomist of wide reputation, commenting
upon the development of the pectoral muscles and the whole of the
upper part of the body of the London statue, quite recently expressed
his opinion that there could be no doubt of the intention of the
sculptor to accentuate the strength of the man, especially in the upper
part of the body.
I must confess I was astonished to find that no notice was taken by
my critics of one of the most important arguments, namely, the
connexion between the attitude of the statue and the ever-recurring
typical position of the ephedros in the athletic contests. The Greeks
* Overbeck, Geschichte der Griech. Plastić, 3rd ed., Vol. 1. p. 152.
358 APPENDIX. [I.
had a firmly founded system of exercise and drill in the Palaestra for
each special game, and this drill included numerous typical attitudes
for each individual contest and the various stages of each contest.
This drill, which amounted to sham fight, was called by them oktapuaxia.
Now, on innumerable vases we find, besides the judge and the two
combatants, a third pugilist or pancratiast waiting for his turn in a
constant and peculiar position, which was, we may say, “attitude No. 1,
before the fight.” The same is the case in boxing in our days, and still
more in fencing. This preliminary position, moreover, with the arms
and shoulders drawn back and the chest protruding, is a most rational
one to the Greek's artistic eye, for it tells its story clearly; the most
important part of such a man's body, where his strength chiefly lies, is
the chest, arms, and shoulders. These typical positions in the orkuopaxia
were the most ready subjects for the Greek sculptor, who chiefly made
his studies in the Palaestra; and, as a matter of fact, the great number
of monuments, statues, vases, figures, &c., representing the throwing of
the discus that are extant, could readily, and with great profit, be used
to show all the various stages of procedure in this game, from its prepar-
ation to the expectant attitude of the thrower after the discus has left his
hand. Myron chose the moment of highest tension and of complex
contortion in his representation of a discobolos, and we know from the
notices of ancient authors that this suited his peculiar artistic nature,
which delighted in the expression of extreme vitality. If he were to
have represented the pugilist it is likely that like some later artists he
would have chosen from the various postures of the oktapaxia an
attitude of actual engagement expressive of intense exertion. Not so
the earlier artists and those of a more moderate and noble taste for what
is most suitable for reproduction in sculpture. They would with
preference choose the monumental attitude of the preliminary posture
in the pugilistic contest, that of the Ephedros, as we see him on almost
every vase representing a rvyuí, and as we see him in this statue in the
British Museum.
Professor Michaelis asks in his letter that I should explain to him
the adjunct to the tree stump in front of the strap and the two puntelli
above it, before he is prepared to accept my interpretation of the statue.
Yet if I have shown that the strap on the stem is decidedly a himas,
this evidence is not nullified by my incapacity to explain the other
adjuncts. One thing is certain, that the projection in front of the strap
is not the extremity of the lyre of an Apollo nor of any Apollinian
attribute that I can think of. Mr. Newton confirms the athletic
character of the attributes in holding this projection to be a plait. This
I.] APPENDIX. 359
may be so, though it is not very distinct. Yet if it is a broad plait or
network the question still remains, what purpose it served? And if I
am bound to make some conjecture on the matter, I should with all
caution draw the attention of archaeologists towards many vases with
athletic scenes on which athletes carry their athletic implements (strigil,
flask, &c.) in small nets very similar to those used for lawn-tennis balls
with us. In some cases these nets are represented as hanging on the
wall together with other similar objects, and their pointed ends may bear
some similarity with the end of this plaited adjunct. However, I must say,
FIG. 20. Top of the tree-stump from the statue in the British Museum.
that it is not unlikely that this rough surface is meant rudely to indicate
the bark of the knotty branch there chopped off, as the peculiar appear-
ance at the bottom of the stem has no attributive meaning, but is
merely an indication of a form continually to be met with in trees when
the bark has split in places and a thick Seam incloses the wound (if we
may call it so) in the process of growth. The same applies to the first
of the puntelli alluded to by Michaelis. This is simply the stump of the
lopped off branch. Similar projections can be seen on almost every

360 APPENDIX. [I.
tree-stump of the numerous statues that have them. I am very
grateful to Professor Michaelis for having led me to examine more
closely the uppermost of these small projections (Fig. 20). For I believe
that the outline of the thumb which was broken away is distinctly
visible on the fracture. The measurements of the arm show that the
hand would reach to the top of the tree-stump. The action of the
right arm would then be most natural. Similar to the ephedros on the
vase published by Gerhard', this athlete would hold the himas passing
FIG. 21. Outline of the statue with right arm and hand restored.
through one hand between the thumb and palm over the first joint of
the foréfinger, and hanging down the side of the tree. The hand would
thus be touching the edge of the stump. Thus, closing his hand
through which a strap is suspended the thumb in a perpendicular
* Antike Aildwerke, Taf. vii.

I.] APPENDIX. 361
position crossing the horizontal though upturned forefinger, will
project downwards beyond the other fingers, the forefinger again
projects downwards over the middle finger, the middle over the third,
and so on. If the hand is turned up and examined, it presents the
picture of four steps leading up to a pinnacle severed from the last by a
Small breadth. Now, above, and somewhat behind this fracture of the
thumb, a small piece is broken away from the top of the stem proper,
which would well correspond to the place where the forefinger rested on
the trunk. The remainder of the hand would have been free. The
nature of the fractures will well bear out this assumption, and this
becomes still more probable when we bear in mind that as the himas
does not hang over a branch it must have been held in some way by
the athlete.
When once guided by the nature of the fractures on the tree-stump
we have made this restoration, the position becomes most natural, in
fact, the only possible one. The somewhat inadequate sketch (Fig. 21)
will serve to illustrate this position. The arm could not have been
further forward or else the shoulder would follow, while it is strongly
drawn backward. The nature of the relaxed muscles of the upper arm
as it is extant, show that the forearm must have gone down to the
stump; or else the biceps would be contracted. If one imitates this
natural position, one would immediately feel by “experiment” as it were,
that this is the real position of a figure in such an attitude with regard
to the upper part of the body. . -
That this statue is that of an athlete, and more especially a pugilist,
is finally confirmed when we compare it with the marble statue of the
pugilist formerly in the Palazzo Gentili, and now in the Palazzo Albani
(Fig. 22). I have previously noticed this work and quoted it from
Clarac, yet the outline drawing was so incomplete that its important
bearing upon our question was not evident to me. The similarity
of attitude in the character of chest and shoulders down to the position
of the feet is quite evident upon comparison. Professor v. Duhn has
very kindly sent me the proof-sheets of his new edition of Matz’s
Antike Bildwerke in Atom, which contains a careful notice of all
accessible monuments in the private collections in Rome, and it is from
him that I have learned its present position : for it is published
* Cf. Matz, Antike Bildwerke in Rom, new ed., p. 319; Ficoroni, Brewe descriz, di
tre particolari statue scopertesi in Roma, l'anno 1739, viii., &c.; also in Åaccolta
d' opuscoli scientif e ſilolog, pubbl. da A. Calogiera, Vol. XXII., 491–506, Venezia 1740;
Fea, Misc. I. cxxxv. 57, and, Singolarita di Roma Moderna, 61 ; Gerhard, Antike
Bildwerke, LXVIII. 3; Clarac, Pl. 858 D no. 2187 A.
362
APPENDIX. [I.
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FIG. 22.








I.] APPENDIX. 363
as being in the Palazzo Gentili. We here have the typical position of
the pugilist, and, what is most important is that, though a great deal of
the statue is restored", the right forearm, with a part of the caestus and
joining puntello, is original". This statue is no doubt of later date than
those we are dealing with, yet it is a modified adaptation of the same
athletic type. And though there may not be any similarity in the details
of style and of modelling, there is something more than similarity in the
subject represented: there may be a difference in ‘the how’ he is
represented, but there is no difference in ‘the what’ is represented.
The relation between the style of these two pugilists, if there is any, is
of no concern to us; but for the present the Gentili pugilist finally
shows that the statues in the British Museum, the Patissia Museum at
Athens, &c., formerly called the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo, the Apollo on
the Omphalos, &c., are not Apollos, but pugilists.
III. *
I MAY hope to have proved definitely that the statue in question is
that of a pugilist. The second point, the attribution of this work to
Pythagoras of Rhegion has received further confirmation since it was
first put in a hypothetical form. It will readily be seen that the fact that
this statue represents a pugilist greatly adds to the probability of its
proposed attribution. For, among the sculptors before Pheidias, there is
no other to whom such a work could be attributed, while Pythagoras of
Rhegion was a sculptor of athlete statues par excellence, among which
that of a heroified pugilist, Euthymos, was most celebrated and
frequently copied. Moreover this sculptor, according to the ancients,
was ‘the first' to express sinews and veins and to aim at the expression
of rhythm and symmetry in his works.
It is inconceivable how the ‘archaising’ mania should have impaired
* The restoration was made for the Marchesa Gentili by Vincenzo Pacetti between
1770 and 1775. Mem. Enciclop. III., 85. It is not quite certain whether the
antique head belongs to this statue or not. In it are restored the nose and a piece of
the left eyebrow. Further restorations are: the neck, the left hand, right upper
arm, and right hand (the fore-arm, with puntello, is original), and both legs, the right
from above the knee down, the left from below the knee, also trunk add base. Cf. v.
Duhn, Matz, l.c. The restorations are marked with dotted lines in our engraving.
* I have since found a small bronze in the British Museum the same in type
and in attitude, in which the caestus is completely preserved, and which bears out
more fully still the evidence concerning the interpretation of the Choiseul-Gouffier
Statue.
364 APPENDIX. [I.
the vision of some archaeologists even with regard to this work, and it
can only be explained by a circumstance to which I have previously
drawn attention, namely, that the very incongruity of an athlete on an
omphalos to which the statue did not properly fit, gave the whole work
a want of unity which is the chief characteristic of the later archaising
schools, such as that of Pasiteles. I readily take this opportunity of
again impressing upon those who have had the great merit to discover a
current in the later Greek art which more or less consciously strove
towards the reproduction of remote and even conventional styles, that
in all the work of the later copyists there is the unavoidable tendency
towards introducing the innovations of their contemporary art. This
tendency may be called modernising, and its involuntary influence upon
the bond ſide copy of a work remote in antiquity, would readily produce
an effect in some respects similar to that of a new creation with a
conscious attempt at reproducing the characteristics of an early art.
There is nothing severely archaic in this work, no evident attempt at
reproducing the imperfections of an artistic technique which is in its
infancy, except perhaps the exaggeration and clumsiness of the
indication of veins, and this is a most important positive argument
in favour of our attribution. The general modelling in all the parts of
the surface is not inferior to the composition of the whole figure The
germs of the very highest power of representing the surface of the
human body in its full vitality, the naturalness of the pose, the
combination of each member with the main body, while, on the other
hand, a certain simplicity, almost severity, still binds this posture, and
is more evidently cast over the face—all this points most definitely
towards that period of transition from quaint archaism to the highest
freedom of Pheidiac art. This mixture of freedom with traces of con-
straint and unobtrusive severity similarly marks the period of transition
in the history of Italian painting; and the unprejudiced exclamation of
the modern painter upon seeing the London statue “Mantºgna,’ was a
great confirmation of the conclusion towards which I had been driven
through so many definite reasons. Should this statue appear too
free in its style for a work of Pythagoras, I would direct the
attention of the archaeologist to the Aegina marbles, and remind him of
the fact that they are contemporary, and that the épyagia Aiyivaſa was
considered hard in style by the ancients'; and I would beg him
to examine the extreme freedom of the works of Myron, who was but a
* Paus. v. 25, 12 ; Quintil. Inst. Orat. XII. Io, 7, ‘duriora et Tuscanicis proxima
Callon atºlue Hegesias, iam minus rigida Calamis,’ &c. Cf. Overbeck, Sz. pp. 81 and
82. -
I.] APPENDIX. 365
few years younger than Pythagoras, and who was vanquished by his.
senior with the Delphic Pancratiast'. And if some consider it
too archaic, I would recall to their minds that, after all, Pythagoras is
not yet Pheidias, nay, that he is, in the midst of this transition, one of
its most powerful agents; that he is the innovator, as is evident
from the passages in which he is primus and Tptºros to have added new
freedom to his works. And they must furthermore bear in mind that
the idea of constraint which was suggested to them by the back-drawn
shoulders bearing some similarity to the cramped position of some very
archaic works, and in which Köhler” saw the marked archaism of the
figure, has a definite intended meaning in the representation of a
pugilist-ephedros, and cannot therefore be compared to the stiffness
which is the result of the early artist's incapacity to represent the easy,
natural “flow of life.’ The question must be asked, How did
archaeologists conceive a statue by Pythagoras And here it was most
interesting to me to learn from the letter of Professor Michaelis that
he had formerly thought of this very statue as an illustration of the art
of Pythagoras, and had even mentioned this in some of his lectures.
It is not unlikely that the appearance of Conze's essay on ‘The Apollo
on the Omphalos' made him desist from prosecuting his research in
this direction.
The mischievous archaising theory must be dropped in connexion
with this statue. Its origin can be very easily accounted for: No
instance of the work of the important sculptor, Pythagoras, had as yet
been put forth, even hypothetically; therefore any instance of his work
must be new to our eyes; and what is new and unwonted is strange;
and strangeness is the chief characteristic of the work of the archaising
schools. A work of Pasiteles has neither wholly the characteristics of
early nor of late art, of Attic nor of Peloponnesian art. But the work
of Pythagoras is neither Attic nor Peloponnesian, neither typically
archaic nor post-Pheidiac, and still it has some of the characteristics of
Attic art, so that Conze would attribute it to Kalamis, and many
Peloponnesian elements, so that two of my correspondents lead it back
to a Polykleitan archetype; and it has slight traces of archaism, so that
half the authorities place it before Pheidias, and also elements of great
freedom, so that the other half place it in the time of Pasiteles. But
what all this uncertainty clearly means is, that we here have to deal
with a school, the work of which was not known to us before, and that,
in point of time, this “neither early nor late’ means the period of
* Plin. XXXIV. 59, 8.
* As quoted in my first paper.
366 APPENDIX. [I.
transition, and the “neither wholly Attic nor Peloponnesian with
elements of both’ means a new South Italian school which was
sufficiently connected with the great Greek schools to profit by their
teaching, and of sufficient independence that one of its sculptors
could in important points of artistic advancement be the primus and the
Tporos. -
Another very simple but none the less probable origin of the idea that
the Apollo on the Omphalos belongs to the late archaising period, is
the peculiar proportions of the figure, very tall and with a comparatively
small head. Now it is well known that the Polykleitan canon was
square and massive, while Lysippus created a new canon in elongating
the figure and in diminishing the size of the head. Now as there were
unmistakable elements of archaism in our statue, and as the proportions
seemed to correspond to the Lysippian canon, the conclusion was a
very natural one, that it belonged to a time posterior to Lysippus, yet
which strove back to the very earliest periods of art : i.e. that it is arch-
aistic. Conze has quoted archaic vases in which these proportions
occur; from which he rightly upholds the archaic character of the work.
Now because the Lysippian did thus differ from the Polykleitan canon,
there is no reason to assume that there were not all kinds of human
proportions in sculpture (including some like those of Lysippus) before
a canon was at all established by Polykleitos. The coin from Selinus
(Fig. 23. c) to which we shall direct our attention, and which cannot
be later than the fifth century, manifests the same proportions (if not even
more exaggerated in slimness) as our statue.
I should like to venture upon a wider generalisation which suggests
itself to me through these considerations on the development of Greek
art. It appears to me that the reactive influence of Greek culture in the
colonies of Southern Italy and Sicily upon the life and culture of the
mother country has not been sufficiently noticed. A colony which from
its origin is in sympathy with the life and aspirations of the mother
country, yet is unhampered by the fixed traditions that often act as a
check to originality, is pre-formed to introduce and rapidly to live
through great reformatory movements. This is true in all periods of
history, and in Greece this must have been to some degree the position
of Magna Graecia. Among many instances I need merely point to the
activity of the philosopher Pythagoras at Croton, an idealistic yet real
reform in philosophical theory no less than in social and political life.
In art I had always been puzzled by the unique character of the earliest
metopes from Selinus, unique alike for their boldness, as also for the
evident traces of schooling, so that they are above all the contemporary
I.] APPENDIX. 367
works from the rest of Greece. Yet if we consider that the emigrant
artist who was one of the party of settlers, though he had received strict
schooling at home, worked with a certain freedom when removed from
the eye of his master and the school, the mixture in these works will no
longer strike us as strange. Such inferences concerning remote antiquity
are not more improbable because they happen to conform with the
general likelihood of human action even in our own very modern
times.
Pythagoras of Rhegion was the very person who, from his hereditary
and natural predispositions, could conciliate and bring together the
striking characteristics of the great Attic and Peloponnesian Schools,
which, in archaic art, stood as it were opposed to one another : the
strong feeling for vitality, which frequently, from the want of skill
in the early artists, transgressed the laws of form and composition, and
the Peloponnesian feeling for law and conventional regularity, which, as
in the numerous reliefs from Sparta that have come down to us, does not
allow the figures to attain the appearance of free vitality. Before these
two elements have been well knit together in harmony we have not yet
entered the period of artistic freedom. Free from the immediate
pressure, from the shackles of any one school, this Rhegian of Samian
origin, whose very adopted country was a mixture of both races, whose
first master was a Rhegian and the second a Spartan, had all the
opportunity to travel and to learn what each school could give, and not
enough to be a slave to the idiosyncrasies of either of them. And so
Pythagoras became, if not the founder, at least the chief representative
of a school of sculpture which must have flourished for some time in
the Greek colonies of the south of Italy, and whose numerous remains,
found on the spot, have not yet been sufficiently studied with regard to
their distinctive features.
An illustration in favour of the uniform character among the works
found in the south of Italy will at the same time be the final
confirmation I have to offer for the attribution of our statue to
Pythagoras of Rhegion. A Didrachm of Metapontum', which belongs
to the first half of the fifth century B.C., represents the river-god
Achelous with a human body and a bearded head, which has the horns
and ears of a bull (a combination of a man and a bull is a common
representation of a river-god). He holds in his right hand a patera,
* Millingen, Considérations sur les Monnaies de l’Ancienne Ztalie, &c. AVotices des
Monnaies grazées, &c., suppl. P. 5, Pl. i. No. 1 ; Sambon, Recherches sur les Monnaies
de la Presqu'àle Italique, &c., Naples, 1870, p. 264, Nos. 13 and 14, Pl. xix. 7 and 9;
Jahn, Arch. Zeit. 1862, t. 168, 4, p. 321.
368 APPENDIX. [I.
and in his left the branch of some tree. A coin from Pandosia in
Bruttium' has on the obverse a female head with inscription,
TANAOXIA, surrounded by a laurel wreath, and on the reverse a youth
holding in his right a patera or a wreath, and in his left a laurel branch;
the inscription is KPAQI. The date of this coin is placed at about
430 B.C. Finally, the most important of all for comparison with our
statue is the coin from Selinus, before mentioned (Fig. 23. c), whose
similarity in attitude, proportions, indication of muscles down to
the headdress, is most evident”. It may be difficult for many” to
compare properly a figure on a small coin rubbed and effaced by age
with a more than over life-size statue with regard to the similarity
of both. The points of difference between the two will be so striking
that they will monopolise attention to the detriment of any claims to
similarity to one who has but a small number of instances which would
give him a scale of relative difference. But to a specialist, or one at all
conversant with the comparative study of this class of objects, the
similarity of the general type, of the definite attitude and proportions of
the body, will/be most manifest. I must remind the reader that in the
first article (page 340) I suggested as the possible restoration of this
statue a palm branch in his left hand (which would account for the
notch on the left leg of both the London and Athenian statues) and a
wreath in his right. Both these accessories were the typical attributes of
athletic victors. In this case we must substitute the himas for the
wreath. Now, in the river-gods on both these coins, we seem to have
the type borrowed by the inferior artist, the die-sinker, from the well-
known athlete statues he saw in his own immediate environment. It
has been shown in numerous instances" that the figures on coins were
generally taken from some well-known and celebrated work. But, one
might ask, what is the connexion between these river-gods and athletes?
The ever-moving, twining and twisting mountain-river of Greece
presented itself to the imagination of the Greek as an active and
* Sambon, ibid., P. 342, Pl. xxiii. No. 13; Catalogue of Gr. Coins in Brit. Mus.
(edited by R. S. Poole), Italy, p. 370, No. 1.
* P. Gardner, River Worship, dºc. Zzansact. of R. Soc. of Zit. Vol. xi. p. 173.
* Whoever has been called upon for the first time to look through a microscope to
notice the likeness between minute structures, will see how much practice it needs to
perceive similarity in such instances. I have ever found it more difficult to teach
people to perceive similarity than difference. Perhaps because the perception of like-
ness is more a matter of feeling, while difference is more a matter of the intellect.
* e.g., the Athenian coins with regard to the reproduction of the Promachos, the
Tyrannicides by Kritios Nesiotes, the Eirene with the infant Plutos by Kephisodotos
the Elder, &c.
I.] APPENDIX. 369
powerful man, half a beast in his physical strength; and so, in the
earlier representations, he is generally a combination of man and snake,
or man and bull, from his twining movement and his roaring rush.
On innumerable vases there are scenes in which heroes wrestle with
river-gods, the prototype of which contest is the wrestling between
Herakles and this very Acheloos". They are the fathers of great heroes
and athletes, and the very pugilist Euthymos was made the son of the
local river-god Kekynosº. But especially important is their connexion
with the athletic games which they no doubt localised, and of which
they shared the honour. The hair of the youths, upon their entry into
manhood, is offered them”. At Olympia the victor honours the
Alpheios" along with the twelve great gods, among whom he also has his
altar". Now, as the great Olympian games were a chronological
landmark for the whole of Greece, so the local games would be for
Smaller districts, and this would be a definite time to strike coins.
Mr. Head has made to me a very ingenious suggestion, that in connexion
with these games there was also a kind of fair, where, all the neighbour-
ing people streaming together, considerable commerce was carried on,
and thus there would be a call for money and a natural time to strike it.
This would be the purport of the 'AxeXgov 30Åov on one of the
Metapontine coins. The river-gods were represented either as old or
young, generally with some relation to the size of the river. On the
coin of Pandosia the river Krathis is a young man, so also on the
Selinus coin. Now when the die-sinker desired to represent a young
river-god in an athletic connexion, he would naturally, to some extent,
rely upon some famous statue of an artist of repute within his country.
What is more, all these “guilds’ of the higher or smaller art (though the
Greeks never made this distinction, the lesser arts being to them of the
highest importance), such as sculptors, painters, and architects on the
one hand, and gem-cutters, goldsmiths, vase-painters, and die-sinkers on
the other, were all immediately connected. Nay, the same artist very
frequently practised several of these together. The figures on the
Pandosian and Selinuntine coin are entirely the type of an athlete, so
much so that Sambon simply calls the first un ephebe". It will readily be
seen what important confirmation for our attribution of the statue to
* Soph. Z%ach. 510, &c. Cf. Gardner, l.c.
* See first paper.
* Z, XXIII. I.42–148, Aesch. Choeph. 6, Paus. VIII. 41, 3, &c.
* Pind. Ol. x1. 48.
* Paus. v. 14, 5.
6 Z.c.
37O APPENDIX. [I.
Pythagoras of Rhegion the similarity of the coin from a neighbouring
town in the same province and from a town in the vicinity in Sicily is;
for, to put it negatively to those unaccustomed to this study, no
other coin from any part of Greece can offer a figure that has anything
like the similarity that subsists between this coin and our statue.
* The character of nude male figures in coins from the South of
Italy and Sicily during this period is generally that of the statues in
question. The further study of the coins of Selinus offers the most
interesting and striking confirmation of the attribution of this group of
statues. On Figure 23 I have placed (a) a drawing of the Athenian
Pugilist (formerly called Apollo on the Omphalos) beside (b) one of the
marble copies of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos at the National Museum
of Naples; under the Pugilist is (c) a coin of Selinus about the middle
of the fifth century, and under the Doryphoros is (d) the same coin as
modified about forty or fifty years later. From this juxta-position we
learn the following: -
While in the coin c the river-god was type of the Pugilist, a
marked change takes place in the type of the figure in the subsequent
generation to which coin d belongs. The following modifications take
place: the proportions of the figure are altered, the body is made
shorter, the shoulders and the whole figure squarer, the head grows
larger. Furthermore the attitude is altered : the weight is placed
completely on the right leg, the left being drawn back, the branch from
having been held down is turned upwards and is carried more like a
spear. In other words it becomes more a quadratum signum, it rests
more upon one leg (uno crure ut insisterent signa), it assumes the
attitude of a spear-bearer, a Doryphoros, all the attributes ascribed
by ancient authors to the canon of Polykleitos. And when the coin is
thus placed under the statue, the influence of the famous work of this
renowned sculptor upon the Selinuntine die-sinker becomes evident.
But if the type on the coin has thus been influenced in its later history
by a famous athletic type by a well-known Peloponnesian sculptor, it is
but reasonable to suppose that the type by which it was previously
influenced was also an athletic type of a well-known sculptor of an
earlier generation. Myron (specimens of whose works are extant) it
cannot be, nor a sculptor of the school of Aegina, nor a work of Kalamis.
Now the fact that the famous sculptor of athlete statues in this period,
the victorious rival of Myron, was a South Italian by birth, a citizen of a
town near Selinus, cannot make it less likely that the die-sinkers would
* This paragraph has not appeared in the previous publication of this article.
APPENDIX.
37 I
.
f
FIG. 23.
a. Statue of Pugilist at Athens.
b. Statue of Doryphoros at Naples.
c. Coin of Selinus about the middle of the 5th cent. B.c.
d. Coin of Selinus about the end of the 5th cent. B. c.



24–2
372 - APPENDIX. [I.
allow themselves to be influenced by the works of Pythagoras of Rhegion
in fashioning the type of a nude figure which has a common character
in the coins of most of these towns and which is that of the statues with
which we are dealing.
Coins, then, have thus helped us to clench our previous arguments.
By giving a definite locality, or group of localities, as the home of these
mixed characteristics of style, which a study of the monuments themselves
and their history had led us to point to as marks of a positive school,
well defined though ill recognised as yet, they have enabled us to
feel ourselves on safe ground. Let me only add one point more.
During the last few months M. Rayet has given us an excellent repro-
duction of the archaic bronze head at Naples in his Monuments de l'Art
Antique, Livraison II., referred to in my former paper, p. 331. A more
thorough comparison of this head with the head of our statue is called
for. I must remind the reader that I have throughout accepted the view
that the marbles under consideration are not late and Roman, but early
Greek, copies from a bronze original. Now, if our plate of the
Choiseul-Gouffier statue is placed beside the plate of the Naples bronze
in M. Rayet’s book, the extraordinary similarity, almost amounting to
identity, will be most evident. I must, moreover, draw attention to the
fact that this original bronze head was found at Herculaneum in
Southern Italy. But these suggestions open the way to a very wide field,
which it is impossible to enter upon now. -
NOTE.
Dr Th. Schreiber has recently dealt with a special point in Greek head-dress in
two articles on Der altattische Krobylos (Mittheil. d, deutsch. Arch. Inst. in Azhen,
1883, pp. 246 seq.; 1884, pp. 232 seq.). I cannot enter upon his views here, but it
appears to me that his criticisms on my interpretation of the statues of the type of the
Choiseul-Gouffier Pugilist are strikingly insufficient; in fact he begs the main question.
The statues which he adduces in favour of the Apollo interpretation, such as the one
at Kassel, are those that from their head-dress as well as their general character, I
should certainly have myself called statues of Apollo. -
BUST OF HERMES OF PRMIELES, OLYMPIA.
PLATE WI,



NO. II.
PRAXITELES AND THE HERMES WITH THE INFANT
DIONYSOS".
[Reprinted from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Ziterature, Vol. XII. Part 2,
1880. Read December 17, 1879.]
PAUSANIAs, in the 16th Chapter of the 5th Book of his Travels in
Greece, describes most minutely the Temple of Hera, the Heraion in
Olympia. It was a most ancient temple of peculiar construction :
Pausanias mentions that one of the pillars was of oak. Once in every
Olympiad the sixteen priestesses of Hera offered to the goddess a cloak
woven by themselves; a similar custom obtained in Athens, where the
* Since this paper has appeared there have been numerous notices of this work in
text-books on Greek Art that have appeared within these last few years, such as that of
Mr Murray, Mr Perry, and Mrs Mitchell, as well as in the new edition of Overbeck's
Geschichte der griechischem Plastik. In a note to page 38 of this work, Prof.
Overbeck takes exception to the parallelism here drawn between the art and age of
Praxiteles and the modern romantic period of literature, Shelley, De Musset, Heine.
I can only repeat what I have already remarked in answer to his criticism in the
}ournal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. III. p. 98 (foot-note): “Professor Overbeck may
possibly be right in considering Heine ‘sittlich faul’; but it may be questioned
whether, if he knew as much of Praxiteles, he would not apply the same epithet to
him. It may be uncommon for archaeologists to compare the great past with the
present, yet on some occasions it is nevertheless the duty of the specialist to translate,
as far as truth admits, the dead past into terms of present life.” Though the Greek
age taken as a whole is directly opposed to the modern romantic period taken as a
whole; still when the history of Greek culture is examined in its inner development it
has its romantic, nay, even sensational, period as well as its period of grandeur and
simplicity. To fail in seeing this marked difference between the spirit of Greek art
and culture between the fifth and the middle and end of the fourth century before our
era, shows, I believe, a want of sense for the subtler indications contained in Greek
works of art and literature, to the possession of which the works of Professor Overbeck
have given him undoubted claim.
Besides these general notices there have appeared several special papers on this
statue, among which may be mentioned Benndorf, Vorlegedlätter &c., Serie A, Vienna,
1879; A. H. Smith, journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. III. pp. 81 seq. Wieseler,
Festrede, &c., Halle, 1880. Kekulé, Ueber den Kopf des praxitelischen Hermes,
188o.
374 APPENDIX. [II.
garment was dedicated to Athene Parthenos in the Parthenon. On the
occasion of this festival there was a foot-race between the maiden
priestesses of Hera, and the victors were crowned with olive and
received a share of the cow offered to the goddess. The statue' of a
maiden in the act of running, clad in a short skirt or chiton, barely
reaching the knees, in archaic folds, most probably represents one of
these priestesses.
Pausanias mentions, in the 17th Chapter, a number of statues which
he remarked in this temple; among others, those of Zeus and Hera.
He characterises these two statues as of poor work, and does not
mention the artist. After noticing several other statues and giving the
names of their sculptors, he mentions another chryselephantine (gold
and ivory) group, the names of whose sculptors, however, he declares
he does not know. They were, he says, of archaic origin. The
Heraion contained many very ancient monuments, such as the chest of
Kypselos. He then goes on to state that in later times other statues
were dedicated to the temple, such as “a Hermes of stone (marble),
carrying the infant Dionysos, a work moreover of Praxiteles.”
In the spring of 1877, the German excavators at Olympia came
upon a dipteral temple, in which they found columns of unequal
construction and style. From this and various other topographical
reasons, they concluded, apparently with justice, that they had found
the Heraion mentioned by Pausanias. -
If by a stretch of sympathy you put yourselves into the place of
excavators in the distant Greece and in the lonely valleys of Olympia,
burning with scientific ardour, and conscious of the fact that not only
the country that sent them, and whose government defrayed the
enormous expenses of these excavations, but also the whole of civilised
Europe was eagerly watching their proceedings in expectation of great
results; and if, furthermore, you bear in mind that the results up to
that moment, though considerable, were far below what had been
hoped for—then you can adequately figure to yourselves the excite-
ment and joy which thrilled through these men, when in this temple
the pick and spade of the diggers cleared away the soil and débris of
centuries until pure white marble gleamed forth, and gradually the
beautiful form of a youthful male figure firmly embedded in the frag-
ments of the wall which had sunk over it, was brought to light (Fig. 24).
The legs below the knee, the right fore-arm, the plinth and parts
of the trunk of the tree on which the figure rested, were missing.
* Visconti, Museo Pio Clementino, III. Tav. 27.
II.] APPENDIX. - 375
Subsequently, however, fragments of a little child, which evidently was
FIG. 24. Hermes of Praxiteles.
seated on the left arm of this figure, together with some drapery which
hung down from the left arm, and other fragments, were found'. Be-
hind the statue, which had fallen on its face, a square block was found,
between the two pillars, which evidently served as a pedestal for the
statue. The face, moreover, and the whole surface is in an unprece-
dented state of preservation, not a particle of the finely-cut nose injured.
Perhaps in falling forward, the right arm, now broken, served to weaken
the fall, and so to preserve the face. There could now be no doubt
that this was the marble Hermes with the Dionysos-child by Praxiteles,
which Pausanias mentions. wº
Here was a statue which could as undoubtedly be identified with
* Since this paper was read a foot of the Hermes with clear traces of gilding
and in excellent preservation, as well as the head and upper part of the Dionysos,
have been found.

376 APPENDIX. [II.
its master, as can the pedimental figures of the Parthenon with
Pheidias, the Discobolos with Myron, the group of Laokoon with
Agesandros, Polydoros, and Athenodoros, the Gauls with the Pergamese
School; nay, even with greater certainty, for the Parthenon marbles are
not from the hand of Pheidias, the Discobolus statues and the Gauls are
ancient copies, while there has been some debate about the age and
School to which the Laokoon group belongs. .* *
It is hardly conceivable, how, despite of all this evidence, there
should have been archaeologists who could still doubt. Prof. O. Benn-
dorf, in Lützow's Zeitschrift (Vol. XIII. p. 780), points out, that it is
not at all certain whether by Praxiteles is meant the Praxiteles; and he
even finally endeavours to make it probable that the sculptor of the
Hermes was a Praxiteles who lived about 3oo B.C., a grandson of the
famous Praxiteles, and a contemporary of Theocritus and of Theophras-
tus'. It was a common custom for grandsons to bear the names of
their grandfathers, and it was a frequent occurrence in Greece that
children should inherit the specific talents of their fathers, and adopt
their callings in life. Out of a combination of these two facts, Benn-
dorf constructs the following Praxiteles pedigree. Pausanias mentions
a Praxiteles as the sculptor of a group of Demeter Kore and Iacchos in
Athens, with an inscription in Attic letters which were in use before the
time of Euclid (403 B.C.); this sculptor he supposes to be the grand-
father of the famous Praxiteles. (Whenever we mean the famous
Praxiteles we shall, as is always done in such cases, use the name
without any distinctive attribute.) We know that Kephisodotos the
elder, the sculptor of the famous Eirene” with the Plutos child (formerly
called Leucothea), now in the Glyptothek at Munich, was the father of
Praxiteles, and that Kephisodotos lived about the beginning of the
fourth century B.C. Praxiteles flourished about the middle of the fourth
century B.C. In the second half of the fourth century Kephisodotos the
younger and his brother Timarchos followed in the footsteps of their
father. About 3oo B.C., we hear of a Praxiteles to whom Theophrastus
(who died about 287 B.C.), gave an order to execute a bust at Athens;
and this is no doubt the same one mentioned in the Scholia to Theo-
Critus as belonging to the time of Demetrius. To illustrate the frequent
recurrence of the name, Benndorf mentions two artists named Praxiteles
in Roman times. The one executed a statue of Caius Aelius Gallus,
* Since then it has been shown that the Praxiteles here referred to was not a sculptor
but a philosopher. Prof. Benndorf has since this was read withdrawn his hypothesis.
* Brunn, Ueber die sogenannte Leukothea, etc., Sitzungsber. der A. bayr.
Aéademie der Wissenschaftem, 1867.
II.] APPENDIX. 377
the prefect of Egypt from 26 to 24 B.c.; another made the portrait of
the proconsul Cn. Acerronius Proclus (Consul 37 A.D.). These facts,
Benndorf maintains, go so far as to show a possibility that the sculptor
of the Hermes was not the Praxiteles. (Dr Klein supports Benndorf's
theory and develops it still further.) Lysippian elements, which
Benndorf believes he has discovered in the Hermes, and which we
shall consider hereafter, drive him to insist upon the probability that
the Hermes is the work of the supposed grandson of Praxiteles, who
was not exempt from the influence of the renowned sculptor Lysippos,
who flourished a generation before him. I shall merely remark here,
a point which has already been noticed by Dr Treu (Der Hermes mit
dem Dionysos Knaben, etc., Berlin, 1878), that Lysippos might have
been, and I say most probably was, influenced by the work of Praxiteles
in the constitution of his canon of human proportions.
The simplest answer to all these objections is, that if Pausanias had
meant one of the less famous sculptors of the name, he would have
added some attribute or mark of distinction; while, whenever he uses
the name without any distinctive attribute he means the great Praxiteles.
Analogous cases in ancient and modern times are present to us all.
We must furthermore bear in mind the context of the passage in
Pausanias. Pausanias tells us before, that several of the statues are of
poor workmanship, and that the sculptors of several of the others are
not known; in strong antithesis, as it were, he then mentions a statue,
both excellent in work and identified with regard to its author, and
tells us that this is a work of Praxiteles, seeming to imply thereby,
that being a work of the Praxiteles it must be excellent. The more
instances of the recurrence of the same name Benndorf enumerates, the
more he fails to disprove the present case being applicable to the great
sculptor; and the more does he manifest the need for Pausanias to have
specified whom he meant if he did not mean the Praxiteles. Prof.
Benndorf himself furnishes the best illustration in his enumeration of the
Praxiteles pedigree. He there specifies each individual, and only uses
the name alone when he means the famous Praxiteles'.
1 The word réxvm used to indicate the sculptor in the passage of Pausanias (Téxvm
ôé éart IIpaśtréAovs), instead of the more common &pyov, or the verbal form érotei,
érot more, étrómore, etc., has also been used to throw some doubt upon the assertion
whether this strictly meant that this was a work from the hand of Praxiteles.
& Hirschfeld (Tituli statuarum sculptorumque Graecorum, etc., Berlin, 1871),
supposes that réxym was a later Greek form, influenced by the Roman term opus
(Illae autem inscriptiones ex Romanorum usu potius quam ex Graecorum conformatae
sunt. Cf. opus Phidiae, opus Praxitelis, etc.). Opus does frequently occur in this
/
378 APPENDIX. [II.
Not only, however, from the records of this statue, but from the
fact of its very position in the cella of the Temple we might have
presumed it to have been the work of a most renowned sculptor, and of
Praxiteles above all. We know that the dyāApata within the temple
were generally of precious material. In the present case the preceding
statues are characterised as being chryselephantine, and the succeeding
statue of an Aphrodite by Kleon of Sikyon, is mentioned as being of
bronze. The Hermes alone is emphatically stated to be of stone, the
commonest material; there must therefore have been great excellence
of work inherent in it, and great fame attached to the name of its artist.
We know, moreover, that marble was the material characteristically used
by Praxiteles'. It is no doubt owing to this fact that this work of art
has been at all preserved to us; for gold and ivory tempted the lusts of
the hordes that subsequently overran this district, and bronze suited the
common uses of these barbarians. Except a bronze foot on a stone
pedestal, no other fragments of a full-sized bronze statue seems to have
been found as yet at Olympia”. This fact, again, goes to strengthen my
supposition that the other statues in the Heraion were all of precious
metal.
As has been already remarked by Hirschfeld (Deutsche Rundschau,
1877), Milchhoefer (Zm Meuen Reich, 1877), Treu (loc. cit.), Benndorf
and others, Kephisodotos, the father of Praxiteles, the sculptor of the
Eirene with the Plutos-child (a subject kindred in its nature to the
Hermes with the Dionysos-child), was also the sculptor of a group with
the same subject as ours”. It is very probable that there was a silent
context as, e.g., on the statues of the Monte Cavallo in Rome. But the word réxvm is
used in this context before the times of Roman influence. Nor could the word Téxum
stand for either the manual and technical part of the work, or the constructive and
originative side, alone. It combines both sides. So, for instance, in Aristotle (AEth.
Micom. vi. 7), the emphasis in the use of the word is rather upon the technical (in our
sense of the word); while Dio Chrysostomos, Or, XII. p. 209, praises the xàpts tºs
réxvns in the Zeus of Pheidias. The use of this word would also be amply accounted
for by the natural desire for change in style, to avoid the monotonous repetition of the
same word. But I am inclined to believe that the word réxvm was used by Pausanias
as a strong word in this context to accentuate the indisputable authorship of Praxiteles
with regard to this work as contrasted with the uncertainty as to the sculptors of the
works previously mentioned by him.
* Praxiteles quoque marmore felicior, ideo et clarior fuit, fecit tamen et ex
aere pulcherrima opera. Plin. AW. H. xxxiv. 69. See the passages in Overbeck's
Schriftguellen, p. 248.
* Since this paper was read a bronze head has been discovered.
* Cephisodoti duo fuere; priorisest Mercurius Liberum patrem in infantia nutriens.
Plin. M. A. xxxiv. 87. - -
II.] APPENDIX. 379
family tradition among sculptor families with regard to certain subjects, .
and that Praxiteles would be strongly influenced by a work of his
father's. --
But we can hardly term the work before us a group; there is no
approximation to an equal balance of interest between its constituent
parts. Our whole interest and attention are attracted by the Hermes,
and the infant Dionysos appears only to exist in our mind as a means
to account for the expression of individual character and emotion in the
Hermes. And how exquisite and plastically perfect is the expression of
this emotion. The Hermes, youthful, and yet with paternal tenderness
and strength toned down to gentleness; while a breath of sweet
melancholy, pleasing in its sad rhythm, rests over the whole composition.
The head combines in its features all the characteristics of a youthful
Hermes, and of the typically Attic youth. The type of the athlete, the
ephebe, the director and protector of games, and the swift-footed
messenger of the gods, is indicated in the firmly cut, tightly connected
features, the crisp hair energetically rising from the knit and vigorous
brow, in the athletic development of the temples. A second character-
istic of Hermes and of the Athenian youth is the acuteness, almost
Slyness, of intellect (KAvróðovXos, 86Xuos, etc.); he is the god of
skilful speech (A6)wos, facundus"); the god of useful inventions”; the
god of commerce and of thieves (éptroXaſos, troMykärnkos, kepèéutropos)”;
the god of luck, of gaming and gamesters (k\ſipos)". But what is most
apparent in this head are the softer and more gentle qualities which
were also possessed by the strong and wary Athenian youth. Hermes
is a devoted and ardent lover; a tender and kind father, who, for
instance, bestowed the gift of an ever retentive memory on his son
Aethalides, the herald of the Argonauts. He was the benign bestower
of earthly prosperity and the reliever of the distressed (éptočvvos, 88top
éáov, drakijrms)". And the dreaming, soft and melancholy traits which
are shed with a glow over the whole figure, are personified in Hermes
as the bestower of sweet sleep, whose staff could “close the eyes of
mortals",” and as the leader of all dreams, jyſtop ovetpov’; the leader
of the dead, of departed Souls, into Hades (vekpotropºrós, luxotropºrós).
* Orph. h. 27, 4; Hor. Od. I. Io. 4.
* Plut. Symp. 9, 3; Diod. I. 16, v. 75; Hyg. Fab. 27.
* Aristoph. Plut., II55, 1156; Orph. h. 27. 6.
* Aristoph. Pax, 365, etc.
* Zl. XXIV. 360, Odyss. VIII. 335, Zl. xvi. 185.
- * Il. XXIV. 343, 445.
… * Hom. h. 14, and Il. II. 26; Virg. Aen. Iv. 556.
38O APPENDIX, [II.
In general we may say that Hermes is the most human of the Greek
gods.
But, like a great sculptor who has thoroughly conceived the true
province in his art and its means of expression, it is not only the head
which Praxiteles has formed to express his feelings, his thoughts, his
creative mood, however beautiful we know his heads to have been"; we
feel his power in the manner in which the head rests upon the neck, and
the neck upon the shoulders, and the limbs join on to the body; in
short, in the plastic rhythm of the whole figure as well as in the peculiar.
modelling of every sinew and muscle, and in each smallest part of the
surface.
The main features which Praxiteles has expressed in this statue are
those of strength and tenderness. It is not a pure and simple type, such
as the earlier times would have given us, strength in a Herakles, and
softness in a Dionysos, but a composite type of Herculean strength and
of Bacchic softness, both harmoniously blended in the beautiful forms
of an athletic youth; strength and active energy, penetrated by passive
pleasure, capable of delight in passion. Strength is plastically indicated
in the powerful limbs, the full chest, the modelling of the well articulated
muscles and sinews; while the apparent relaxation and the soft rest of
these powerful limbs and of the well-rounded chest, express the gentle
element in this complex mood. -
The soft layer beneath the epidermis unites, with its tranquil flow,
the sinewy muscles that lie below it into a gliding rhythm ; propitiates
the ruptures of lines, and intermediates each hiatus where each muscle
and joint is knit on to the other. The smooth and vibrating surface
covers all in lines of gentle yet potentially vigorous cadence, midway
between the rippling rhythm of the epidermis of a Farnese Hercules,
and the languid and almost effeminate swell of lines in the Lykian
Apollo or the Antinous as Bacchus in the Vatican.
But all this is expressed not merely in the rhythm of the individual
limbs and parts themselves, but in the general rhythm of the body, as
well as in the outline rhythm. . *
In the relative position of the limbs to the central point of interest
of the figure, strength is expressed though imbedded under apparent
rest—it is latent. Michael Angelo's Moses in the San Pietro in Vinculi
in Rome is seated in comparative rest, and his muscles are partially
relaxed. And still we are necessarily impressed, while gazing upon this
seated figure, with its latent power, which may at any moment become
* Praxitelea capita, Cic. de Zizimat. II. 21, 48.
II.] APPENDIX. 381
actual. The broad band round his powerful left shoulder in perfect
repose, still gives us the idea of motion and resistance. He could rend
it asunder, broad as it is, were his muscles to swell. Nay, we feel that
the next moment he will rise from his apparent repose, and all his
sinews will be in the most energetic tension, that he will grasp the tablet
with his strong hands and shatter it to the ground, that his whole large
frame will vibrate with passion. The eve of a great powerful moral
outburst is embodied in the seeming rest and relaxation of this statue.
So too we can feel that this Hermes, full of tenderness and glowing with
a languid relaxation, can at any moment swing the discus, fling the
spear, wrestle and struggle in the Pancration, softly skim over the
course, or even fly over “the briny sea and the infinite earth with his
beautiful ambrosian and golden pedila " as the messenger of Zeus. He
can not only tenderly nurse the infant, but he has snatched it from the
flames and he can protect it. On the other hand, the languor and
tenderness of the figure is expressed in the forward bending head which
in this position adds to the expression of dreamy abstractedness, and in
the slight curve of the neck and shoulders, in the gentle uplifting of the
right arm, and in the careful semi-suspension of the left, as well as in the
wavy curve of the flank and the outward swell of the hip (as intelligibly
a line of soft melancholy as any minor passage of low and gliding
violoncello tones in music).
So much for the general rhythm of the body. In the outline rhythm,
the flow of the simple lines of the outline, there is the same mixture and
thorough harmony of soft rest and latent movement. And this is so
whether, as Hirschfeld and Milchhoefer maintain, he held in his right
uplifted hand a bunch of grapes to incite the appetite of his little ward,
or, as Treu maintains, he held the thyrsos to indicate the nature of the
infant. This staff would counteract the effect produced by the heavy
drapery and the child on his left, which without a similar line on the
right would be unsymmetrical in composition'. With regard to the
* A restoration has been made of the Hermes with a bunch of grapes in his
uplifted right hand. This experiment has more than ever convinced me that this
could not have been the motive of the statue. It misses the whole character of the
work and makes a genre scene of it. Besides which neither the child nor Hermes
would be looking at the grapes. The staff in his right hand would be better for the
composition as it is also more in the tradition of these works. The Eirene held a
long staff in the same way. Mr A. H. Smith has made it highly probable that he
held a long caduceus in this hand. In his paper he has added numerous instances of
the more or less modified reproductions of this figure to the list furnished by Benndorf.
I believe that the nearest approach to the actual Hermes is the small bronze repre-
senting the same subject which I had the good fortune to discover in the Louvre
Museum (%urn. of Hell. Stud, Vol. III., Plate facing p. ro").
/2 + 3
382 APPENDIX. [II.
outline rhythm we are again midway between the restless, outward-
driving lines of a Borghese gladiator, and the restful symmetry of outline
in a Somnus, with his hands folded over his head.
With regard to the technique (in the restricted sense), I have already
remarked the exquisiteness of the modelling. The surface and what is
below it seems to vibrate under the gaze and touch of the spectator.
The delicate play of light and shade over the ribs of the right side will
assist in appreciating the quality of the modelling when we compare it
with similar Roman works, in which each part seems put together, not
to flow together. All this points to the expression of what we may term
texture in plastic art, and here it appears to me that Praxiteles was
decidedly an innovator.
Pheidias could readily indicate his texture by means of the various
materials he used in one statue, as for instance, gold and ivory; but
Praxiteles was the marble sculptor par excellence. Pliny (xxxiv. 69,
xxxvi. 20) says of him, “Praxiteles was more happy in marble than in
bronze, and therefore also more celebrated,” and “he surpasses himself
in marble.” The strong feeling the Greeks had for indication of texture
in plastic art manifests itself at first in their using different materials to
express various textures. A later development of art leads them to use
but one material; but then they call in polychromy' to assist them in
accentuating various textures, until they gradually come to express this
difference by the quality of the modelling. Now I am far from ignoring
the exquisite distinction of texture in the nude, the light and the heavy
drapery, in the pedimental figures of the Parthenon; but still I maintain
that this distinction of texture is of a more marked character in the
Hermes than in any earlier statue known to us. Though we know that
the statues of Praxiteles were painted with great care, nay, that perhaps
even, as Brunn interprets the passage in Pliny (xxxv. 122), Praxiteles
himself painted his own statues, still we know with what preference and
how frequently he represented nude figures, in which the amount of
painting could necessarily have been but very restricted. And, more-
over, Lucian (Amor. 13, and Imag. 4) expressed his admiration of the
manner in which texture is expressed in the fleshy parts of the Aphrodite
of Cnidus. All this leads me to infer that polychromy reached the
highest point of its development in Praxiteles, but that after the
highest point immediately followed decline. And there can be no
1 We meet with polychromy in the earliest times; but then it is especially in
connexion with architecture, and the works almost invariably partake of a decorative
character. The temple statues rarely were of marble, while the agonistic works were
generally of bronze.
II.] - APPENDIX. 383
doubt in my mind, that the strongly marked accentuation of texture in
marble independent of colour was already in formation in Praxiteles.
In the Hermes we notice this especially in the treatment of the hair
(Pl. XVI.) in its relation to the skin. It is very strange that those who
first noticed the statue considered this treatment of the hair, roughly
blocked out as it is, to be a mark of hasty work. But Surely, it arises
rather from a very keen sense of texture, and much and deep thought
as to the manner of expressing it. Some painters, like Denner, thought
that they could best represent hair in as nearly as possible indicating each
single hair; but we know that painting in large masses, yet with a peculiar
handling of the brush, is more likely to succeed in evoking the sense-per-
ception of sight, equivalent to that perception in touch. In plastic art,
this is the introduction of a pictorial element, but it is not painting.
Hirschfeld has remarked traces of colour on the lips and hair of our
Hermes. I have not been able to discover them'. However this may be,
the fact remains that there is a new style of rendering hair in this statue.
The same applies to the drapery suspended from the left arm. I can
recall but one antique statue in which the texture is similarly indicated
in the drapery, namely, the Demeter of Cnidus, in the British Museum.
The drapery of the Hermes is exceedingly realistic in the indication of
texture, and corresponds exactly to the treatment of the hair.
Now, is the Hermes, as Benndorf maintains, really so different in
work and character from the other statues which Archaeology has until
now identified with Praxiteles P Decidedly not. To begin with the
technique. It is objected that this treatment of the hair does not
correspond with that of statues like the Apollo Sauroktonos and the
Eros, called the “Genius of the Vatican,” and so on. But the difference
between the hair of the Hermes and the Eros is not much greater than
between that of the Eros and the Sauroktonos; and, moreover, we must
bear in mind that the other statues are copies, and probably Roman
copies, while the Hermes is a Greek original. It is difficult to copy
hair, especially such seemingly hasty work. I must lay especial stress on
one fact, having in my mind a school of archaeologists in Germany, who
see the conventionally archaic, imitations of the archaic, “Archai-
sieren,” in many works that have, until now, been considered archaic.
In copying a work of former times, the copyist almost invariably
introduces modern elements, and he cannot help it. To see this we
need but stroll through a gallery of old masters and compare the copies
1 In the recently discovered foot the clearest traces of gilding have been found
on the straps of the sandals. If colour has been so well preserved here, why should
it be so doubtful elsewhere?
384 APPENDIX. [II.
with the originals. We are more justified in opposing what we may call
Żmodernisieren to their archaisieren. For my own part I feel convinced
that the hair of the original Genius of the Vatican was more similar in
treatment to that of the Hermes than to that of the Sauroktonos.
But sufficient positive evidence can be brought forward to show
that the type found in the Hermes is prevalent in the time of Praxiteles
and is markedly different from the Lysippian type. We need but com-
pare the head of the Hermes (Pl. XVI.) with heads on three coins" which
Mr Percy Gardner has kindly informed me all belong to the period of
Philip of Macedon, i.e., the age of Praxiteles. The first is the well-
known gold stater of Philip of Macedon, with the idealised portrait of
the monarch with laurel wreath. The second” is a silver coin of
Phalanna in Thessaly, a drachma of Aeginetan standard, having on the
obverse a young male head looking to the right (which Mr Gardner
believes may be Ares), and on the reverse, ba NN AION with a bridled
horse trotting to the right. The third” is a copper coin of Medeon in
Acarnania, bearing on the obverse, a young male head, and below ME.;
and, on the reverse, A within a wreath.
All three heads, though representing different personalities, are the
same in style and in the artistic conception of the male type; and all
three again bear the most striking resemblance to the head of the
Hermes. If we bear in mind that the one head belongs to a highly
finished statue of over-life size, we shall find that the differences between
the head of the Hermes and each of the coins is not greater than the
difference of two coins from one another. But of the three, the second,
the coin from Phalanna is most strikingly similar to the Hermes. The
brow is more receding, it is true, but we notice the same elevations of
the frontal bone, which we do not meet with before Praxiteles. The
subtle execution of the eye in profile, astonishing in such small dimen-
sions, is the same as in the Hermes, down to the delicate cavity at the
angle where the frontal bone and the cheek bone meet. The indication
of the soft texture of the cheek, the mouth, the chin, nay, even the
peculiar block treatment of the hair, is strikingly similar in the two
instances. It is impossible to mistake this head for a Lysippian head;
a comparison between the head of the Hermes and that of the Apoxyo-
menos of the Vatican will show the most manifest difference. It is
instructive to compare two heads in the Glyptothek at Munich, in
Brunn's Catalogue, No. 164 and No. 83, the former clearly of the
1 I am obliged to Mr W. S. W. Vaux for suggesting this point of comparison.
* Mentioned by Mionnet, II. 148.
3 Imhof Blumer, AWumism. Zeitsch?". 1878, Pl. I, No. 15.
II.] - APPENDIX. 385
Praxitelean type of the Hermes, the latter of the Lysippian type of the
Apoxyomenos'.
But it is, we must confess, quite superfluous to attempt to prove the
Praxitelean character of this statue. Hardly ever, in the history of
archaeology, has the sculptor and the denomination of a work been so
conclusively shown by the circumstances of its discovery as in this case.
Henceforth all the works which have previously been supposed to be
Praxitelean will have to be compared with the Hermes, to prove their
genuineness, and not vice versä.
Moreover, the proportions of the body of the Hermes correspond
exactly to what we should d priors have supposed them to be. The
canon of Polykleitos was heavy and square, his statues were quadrata
signa"; the canon of Lysippos was more slim, less fleshy: capita minora
faciendo quam antiqui, corpora graciliora siccioraque, per quae proceritas
signorum major videretur”. Now the historical position of Praxiteles
lies between Polykleitos and Lysippos, and so the lithe squareness and
square litheness of the Hermes represents the transition from the
heaviness of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos to the slimness of the
Apoxyomenos of Lysippos.
But the physical type of the Hermes is not merely a point of
transition. It is true we do not hear of a Praxitelean canon; a fixed
model of human proportions is incongruous with the personal and
artistic character of Praxiteles, as will become evident to us further on ;
for such a nature is opposed to all “academical” fetters and is guided
by the impressions flowing from each object it deals with. And yet we
may now assert that the Praxitelean type was prevalent in the age which
we may roughly determine by Philip of Macedon, as becomes evident
from the fact that, e.g., the type of the Hermes head pervaded even the
more mechanical art of coinage in the remote north of Greece (as in
the coins mentioned above). But also the type of the whole figure with
its proportions prevailed in that epoch; and this is shown, not only in -
the frequent modified replicas, such as the so-called Antinous of the
Vatican, the Hermes of Andros at Athens, the Hermes in the Glyptothek
at Munich, the Hermes from the Farnese collection in the British
Museum, &c., &c.; but this type also recurs in statues, independent of
the Hermes, and even in vase figures that in style belong to this epoch.
It will be a task for archaeologists in the future to study whole groups of
* I subsequently find that Prof. Brunn has remarked the characteristics of these
two heads.
* Pliny, M. H. xxxiv. 56.
* Pliny, M. H. xxxiv. 65.
w. 25
386 APPENDIX. - [II.
ancient monuments, taking the Hermes as the starting point of com-
parison, as the criterion of Praxitelean work. I shall merely draw
attention to three instances. -
The famous Poniatowski’ vase has on the face a representation of
the Triptolemos myth, while the figures on the reverse exactly corre-
spond to the Hermes type. In former days archaeologists were very
fond of giving mystical interpretations to simple illustrations from
ancient life. They were especially fond of bringing every illustration
into immediate connexion with the mysteries. So in this case Visconti,
Fr. Creuzer” and Millin bring the youth, who, as they say, is standing
in the doorway of a temple, into connexion with the Eleusinian
mysteries, and describe the surrounding persons accordingly. The sup-
posed temple, however, is nothing more than the pictorial rendering of
a stone stele. The painter evidently was inspired by or copied a
funereal slab which represented a young ephebe as an athlete whose
favourite dog is endeavouring to attract his attention. This motive is
very frequent in Greek funereal monuments. The Greeks were not
fond of representing their deceased friends as dead, but recalled them as
they were when alive, with a minimum of the dark spectre of death.
Married men are represented in the act of being married, warriors, as
taking leave or returning from battle, or in the act of fighting; women
are pictured in the midst of their household, surrounded by their
children, engrossed in their favourite occupations, etc. So in this case
the sepulchral vase, which evidently came from the grave of a young
man, was decorated on the face with a Triptolemos representation,
while on the other side the youth himself is represented as he was:
subjectively in the figure on the stele, a young man who excelled in the
athletic games and was fond of hunting; objectively, in the relation in
which the surrounding figures are brought to him; they show his social
character, his amiability both for men and women. A maiden offers a
wreath, another holds a mirror to reflect his charms, a youth also offers
a victor-vase, the other is in the act of calling him to join him in the
palaestra. It is a genre scene from the life of the deceased. That the
youth is surrounded by the ornaments of a stele becomes a certainty
from the resemblance and almost identity which obtains between this
figure and a marble stele published by Stackelberg”, who points to this
* First published by E. Q. Visconti, “Le pitture di un antico vaso fittile trovato
nella Magna Grecia, appartenente al principe Stanislas Poniatowski,” etc. Millin’s
Description de Vases Antiques, Vol. I. Pl. 32, etc.
* Abbildungen zur Symbolik und Mythologie, Taf. 14, Erklär. 76, p. 47.
* Die Graeber der Hellenen, Berlin, 1837, Taf. II. No. 2.
II.] APPENDIX. 387
coincidence. According to Stackelberg it was found on the site of the
battle of Leuktra (B.C. 371), and was deposited at Eremokastro, the
ancient Thespiae. In this case the youth has no band round his head,
and he holds a strigilis in his hand; the remainder is identical in both.
In both these cases we have the Hermes type. Moreover, the head of
a youth with a Phrygian cap on the neck of the vase, while strongly
reminding us of the Hermes, also resembles the head of the Eros of
Centocelli, commonly known as the Genius of the Vatican. The
proportions of the body are neither Polykleitan nor Lysippian, but
essentially those of the Hermes, while the graceful position of the head
and the bend in the hip are the striking characteristics of the Praxitelean
figures. Of the correspondence with regard to the moral as dis-
tinguished from the purely physical characteristics we shall treat here-
after.
Finally, we again meet with the same type in a stele at Athens'. It
is again a genre representation, a boy playing with a bird, leaning against
the stem of a tree while his chlamys lightly resting over his left shoulder
hangs down by the tree. Again Stackelberg endeavours to bring the
youth, as “Verehrer und Diener der Manen-Koenigin Persephone
Phereplatta, der Taubentraegerin, oder Aphrodite Epithymbia, Libitina,”
into some mythological association, while in truth we have merely to
deal with a scene from life. Not only does the head, do the physical
proportions, exactly correspond to the Hermes, but the attitude is
almost identical, nay the drapery with its treatment of folds and the
way in which it is suspended from the tree, as well as the tree itself,
are in both cases almost the same. The figures speak for themselves.
Praxitelean influence becomes still more evident in this case when we
remember that the slab comes from Athens, and that we know from
Pausanias (I. 2, 3) that Praxiteles was the sculptor of a sepulchral
monument in Athens representing a warrior next to his horse (&ort 6?
taqos of tróñāo ròv rv\ſov, riffmua exov orpartórmy intrº trapeotmkóra
8vruva pºv oik otöa, IſpačvréAms 8& kai row introv kai row orpattºrmv
érotmorev); and that he also, according to Pliny (ZV. H. XXXVI. 20, opera
eius sunt Athenis in ceramico), fashioned works in the Ceramicus, which
were most likely sepulchral monuments”.
* Supplement to Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, Pl. 2, fig. 3. C. O. Müller,
Aerºmeåler der alten Kunst, 1 Theil, Taf. xxix. n. 127. Stackelberg, ibid.,
Taf. II. No. 4.
* Brunn formerly (Künstler Geschichte I. p. 344), and Urlichs (Chrest. Plin.,
p. 38o), brought these works into connexion with the group of Demeter, Persephone,
and Iacchos, in the Temple of Demeter at Athens, mentioned by Paus. I. 2, 4; but
there is no reason for this. Cf. Overbeck, Schriftguellen, 1282.
25–2
388 APPENDIX. [II.
U/
I must add one more instance to these, most interesting in that it
combines elements of two of the hitherto best known extant works of
Praxiteles with those of the Hermes. It is the statue of a so-called
Ganymede. This statue of a nude youth with a chlamys over his left
shoulder, with feet crossed, leaning against a tree-stem, is published by
Wisconti'. The name d’AIAT(I)MOX is inscribed on the base. This
sculptor Phaidimos has consciously united in this work the chief
features of the Sauroktonos, the Satyr of the Capitol, and the Hermes.
The attitude and action and the treatment of the body are partly the
Sauroktonos, partly the Satyr, while the head and the spirit of the whole
composition are those of the Hermes.
But what is most characteristic of the Hermes and of all these works
is the sadly abstracted and reflective mood expressed in the figures, and
the soft melancholy rhythm of the lines. The above-mentioned stele
and the vase-figure as well the statues hitherto considered to be
Praxitelean, as the Apollo Sauroktonos, the Genius of the Vatican, the
Apollino of the Uffizi, and the Faun of the Capitol—all have, in common
with the Hermes, the languor in the rhythm of the outline, the same
graceful position, the same wavy bend of the hip.
2
2^ But the sadly-abstracted and reflective mood is expressed more
º One of the manifestations of the normal, healthy, and active
rame of mind is, that our muscles, or the outward signs of attention,
immediately react upon a stimulus received from without by our senses.
If, for instance, we receive a tap on our left shoulder, our head and
eyes and perhaps even the right arm will turn in that direction. But
when we are reflective, wrapped in inward thought, as it were, this mood
manifests itself in that we do not normally react in accordance with the
stimulus received by our senses. We are insensible to any affection
from without, because we are engrossed in the pictures of the inner
mind's eye. But though this abstractedness, in so far as it means
insensibility to the proceedings of the outer world, and in so far as it is a
more than normal descent into thought, has an inherent element of
sadness, and partakes in its outward manifestion of the languor of
dreamland; still it may spring from descent into critical thought, and
then it does not essentially suggest sadness to us. But the plastic
manifestation of these moods distinguishes between critical and vague
dreamy abstractedness, in the relative expression of the eye. When we
are critically abstracted, the eye, or rather the moveable surroundings of
the eye, are compressed, while the body and the head are fixed in one
* Museo Chiaramonti, Pl. xi. This paragraph has been added since the paper
was first published. -
II.] APPENDIX. 389
direction, insensible to outward disturbances; but in vague and dreamy
abstraction, reverie, the eyes are wide open, and there is a fixed immo-
bility of the rest of the body. Now the infant Dionysos on the left
arm of the Hermes is evidently restless; he gazes up at his protector,
and attempts to attract his attention by tugging at his shoulder. But
the widely-open eyes of Hermes are not fixed upon the object which
vigorously stimulates his senses; and the half-sad smile round his lips,
which are not free from an indication of satiety, is not immediately
caused by the infant, though it may be perhaps mediately, namely, by
the inner thoughts which were originally suggested by the child. In the
same way, on the Athenian stele, the head and the eyes of the youth
are gracefully turned to his left, away from the bird restlessly flapping
its wings on his right. And, finally, this contrast between the fresh and
active and the sad and dreamy is apparent in the figure on the Ponia-
towski vase. His eyes are not turned upon his favourite dog, who is
vainly attempting to attract his attention. The mouth is somewhat
drooping with the over-fulness of sentiment.
This expression of countenance, together with the position and
rhythm of the rest of the body, expresses with the greatest clearness the
sad mood in all these works. It is a great confirmation for me to find
that two modern English poets have felt this to be the salient character-
istic of one of the before-mentioned statues, the Genius of the Vatican.
The one’ says:
Nathless, it grieves me that thy pensive mood
And downcast eyes and melancholy brow
Reveal such sorrow ; nay I know not how
Stern sadness o'er thy beauty dares to brood.
And then I say: the sorrow is not thine,
But his who sculptured thee, weeping to think
That earthly suns to night's cold tide must sink,
And youth ere long in death's pale charnel pine.
Or wert thou some Marcellus shown by heaven
With presage of the tomb upon thine eyes,
Whom Jove, too envious of our clouded skies,
Snatched from the earth, to divine councils given,
And smoothed thy brow, and raised thy drooping head
And lapped thee in a soft Elysian bed?—
And the other”:
O love, to me who love thee well,
Who fain would hear and mark,
The secret of thy sorrow tell,
And why thy brow is dark.
99
1 J. Addington Symonds, the “Genius of the Vatican,” in “Many Moods.
* Ernest Myers' Poems. The “Genius of the Vatican.”
390 APPENDIX. [II.
* 35. k. * %.
But thou hast caught a deeper care,
His smile is not for thee;
Thou canst not all so lightly wear
Thine immortality.
Or is it that thy spirit knew
Its solitary fate,
That whatsoe'er of beauty grew,
Thou might'st not find thy mate?
This element of melancholy, which slowly flowed out of the hands
- of Praxiteles into all his works, must have been the subjective element
`---of Praxitelean art. To appreciate this we must endeavour to study the
man who stood behind the artist, and the man again will be most
readily appreciated by us when we study the time and the social environ-
ment in which we find him a member.
Brunn' has rightly concluded from the subjects which Praxiteles
chose for artistic representation. (generally female or youthful male
beauty), together with the reports we have concerning the character of
these works, as well as from the fact that he frequently charmed the
spectators with the outward and more material execution of the works,
that one of the most manifest features of his artistic character was
SenSUlOUISIless. i
It is in the nature of the sensuous man to be impressionable. He is
subject, more than the unimpulsive, to be strongly influenced by his
various surroundings. This will account for the absence of a strict and
uniform style as we find it in the older times, especially in ancient
Peloponnesian art (which like the men of that time and district was
hard and rigorous). The sensuous nature is open to the charms of its
surroundings, and its moods are essentially affected by them; and so
the style, in detail for instance, the treatment of the hair (as in the
statues we have before enumerated), will vary in accordance with the
different subjects treated. But what is most characteristic of the
sensuous temperament is the frequent reaction towards melancholy
which follows upon every exalted or violent affection; there are but
extremeS. - *
But by this sensuousness we are far from meaning actual passion;
and I thoroughly agree with Brunn” in his controversy with Friedrichs”
when he maintains that the ard.60s of Praxiteles differed from that of
Scopas. In Scopas we have actual passion expressing itself in the
* Gesch, d. Griech. Künstler, Vol. I. p. 345, etc.
* Azinstler Geschichte, and in Rhein. Museum, Vol. XI. 166.
* Praxiteles und die Wiolegruppe, Leipz. 1865.
II.] APPENDIX. - 39 I
violence of the actions he chose for plastic representation and in the
feature of movement and unrest which ran through all his statues. In
Praxiteles we have potential passion, suggestion of strong impulses,
rather than impulses themselves. But such suggestiveness, hidden and
veiled, is sad in itself, sadder in its aspect than even the violent impulse
to destruction; and whenever the sensitive and amative nature is not
vibrating it is apt to be sad.
Pheidias was not sad, but the time in which Pheidias lived was
essentially different from that of Praxiteles. The time in which the
character of Pheidias formed itself, was one of decision; its traits stood
forth pronouncedly and its aims all lay in one direction; the united
resistance of all Greek states against their common Persian foe. There
was something decided and vigorously energetic in the spirit which this
great aim of Greek states and their citizens cast over that epoch; it
excluded self-consciousness and self-reflection, it gave them their keen
perception of generality and of broad types—of the ideal. This naïveté,
added to energy and inventive impulse, together with the essential
plastic tendency of the Greek mind, is most favourable to the production
of great sculptors and is most characteristic of the genius of Pheidias.
Serenity is that which most characterises the works of Greek plastic art
in the time of Pheidias, the noble naïveté, and silent greatness; “ZXie
edle Einſalt und stille Grösse,” as Winckelmann calls it. And this
feature must no doubt have been the most striking one in the character
of Pheidias himself. With the smallest amount of exertion and the
greatest simplicity, Pheidias gave forth himself in his works of grandeur;
while again, with the greatest simplicity he was affected by what
surrounded him, and assimilated with his inventive genius the grand
spirit and healthy vigour of his time.
The age of Praxiteles was not so simple and decided in its character,
its movements, and its aims. The aims before it did not enforce them-
selves with decision enough to make it, so to say, begin anew and
unprecedented in the formation of its future. Its moving power was
not simple, but emanated from two different quarters. The violent
commotion of the past Peloponnesian war, on the one hand, still rolled
its billows and cast the weary mind to and fro; while, on the other
hand, the whirlpool of future conquests and struggles mysteriously
sucked it into its circle. Within the dying vibrations of former
commotion and the mystic forebodings of stirring future events this age
grew up an old man with youthful impulses—a grey-haired youth. The
naïveté and simplicity of action was no more; no decided trait; neither
day nor night, but what lies between them—twilight. The aims of the
392 APPENDIX. [II.
time not being defined and one, but there being currents in two different
directions, the individual dwellers on the borderland of events became
undecided, inactive, more reflective, and sophisticated. For if the outer
world draws in two different directions, the result is a reversion into
oneself. In the past romantic period of our century, the nations were
still trembling with the violent emotions produced by the French
Revolution and the sweep of Napoleon; while the Revolution of 1848
and the great reformatory steps of our immediate age mysteriously drew
them on. It is typified by De Musset (himself a type of this age) in the
beginning of his Confessions d’un enfant du siècle, an age in which
Shelley, still a boy, is reported to have said of himself: “I am older
than my grandfather, and if I die to-morrow I shall be ninety-nine years
old.” The movement being complex, it will either produce stagnation,
or, not admitting of simple outward motion, it produces a surplus
amount of inner, “molecular” motion, that is, nervousness, excita-
bility. -
The excitable, nervous and sensuous nature combined with a soul of
poetry and constructive imagination has always the characteristics of
the Sanguine temperament, the bright and fresh impulse, and the sad
and melancholy reaction. Such natures are premature, they pass
rapidly through childhood, and frequently astound us by intuitive
forebodings and thoughts and feelings which belong to old age; and
still they never lose the freshness and vigour of youth, for they are the
pulsating incorporation of the attributes of youth, as the equipoised,
critical and steady temperament personifies the age of ripe manhood.
Such natures cannot produce the steady grandeur of a Pheidias; but
they fluctuate in their works and are continually influenced by their
immediate surroundings—influenced immediately and in their whole
person, not assimilating their environment with their fresh, strong, and
simple personality, as do those of Pheidiac type. For the nervous
Constitution of such sanguine temperaments does not allow of any
protracted sojourn on the heights of sublimity. There is no continuity
of impulse, no sameness of mood. Though they may sometimes rise
above the world of reality into the supernatural and godlike, experience
feelings and delights which no other heart can feel, see visions which
no other eye has met, they soon sink from this lofty height, in which
the air is almost too thin to permit of mortals breathing, to the world
of reality; breathless and trembling, but sustained and drawing upwards
with them their environment by the resonance and memory of what
they heard and saw. Yet when they try to fix these impressions they
frequently fail, for such moods cannot last. Coleridge's Kubla Khan and
II.] APPENDIX. 393
Shelley's Epipsychidion are fragmentary. The Lovely, the Humanly-
Beautiful is their domain, for they are loveable and much loving
natureS.
Yet over all this world of restlessness, of “Storm and Pressure,” is
spread a thin gauze of unpronounced sadness, like the thin mist that
spreads over even the freshest landscape in the brightest morning of
spring. Praxiteles, Shelley, Heine, De Musset, Chopin were such
temperaments. What adds to the melancholy of such natures is the
consciousness that they have lost simplicity; they know that they are
sophisticated, and thus the simple and innocent, whenever they meet it,
evokes in them a fond and desiring sadness. When a pure maiden
inspires Heine, he can write the purest and Sadly-sweetest verses; all
the stains of his past joy have left him.
Thou'rt like a lovely floweret,
So void of guile and art,
I gaze upon thy beauty,
And grief steals o'er my heart.
I fain would lay devoutly
My hands upon thy brow,
And pray that God will keep thee
As good and fair as now".
Childhood with its purity and innocence fills them with sad longing.
And so it is that the infant on the arm of the Hermes cannot inspire the
vigorous young god with its own mirth, but evokes the sweetly-sad and
pensive mood which we have noted in the statue. But the power of
loving is placed deep in the heart of Hermes, and he is loveable in his
beauty.
Praxiteles, the sculptor of what is loveable, was ordered to fashion a
Hermes, the protector of athletic sports, in a temple at Olympia, the
sacred realm of all physical exercise; a strong god in the vast temple of
strength. And how did he solve the task? He gave a strong god, but
in a moment of tender pensiveness, and accentuated, even more than
his strength, his amiable beauty. The man with his individual character
shines forth through the artist.
The Hermes, then, undoubtedly a work of Praxiteles, has enabled us
to recognise the character of Praxitelean art, the character and genius of
Praxiteles himself, and has thrown a new ray of light upon a period of Greek
history. A work of art may elucidate an age as clearly as a chapter of
written history. Who can know the history of the Italian Renaissance
without studying Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michael Angelo P
* Leland's translation.
NO. III.
THE INFLUENCE OF ATHLETIC GAMES UPON
GREEK ART.
[Åeprinted from the Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (1883),
where it is published as delivered in the Discourse of April 13, 1883.]
IF we were to tell an uneducated workman or a thoughtless young
lady in Society that the reasons why they consider certain people good-
looking and certain things pleasing and well-proportioned are based upon
the canons of proportion which the ancient Greeks established for the
human form and for the objects manufactured by them, they would find
it difficult to realise the truth of such a statement. Yet so it is. We
can all readily realise that our taste differs from the taste of savages who,
as Professor Flower told you three years ago, flatten their skulls, run
bones through their noses, and stretch and thicken their lips and ears by
means of weights. Yet the fundamental principles underlying our taste,
in contradistinction to that of these Savages, are identically the same as
those laid down by the artists of ancient Hellas. Nay, the difference in
taste which separates us from the types of Byzantine-Christian and early
German art is the same as that which separates these pre-renaissance
types from those of ancient Greece. We are fundamentally still Greek
in taste. Now, when we consider how much further than the Byzantines
and early Germans the ancient Greeks are removed from us in time,
space, race, and religion, the question as to the causes of this singular
persistency of the influence of Greek art must necessarily present itself
to the inquiring mind.
The first and most obvious answer to this question is a purely
historical one. It would consist in pointing to the events of the
Italian renaissance, where, as a matter of fact, Greek art and Greek
letters were brought back to light and revived among the people. Yet
this is really no answer. For the question must further be asked: why
III.] APPENDIX. 395
should a few statues unearthed, coming from an age remote in antiquity,
commend themselves so strongly to the taste of a later age living under
different conditions, as to supersede the prevailing canons P and why
should such an “ancient innovation ” not die as a passing fashion, but
prevail and persist in its influence for centuries P -
The reasons for this are not to be found in historical accident; but
must be sought in the essential nature of Greek art itself, in those
elements inherent in the art which give it the power of persisting and of
retaining its validity for all ages and countries.
Two words, the weight of which I cannot hope to convey in this
short address, contain in their combination the essential and distinctive
characteristics of Greek art. It is the combination of Nature and the
Ideal.
Greek art has persisted in its influence down to our time, because
the artist clung to nature and followed her as a kind mother, and nature
practically remains the same throughout all ages. Byzantine, not to
speak of Egyptian and early Oriental, art have not done this. The
types of Byzantine art are conventional abstractions from nature;
a work of Greek art, however ideal, is instinct with nature.
But the persistent influence of Greek art is not wholly due to the fact
that it was naturalistic ; it is due above all to another quality of primary
importance, namely, that it was ideal, that it idealised nature. The
ideal in art is the highest generalisation of form. In Greek art it was
the highest generalisation of the forms in nature. The works of Greek
art are therefore not dependent for appreciation upon the individual
spectator or one special mood of the individual, but are valid for all
sane men, all men of a certain physiological constitution of their senses,
surrounded by man and nature relatively the same. The works of the
early Flemish and German masters, and even of some of the Kranachs
and of Albert Dürer, are replete with nature, yet are often wanting
in the ideal elements which raise the artist above the individual
model into the realms of the most perfect ideal types.
Neither Nature alone nor the Ideal alone can make art lasting in its
influence over different peoples and ages; it is only in the combination
of the two, in nature idealised, that this persistent quality of art can be
found. Yet Greek art was not always characterised by the combination
of these two elements.
We naturally incline to forget the early elementary stages of things
great and perfect. Nay, we are inclined to believe that they never were
humble and lowly, never grew from the smaller and lower to the
great and high. Thus the early childhood of Greek art is not widely
396 APPENDIX. - [III.
known. Still, there was a period when Greek art was not possessed of
nature. We may further generalise and say, that art never is possessed
of nature in its earliest stages. It has often been stated that the origin
of art is to be found in the imitative instinct of man. This experience
shows to be utterly untrue. It is really to be found in man's active
nature, in his creative instinct, which often drives him to seek for what
is opposed to nature as she presents herself to him day by day, for
rhyme as opposed to prose, for harmony of tones as opposed to
confusion of sound, for composition of thoughts, things and forms
as opposed to haphazard collocation of things. Children, when set to
'draw a real house, will not imitate what they see before them, but will
return to the well-known schematic form which we have all drawn,
and which children in all countries have drawn and will draw. It is at a
far later stage that man learns to render exactly what he sees before him
and to follow and imitate nature.
The childhood of Greek art shows the same characteristics which
mark the early artistic attempts of children. The works belonging to
what is called the Archaic period (roughly speaking, the works previous
to the fifth century before our era) all exhibit a conventional treatment
which, when compared with the treatment of the works of the fifth and
subsequent centuries, betokens a complete inability to render freely and
accurately the forms of nature. How then was the step from this
imperfection to the highest perfection made 2
The causes which brought about this advance are numerous. In
studying the history of early Greek art we can discern the following
moving powers which account for the course it took and its slow or
rapid progress. As a primum mozens there was the creative instinct of
man just alluded to. If this were the only moving power, unaffected by
surrounding circumstances, unmodified in its course and progress by
other active currents, the attempts of the later generations who start with
the results attained by their predecessors before them and the experience
gained by much struggle transmitted to them would show a constant
advance upon the work of their fathers. But life does not present so
simple a progression. There are other currents which either retard or
accelerate progress. Among these we notice as a retarding side-current
the law of inertia, which applies to man as it does to nature. In this
case it means the force of habit and custom which leads men more or
less voluntarily to resist the acceptance of new forms differing from those
which they have learnt to admire, and which they associate with things
highly esteemed. This conservatism extends not only to the apprecia-
tion of form but also to the older traditions of handling the material
•
III.] APPENDIX. 397
which we often see survive in cases where a new material suggested and
required a new handling.
As a side current which accelerated the progress of Greek art
towards freedom in the rendering of nature we notice among others,
that certain changes in the political life of the ancients favoured the free
development of art. Such were the accession to power of splendour-
loving princes like Polykrates of Samos, Hieron of Syracuse, and, above
all, Peisistratos and the Peisistratidae of Athens. The most important
political event was the Persian war and the wealth and glory it brought
to the Greeks. We must further notice the important influence which
technical inventions exercised upon the development of art, as the
invention of the sawing of marble by Melas of Chios and his school,
which freed the early wood-carver from the restrictions of a round stem
of a tree narrowly circumscribed in its dimensions. The art of soldering
iron, discovered by Glaukos of Chios, which gave similar freedom to the
metal-worker, and, above all, the invention of the casting of bronze
by Rhoikos and Theodoros, which enabled the sculptor to bring his
finished statue closer to his own clay model, reacted upon the art of
modelling and did much to free art from its conventional trammels.
Again, the influence of kindred arts upon one another advanced
each one in turn. So architecture advanced sculpture in forcing the
sculptor to give freedom of movement and variedness of attitude to his
figures, prescribing to him a limited space which he had to fill with his
figures. A triangular pediment, high in the middle and low at the
angles, was filled in the earliest art by quaint figures that grew smaller
and smaller in dimension as they approached the angles. In order to
avoid this absurdity, the sculptor, while placing figures erect in the
centre, was forced to vary the attitudes from a slight inclination down to
a completely reclining posture in the angles, and thus learned to
represent figures with freedom of movement. The influence of sculpture
upon painting and of painting upon sculpture furnishes us with reflections
which could hardly be dealt with thoroughly in only one address.
But of all causes which led the conventional early artist to nature, by
far the most effective was the influence of the athletic games and the
palaestra, which forms the subject of this address.
We shall see then, first, how the palaestra led Greek artists to nature,
and secondly, how it led them away from nature to the ideal, or rather,
through nature to the ideal. -
It has often been said that a question clearly put is half the answer.
In the present case to appreciate the influence of the palaestra upon the
development of Greek art we must resolve the question into three
398 APPENDIX. [III.
definite ones, which will all tend to explain the influence exercised by
the athletic games. At the same time these questions, if answered, will
account for the peculiar rapidity of the advance made during a relatively
short period of Greek art from conventional archaism to free naturalism
and idealism, a fact, which, it appears to me, has heretofore not been
Satisfactorily explained.
1st. If we study the Homeric poems so far as they are concerned
with plastic art, we must feel that they manifest the highest feeling for
nature and freedom of execution in the rendering of the human form.
This has already been felt with regard to the descriptions of the works of
art the poet saw in his mind's eye and described as if really existing.
But it appears to me that the most important side of the artistic feeling
in the Homeric poems is to be found in the description of gods and
heroes, and, more especially, in the sensuous description of the warriors
Tin action and the careful study of the anatomy of the human figure as
shown by the account of the wounded and falling heroes. In Homer's
picture of a spear-hurling warrior, we have before our mind's eye the
perfect statue of a spear-thrower; when the hero seizes a rock, we have
before us a diskobolos; when with “loosened knees’’ the wounded
combatant sinks to the ground, we see a figure from the Aegina
pediment or a dying Lapith or Gaul. Now, with such feeling for form,
such definite conception of what is sculpturesque, so clear a notion of
the parts of the human body, the step to the actual execution in the
sculptor's material is but a small one. People possessed of such sense
for plastic composition cannot remain content with mere symbolical
natureless art, and the technical means of expressing their inner wants
are a matter attained with comparative ease. Yet the fact remains that
even for centuries after Homer thus manifested his sense for what is
sculpturesque in nature the extant statues are stiff and conventional and
do not manifest even approximately the feeling for nature which we find
in these early poems.
2nd. If we examine the earliest monuments which we may attribute
to the eighth century, and compare them with those belonging to the
middle of the sixth century, we find that they are comparatively on the
same level of imperfection as regards their want of freedom and nature,
and we must be struck by the relatively small advance made in two
centuries. - -
3rd. Now, with this hardly noticeable decrease in stiffness and
conventionality during centuries, we must be struck by the singular
phenomenon that the advance from the imperfect and unnaturalistic to
the most perfect freedom in the rendering of the forms of nature takes
III.] APPENDIX. 399
place within a period of fifty years, from about 5 Io B.C. to 460 B.C.
Within this short span of time the gulf which separates some of the
stiff statues, like the Apollo of Temea (Fig. 1), from the Diskobolos of
Myron (Fig. 2), some of the lifeless seated figures of the Branchidae from
the early works of Pheidias, is overleapt. How could fifty years create
so great a change as is shown by the comparison of the Apollo of Tenea,
devoid of nature, with the Diskobolos of Myron, who is breathing with
life? Other works of Myron are described by ancient authors as true to
nature, even to deception. The statue of the runner Ladas is called
breathing with life (ºutwows); the runner seemed, it is said, with his last
breath, to jump from his pedestal to grasp the victor's wreath. Centuries
after Homer had in his written descriptions manifested such a keen
sense for nature in the rendering of the human form, works as conven-
tional as the Apollo of Tenea were produced, differing but slightly
in their lack of naturalism from the Apollos of 160 years before. Fifty
years sufficed to produce all the freedom and nature in conception and
execution of sculpture, which we can estimate when comparing the
Diskobolos of Myron, with the Apollo of Tenea. “How can this be
accounted for P” is the question to be answered.
The explanation which has until now been given, is that the Persian
wars and the Greek victories produced a favourable change in the life of
the whole Greek people, political, religious, and intellectual, and also
freed art from its conventional trammels. Now, there can be no doubt
as to the important influence which the Persian victories had upon the
development of Greek art. Yet I have always felt that while it to a
great extent explained the loftiness and greatness of character which
marks the art of the age of Pericles, it does not sufficiently explain
the definite advance made in art from more abstract conventionality
down to nature. Moreover it took some time before the great spirit bred
by the heroic efforts of the Persian wars had so far transfused the whole
nature of the people as to impress its spirit upon so special a manifesta-
tion of the human mind as art. And so it is not until the great works of
Pheidias which group round the year 450 B.C. that this spirit is exhibited
in art; while the actual advance from conventional archaism to freedom
and nature takes place in the years immediately preceding and following
the Persian wars. The really efficient cause of this rapid development
can therefore not be found in the influence of the Persian wars, but lies
in the growth of athletic games and the systematic development of the
palaestra, especially when these are brought into an immediate relation
to art. * *
Why Greek art should not have advanced more rapidly towards
*
4OO - APPENDIX. [III.
nature during the centuries preceding the “period of transition,” is
explained by one simple fact, namely, that before this time the statues
were almost exclusively religious. The early wooden statues, the Ščava,
were statues of gods forming an important part of religious worship.
The tendency of religious worship is naturally conservative. The very
earliest images of the iconic period’ were necessarily rude. The more
remote the age of such an image, the greater the mystery attached to it,
the greater its religious weight. The earliest statues were considered by
the Greeks to have fallen from heaven (Stotrerijs). The more a statue
was like these holy early images, the greater its sanctity, and thus there
would be a natural tendency to repeat the earlier types. Nay, even later,
when freedom and nature had gained their sway over art, the gods, when
grouped with heroes, are more conventional in treatment than the
less divine beings. The same holds good in all periods of art. I need
but remind you of the solemnity, bordering on severity, of the religious
pictures of Bellini as compared with the perfect freedom of conception
and execution manifested in his small pictures with classical subjects in
the Academy at Venice. So long as the sculptor's art is entirely in the
service of religious worship, there is small chance of its freeing itself
from conventional imperfections. To be brought down to nature the
sculptor must be brought down from the gods, face to face with man, and
then he may reconstruct his gods out of the ideal combination of the
most perfect forms which he has studied in man, but has never found
together in one man.
In the first place the palaestra led the Greek artist down to man. It
was here that the Greek people and the Greek artist had their feeling
for the human form, its manifestations of strength and perfect propor-
tion, aroused and developed. In the athletic games, to which a moral,
nay even a religious importance was attached, victory, which brought
glory to the victor and was the pride of his community, was based upon
the perfection of the human body, the full and normal development of
all the organs, flexibility and dexterity of movement, which the early
artist failed to render in his statues, and with regard to which the sense
of the public at large seemed comparatively blunt. It was here, with
hundreds of nude youths, not only wrestling, jumping, and running, but
endeavouring by systematic practice to remedy any defect or abnormal-
ity in any one limb or organ, that the artist day by day studied his
anatomy of the human figure without the need of entering the dissecting-
1 There was an amiconic period of Greek religion in which gods were worshipped,
not in actual images, but in objects and localities of nature, and in symbolical
structures suggesting human form. -
III.] APPENDIX. - 4OI
room or calling in the help of the anatomist. And when once the artist
was called upon to commemorate by means of his art the outward form,
of the athlete whose perfect development gained him the glory of victory
and monumental fame, we can then see how the sculptor was led away"
from the conventional archaic types of gods down to nature in living,
active, and well-formed man.
All this more or less a priori reasoning makes it most probable that
the palaestra was the most important agent in bringing Greek art down
to nature in the fifty years marking the “period of transition.” An
actual examination of the facts and a careful study of Greek art with
this question before the mind, give the most conclusive evidence of the
Supreme influence exercised by the games and the palaestra. I cannot
hope in this short address to place before you all the instances bearing
upon this subject which I have collected for the last four years, and
which have shown me conclusively that we must ascribe to the palaestra
the chief influence in freeing Greek art from its conventional trammels.
On the other hand I do not mean to appeal to your faith in my personal
statement ; but I believe that the instances which I am able to place
before you in diagrams and casts will suffice to illustrate and support the
points to which I shall draw your attention. Still I feel bound to inform
you that the choice of these special instances has often been guided by
mere convenience and readiness of access, and that in many cases, as
with some of the vases, the diagrams were made for other purposes; and
thus it cannot be said that I have chosen but a few instances happening
to prove my generalisations.
From the most general point of view, we must be struck by the fact
that the Greeks, the one people in antiquity whose art is possessed of
nature, were also the one people with whom athletic games were a
national institution, wide spread and part of daily life. I have
endeavoured to show elsewhere how this fact as well as the plastic
predisposition of the Greek race was a necessary outcome of the funda-
mental characteristics of the race and their physical and social surround-
ings, and to point out that Oriental nations and those living in a
tropical or northern climate could not develop the same characteristics.
We must at least note the fact that the two distinctive elements of Greek
life, a high development of athletic institutions and of naturalism in
plastic art, are found together. -
But what tends more directly to show the immediate influence of the
athletic games and to solve the main question we have placed before us,
is the fact that the fifty years which mark the transition from convention-
ality to freedom and nature in art are also the years in which the
W. 26
4O2 APPENDIX. [III.
athletic games became really elevated to the important position which
they occupy in our mind, and which they did not always hold ; that in
this period the palaestrae or athletic schools became real national
institutions, thoroughly organised all over Greece. -
As with art and most higher manifestations of human thought and
culture, the early stages are almost always essentially religious in
character, so the athletic games in earlier times were either associated
with some worship of god or hero or were part of the funeral ceremony,
thus partaking of an essentially religious character. Towards the close
of the sixth century the great games, such as those of Olympia, partake
more and more of a national and political character. They become the
central point of peaceful union for all Greek states. The increase of
their national importance sprang from the growth of the feeling of
Panhellenic unity which preceded the Persian wars; yet they no doubt
reacted strongly upon this feeling, and served to bring together the
people of the various states, and to make them feel the common bands
which bound them together. The political importance of the great
games, especially those of Olympia, can hardly be over-estimated. This
political importance was, no doubt, felt by Peisistratos, who, along with
Pericles, was the greatest of Athenian statesmen. He appears to me to
have foreseen the greatness of the future of Greece, and above all, of
Athens. On the model of the Olympian games he revived the Athenian
games, and as there he traced the growth of Panhellenic feeling, so here
he wished to create a real Panathenaic feeling. He added new games
to the old ones, gave greater splendour to them, and, as the Olympian
games recurred at periods of four years, determining the computation of
time for the whole of Greece, so he introduced the Greater Panathenaic,
recurring every four years and determining the computation of time for
Athens. It is a noteworthy fact that every great political leader in
Athens marked his political activity by some addition to the Panathenaic
festival. After Peisistratos, with the Peisistratidae and with Pericles, the
games were further enriched and obtained still greater influence. Fur.
thermore, we must attach the greatest importance to the development of
the palaestrae or athletic schools during this period. By degrees these
institutions are established or rendered more systematic in their
organisation throughout the whole of Greece, and become the schools for
the physical training of the Greek youth destined to provide strong and
active warriors to defend their native country. Nay, they become the
home for general education, where even intellectual training is carried
on, and the philosophers form their circles of eager learners. As I have
said before, it is here that the artists studied the human form in rest and .
Jº
III.] APPENDIX. 403
action. It is here that the systematic training of each organ of the
human body brought home to them the plastic anatomy of man, and
that in the orkiapaxia, in which the various stages of each game were
gone through, the sculptor had impressed upon his eye in living statues
the typical attitudes of each game. -
A still more direct proof is to be found in the fact that in this period
the custom arose of commemorating athletic victories by statues. And
now, as I have said above, the sculptor is brought face to face with man,
and must bend his art and craft to the service of actual nature.
According to Pausanias the first statues set up to athletic victors
were those of Praxidamas and of Rhexibios, who were victors in
the fifty-ninth and sixty-first Olympiads, that is, about 530 B.C. They
were of wood, and, according to his description of the one to Arrhachion,
were very similar to the statue of the Apollo of Tenea. The influence
of the palaestra and the introduction of the custom of erecting statues to
victors did not take immediate effect, or at once convert imperfect art
to a state of perfection, but it was inch by inch that conventionality
strove to maintain its ground, and step by step that art advanced
towards nature within this comparatively short period of fifty years. So
we can see in the extant statues the gradual growth of freedom and the
falling away of the archaic fetters. In these three instances we have the
chief stages of this progress. In the Apollo of Tenea at Munich, in
attitude, in the composition of the parts of the body and in the
modelling of the surface, we have hardness and woodenness far removed
from the actual appearance of the living organism. In the so-called
“Strangford Apollo,” in the British Museum, in whom I see an athlete
belonging to the school of Aegina, we have a great advance in the
direction of nature. Though the attitude is still conventional, the feet
placed one before the other, the arms pinned to the sides, the head
straight forward at right angles to the chest, the limbs seem joined more
organically to the body, and, above all, the surface is modelled so as to
present a continuous rise and fall, not an abrupt succession of ridges
put together, and to suggest the various organs which it covers. Still,
A though the growing feeling and desire for rendering nature is manifest
in this work, we notice a struggle in overcoming the difficulties presented
by the material. The traces of conventionality are but very slight in
this third statue, the Choiseul-Gouffier Pugilist (Pl. xv.), formerly known
as an Apollo. This work is most probably the work of Pythagoras of
Rhegion, a sculptor who stood on the very border line between
dying archaism and the vigorous life of free naturalistic art. Here
freedom is given to the attitude (a typical one in a certain stage
** 26–2
4O4. APPENDIX. . [III.
of boxing): the athlete rests upon one leg more than upon the
other, the arms are freely extended, and, above all, the surface is
modelled with a perfection which presents most vividly the flexibility of
the human skin and the change of surface as it covers organs of different
form and texture. Finally, in the Diskobolos of Myron we have fullest
freedom of attitude in the indication of active life and in the modelling
of the surface. The artists had to exercise their power of rendering the
life of nature in many an athlete statue before they gained the full
benefit of the growing influence of the palaestra. It was chiefly in the
Schools of Aegina and Argos that this training was undergone. If we
but bear in mind that, before the year 530, statues were only of gods
and there existed none of athletes, and compare the enormous prepon-
derance of athlete statues over those of divinities with the sculptors of
Argos like Ageladas, of Aegina like Kallon and Onatas, of Athens like
Myron, we can realise the actual influence which the growth of athletic
institutions had upon art. I would beg you to connect in mind with
what we shall learn concerning the ideal period which followed this step
down to nature the fact that after this period of transition, especially
with the great artists of the Attic schools, there was no such preponde-
rance of athlete statues over those representing mythological subjects.
Finally, in carefully studying the extant ancient monuments, we
realise the great and direct influence of athletic games, while at the
same time we explain a fact in the early Greek which has often been
noticed, and never, to my knowledge, satisfactorily explained. It is the
fact that, down to the time of Pheidias, the treatment of the nude male
figure far surpasses in perfection the rendering of the head, which is
hard, lifeless, and conventional. This shows that the body engrossed
the artistic interest and attention of the sculptors, that this appreciation
of the human body is to be attributed to the engrossing interest of the
athletic games, and that the palaestra was the real school for the sculptor.
Look at the feeling for nature in the body of this “Strangford Apollo,”
and compare with it the lifelessness of the head. You must be struck
by the exceedingly careful rendering of the human structure—limbs,
muscles, sinews, and surface—in the figures from this pediment of
the temple of Athene at Aegina ; then compare with it the lifeless
conventionality of the heads. In the same way it is the influence of the
palaestra, which, arousing the interest in the male human figure, and
giving the sculptor the power of rendering it with truth to nature,
accounts for the inability freely to render the female figure, as compared
with the great skill with which the male figure is represented during this
period. Compare the nude warriors from this same pediment with the
III.] APPENDIX. 405
Athene in its centre, and the difference will be most manifest. And,
thirdly, this supreme influence which the athletic games exercised upon
artistic feeling and upon artistic creation is shown by the fact that, while
during this period the modelling of the nude male figure is so perfect,
the modelling of drapery is still in its elementary stages; so that even in
the works attributed to Kalamis, the older contemporary of Pheidias, the
modelling of the drapery is comparatively hard and conventional. Still,
it was the palaestra that led the artist down to nature, and if it
naturally be above all in the nude male figure, the central task is still
accomplished, and the extension of this attainment to other “unathletic”
objects is a necessary sequence. For it is a well-known truth, felt by all
artists, that whoever has the power of drawing or modelling accurately
and with truth to nature a nude male figure, can render with the same
correctness whatever he sees before him, provided it engrosses his
interest and occupies his attention and practice for some short time.
We have now seen how the first great task in the development of
Greek art has been accomplished chiefly through the agency and
influence of athletic games. The artist has been brought from conven-
tionality and the abstract symbols of gods down to nature and man.
The next great task, as we have before put it, is to lead the artist away
from nature, through nature to the ideal. There really was some danger
that Greek art would not rise higher than the mere accurate rendering
of nature, which would lead to extreme realism, and, through the final
stage of overdone technical skill, to a speedy degeneration. In Myron
there is evidence of this danger. His statues, such as that of the famous
cow, were praised for their extreme realism almost leading to deception;
and in the excessive movement which he put into some of his statues,
such as that of the Diskobolos, even according to the testimony of
the ancients, there was an element of sensationalism which, if it
had swayed Greek art, would have led to a rapid decline. In order that
Greek art should ever reach the height which it actually did, and which,
as I pointed out to you at the beginning, is the cause of its persistency of
influence even down to our own times, it must add the ideal to nature
gained—establish the natural ideal of the human form.
There can be no doubt that in the fulfilment of this second great
purpose the heroic spirit of the past Persian wars and the enlightenment
and culture of the Periclean age were most effective. It predisposed
the people towards the appreciation and accomplishment of great works,
raised them above the sphere of mere individual interest into that of
great common purposes and aspirations, gave them that characteristic
feeling for width and grandeur, the real and most eloquent expression
4O6 APPENDIX. [III.
of which is to be found in the art of Pheidias. Yet in a more direct
and immediate way the palaestra was again instrumental in leading art
to make this great step.
If the artist has been led to appreciate and study nature and to
endeavour to render it accurately in his works, this may lead him at last
to imitate most minutely what at the time he sees before him. This may
be excellent practice; but it will never create great art. For the indivi-
dual man is imperfect, and the rendering of those imperfect forms will
not satisfy the feeling for law, order, harmony, or design inherent in the
human mind, the primary impulse to all artistic creation.
The palaestra was the real school for the Greek artist: here he spent
his time and studied the human form ; but not only in individuals.
Constantly from his earliest youth, day by day, he had before his eye
numbers of well-built youths in all attitudes and all actions, and these
series of individual forms impressed themselves upon his mind until they
| became an intrinsic part of his visual memory and imagination, forming,
as it were, an alphabet with which he could create at will things of great
and new meaning. Just as letters, words, and grammar have become to
us elements and units of thought which lie ready to be composed, without
effort, as far as they are concerned, into phrases, sentences, periods,
books, poems and orations with great and new meaning and perfect form,
So the existing human bodies and their changes in various attitudes and
actions became such elements to the visual and imaginative mind of the
ancient Greek artists. They did not require conscious attention, but
became the parts of a great and new composition, with a meaning and
"spirit as a whole, lofty and high, yet ever intelligible, because composed
of these elements familiar to man from the daily suggestion of nature.
Therefore it is that the human forms which they present are so
perfect. Turn to an entirely different period of art and you will notice
a similar phenomenon having similar causes. Northern renaissance
painting and sculpture, which possess so many great characteristics
of their own, widely differ from Italian renaissance art in that their
renderings of the nude human figure are devoid of the grace and harmony
which those of the Italians possess: they are to a greater extent the
portraits of individuals whose bodies were not perfect in all parts. This
is chiefly to be attributed to the fact that in the southern districts partial
nudity is more common, and from an early age the Italian has more than
the German or the Fleming to some degree reduced the individual
human forms to an alphabet, and has created more ideal individuals of
art. Most of the nude subjects in modern works of art are really studies,
and not pictures or statues. The modern artist depends upon his one
\
III.] APPENDIX. 4O7
model, and if the figure be more or less perfect we are rather inclined
to praise him for his skill or luck in choosing a good model than for his
artistic imagination. -
This feeling for perfection of form which the Greek artist gained
through the study of so many individual instances in the palaestra soon
became conscious, and the attempt was soon made to find the most
normal proportions of the human figure as suggested by the palaestra.
The generalisation from the individuals to the ideal type was bridged
over in the palaestra itself by certain classes or groups of individuals
forming types of their own. As the palaestra became thoroughly organ-
ised in this period, so the games were classified and systematised, all
joining in the one great end of producing healthy and strong youths
serviceable to the state. Thus the games were subdivided into light and
heavy, kotºbos and Baptis, having their particular type and fullest repre-
sentatives in certain classes of men. Running, jumping, and throwing
the spear were typically light games; boxing and the pankration were
typically heavy. The pentathlon stood between both, and, uniting
several kinds of games, had for its aim the production of a normally
built agile man. Other subdivisions might thus be pointed out ; but
they tended in themselves to drive the artist towards the establishment
of normal types for each part of the body and for the proportions of the
parts. Thus even in the early period at the beginning of the fifth
century, Ageladas of Argos, the teacher of Myron, Pheidias, and
Polykleitos, wrote a treatise on the proportions of the human figure.
Polykleitos of Argos and Lysippos established a canon of the human
figure of which we hear that the one was square and massive, the other
slimmer and lighter with smaller head. We must not lose sight of the
fact that these canons of perfect human proportions were not at once
represented in an Apollo or a Hermes, but that the Doryphoros and the
Apoxyomenos are athletic statues. Those canons have been identified
in these two extant statues, a marble copy of the Doryphoros of
Polykleitos in the National Museum at Naples (Fig. 23, b), and a copy
of the Apoxyomenos of Lysippos in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican.
They both have the characteristics ascribed to these canons by ancient
authors.
In such canons and ideal types we are raised above the individual to
beings higher than man. Having been led by the palaestra down to
man, the artist can now rise up to the god with a new ideal of divine
form, for the human form that is above existing man in its perfection and
still is possessed of human qualities brings the artist face to face with
the figures of Greek mythology.
4O8 APPENDIX. [III.
This influence which Greek athletic art, when once it was established
in all its truth to nature and ideal breadth, exerted upon mythological
art, is most clearly shown in extant monuments.
It is really only after the period of transition that the types of the
various Greek gods as we know them become fixed and developed in art,
and for a long time we can then trace the immediate influence of the
palaestra in these statues of heroes and gods.
After Polykleitos had established his athletic canon, in all the works
attributed to him and his school, whether athletes or gods, nay, even in
female figures, we can see the characteristic proportions of the
Doryphoros repeated. In later times, in the works of artists that are not
the direct offshoots of his school we can often notice the influence of the
athletic type of Polykleitos retained or even revived in the figure of some
god or hero. No doubt some gods and some heroes are more adapted by
their character to assume the form of such a canon. So it is especially
gods like Ares and heroes like Herakles that from their nature are square
and massive, and are thus properly represented in the form of the
“quadrata signa” of Polykleitos. In the numerous mythological figures
manifesting the Polykleitan canon that have come to my notice, there
have been instances in which I at first thought they were athletes, and
then found they were mythological figures; and some in which, for
example, I thought the statue was a Herakles with the apple of the
Hesperides strongly representative of the Polykleitan type, and then
found that it was really an athlete with an oil-flask. This I mention
merely to show you how through the establishment of these athletic canons
the representation of mythological subjects was influenced. The same
must be said of the influence of the Lysippean canon which can be traced
in so many works, not only those immediately of his own school. As the
Polykleitan canon, from the nature of its proportions, was best suited to
the heavier and more muscular gods and heroes, so the Lysippean canon
corresponded more to the lighter and fleeter gods. Nay, even as late as
the last half of the first century B.C., in the school of Pasiteles, we
can notice the influence of athletic art upon mythological art in the new
eclectic canon which that artist and his school established, represented
most fully in the statue of an athlete in the Villa Albani by Stephanos,
the pupil of Pasiteles, and traceable in all the mythological statues
of that school.
It is, however, not only in statues that this influence of athletic art
upon mythological art becomes manifest. By far the most curious and
interesting instances of this influence are to be found in the minor arts,
especially in vases. I have collected a large number of such instances
III.] APPENDIX. 4O9
on vases with athletic scenes. We find there how, following the normal
course of the Greek mind not only in art but also in religion and litera-
ture, the Greeks construct their mythical and heroic conception upon
the basis of real life. Thus their representations of real contests in the
palaestra form the groundwork for the representations of similar scenes
in the mythical and heroic world, as their religious idealism drove them
to establish the ideal prototype for all actions of real life. When Pindar
commemorates in an ode the victory of some living athlete, he generally
begins or ends with some typical contest from the heroic world related
to it. In the same way the vase-painter, when painting a prize vase or
one decorated with athletic scenes' places a scene from the actual
palaestra on the one side, and on the other some similar mythical scene,
a religious type of the game. Prominent among such types are Theseus
and the Minotaur, Herakles and Antaios, Herakles and the Nemean
Lion or the Lernean Hydra, Peleus and Atalanta, contests of Trojan
heroes, and many others. Now the form given to these mythical contests,
to which I shall have occasion to draw your special attention, is the same
as that in which the real scene is put, or rather presented itself to
the artist while studying his art in the palaestra. So constant did I find
this arrangement to be that it almost partook of the nature of a law and
gave the observer the greatest gain of science, the power of prophecy’.
I cannot resist relating to you an instance illustrative of this result.
While studying the vases in the Louvre with the question of the
influence of the palaestra before me, I mentioned to one of the officers
who kindly assisted me in my work this result of my observation of
athletic vases. “Do you mean to say,” he inquired, “that, seeing the
athletic side of a vase, you can tell what class of mythological scene will
be on the other, or what class of mythological scene on the one will
have an athletic subject on the other P” I answered that I believed I
could tell what scenes would probably have such correlatives. “Let us
see,” he said. We proceeded to a room I had not yet examined, and,
passing a glass case by the window which contained paterae and köAtkes,
I noticed a köMé, a drinking cup with the shape of a flattened bowl, so
* Except in the cases of Panathenaic prize vases, where one side always contains
the conventional figure of Athene, like the Athenian coat-of-arms.
* It appears to me that the study of the destination of a vase is often of the
greatest use for the interpretation of the vase painting. Thus a sepulchral vase,
or one meant to be a gift between lovers, or a drinking cup, would be decorated with
mythological scenes appropriate to its original purpose; and often a typical scene of
mythology was modified to suit the character of the vase. See the paper on
“Pythagoras of Rhegion,” &c., No. I. in the present Appendix, page 337, note 4.
4 IO APPENDIX. [III.
placed that the convex outside, ornamented by a broad border with
numerous figures, was uppermost. The subjects represented on this
border were scenes from the contests of Theseus and Herakles. “If
there is any representation in the inside of this vase,” I said, “it is most
probably an athletic scene or figure.” The case was unlocked, the vase
taken out, and, when turned round, the centre contained a round
medallion of yellow ground within the black patina of the vase, and,
there being only room for one figure, it displayed a youthful athlete with
halteres in his hand and a discus by his side, evidently a victor in
the pentathlon. -
So direct was the process by which the vase-painter transferred the
scenes he actually saw and studied in the palaestra, that we can trace
even in the details of the figures composing such a mythical scene their
athletic origin. •
The simplest and earliest form of an athletic scene is that shown in
this diagram, copied from an archaic black-figured vase. In the centre
we have the two combatants; on the one side we see a nude athlete in
a peculiar attitude, with arms drawn up, recurring in almost all represen-
tations of this kind, the odd man in the game, the Ephedros, waiting his
turn. On the other side there is an older bearded figure, draped with a
mantle, and with a long staff in one hand, the Paidotribes or Agonothe-
tes, the teacher or umpire. Now, in the mythical scenes the vase-painter
places his heroic or divine combatants in the same way in the centre,
and on either side he places divinities as judges, spectators, or protectors.
The vase-painter takes the Paidotribes, draped and with long staff, simply
alters the head of the bearded man to a female head, the staff to a spear,
and sometimes adds indications of the Gorgoneion on the breast, and we
have Athene. On the other side he retains the nude youth only, placing
in one of his up-drawn hands a short caduceus, and we have Hermes.
To revert once more to sculpture, we find that the central figure in
the Aegina pediment, presiding, as it were, over the contest for the body
of the fallen Patroklos, is the same Paidotribes-Athene that we meet
with on these archaic vases. The habit of building up the scenes of
mythical contests upon the actual scenes of the palaestra was so strong
that sometimes the vase-painter forgets and betrays himself in mixing up
in the same mythical scene athletic and mythical elements. This archaic
vase-picture from an unpublished small Lekythos in the Louvre is an
instance. The mythical combatants are here Theseus and the Minotaur;
yet the vase-painter, unconscious of the absurdity, places on either side
two real nude athletes in the attitude of ephedroi, as if awaiting their
turn to enter a boxing match with the monster whose head is being cut
III.] APPENDIX. 4 II
off by Theseus. Peaceful contests are directly translated into armed
struggles. The metopes of the Parthenon and Theseion, the frieze of
Phigalia, show innumerable instances in which Theseus and Herakles
struggling with monsters, Lapith slaying Centaurs and Amazons are
represented in the typical attitudes and actions belonging to the palaestra
and studied there by the artist. - -
These observations are not restricted to statues and vases, but
apply equally to the minor arts, such as that of the die-sinker and gem-
engraver. Coins manifest, far more, I believe, than has until now been
recognised, this immediate influence of the athletic games. Mr C. T.
Newton and Mr R. S. Poole have shown how in the coins of Syracuse
and Camarina even individual victories are recorded. I shall merely
point to one instance (see fig. 23, c, d). This first coin of Selinus in Sicily,
the date of which is about the first half of the fifth century B.C., repre-
sents the river-god Hypsas as a nude youth with a patera in the one
hand and a short branch in the other. As I have once before endea-
voured to show, the type of this figure, though reduced on a small coin,
corresponds in proportions, modelling, and attitude to the Choiseul-
Gouffier Pugilist whom I attribute to Pythagoras of Rhegion. About
430 B.C. (observe that the Polykleitan canon had come in) the same coin
with the same river-god changes. As you see, the type, the proportion
of the figure becomes squarer and more thick-set, the one leg is drawn
back, the weight resting almost entirely upon the other (uno crure ut in-
sisterent is the characteristic attitude ascribed by Pliny to the statues of
Polykleitos), the branch is elongated and carried more like a spear—in
short, the figure approaches most manifestly the type of the Doryphoros
drawn on this diagram from the Naples statue.
If time permitted, I could bring before your notice instances to show
in the same manner the influence of the athletic games upon the works
of the other minor arts, such as gems and terra-cottas. Yet if we have
shown it in the greater arts, this also demonstrates it for the lesser ones.
For the minor arts of Greece, as has become evident from so many in-
stances, took their types and models from the great works; often one
and the same artist created both, and thus the influence detected in the
one applies by implication to the other.
I hope that I have made you realise the important part played by
the athletic games in the development of Greek art. It must, I believe,
be recognised that those qualities which distinguish Greek art at its
height, the combination of Nature and the Ideal, were given to it
chiefly through the influence which the athletic institutions and their
growth and development had upon the people at large and the artistic
4. I2 APPENDIX. [III.
world in particular. In all branches of science it has been found that
while certain broad currents of influence in the formation and develop-
ment of a growing organism could be perceived and traced during the
earlier and simpler phases of its existence, or rather growth, this is more
difficult, indeed hardly possible, when once the body, genus, or institu-
tion has reached the more complex and variegated forms of full organi-
sation. All the conscientious observer can then do, is to record the
parallelism and concomitance of the development in the two forms
which before held the relation of influencing force and the thing
influenced, showing a certain relation that exists between them or which
they have in common to some other force, and, in many cases, leaving
the question open which is the cause and which the effect.
So in the present case, after having found that the palaestra was
efficient in bringing Greek art to its full development, we still have
evidence of an intimate relation existing between art and athletics. Yet
we cannot always say where exactly the influence lies, which is the insti-
tution influenced, and which is the one influencing. All we are bound
to do is to record the parallelism in their development.
The broad lines which mark the development of athletic institutions
are the same that characterise the development of Greek political and
social life, Greek literature, religion, and art. In political and social life
we have the undeveloped earlier forms of small communities leading in
the great age to the Panhellenic unity in which all Greek states felt the
common ties that united them and in so far submerged their own indivi-
duality. More and more this great and broad conception of state which
animated the Greeks gives way to the growing assertion of the interests
of individual states clashing with one another. Further, in the same
state even, party feeling asserts itself in opposition to the state, and
within the party again, the individual seeks his own good to the detri-
ment of the party. Gradually, step by step, with here and there a short
flickering up of the great spirit in a different form, the dissolution of
Greek unity leads to the final destruction of Greek independence. With
the decline of political grandeur, strength and virtue die in the social life
of the Greeks. The old simplicity and greatness of character decay, and
dissoluteness and vice more and more take root and undermine the
moral strength of the people; for in no time and in no country
were political and social ethics so dependent upon one another. In
literature, especially in the history of the drama, we can notice the same
step from the more conventional forms, traces of which are still to
be noticed in AEschylus, to the more minute individualisation in
Sophocles and Euripides, sensationalism already beginning in the latter.
III.] APPENDIX. 4I 3
Art was so complete an expression of Greek religion that in studying the
development of art we can follow the course taken by religion. From
the first stage, the conventional archaic art, we arrive through the period
of transition to the great art of the Panhellenic period. The spirit of the
religious art of this period is to be found not only in the character of the
work, the style of the artistic schools, but also in the subjects repre-
sented. The great gods Zeus, Hera, Athene, Demeter, are the subjects
most commonly represented by the artists, and when they do represent
the other divinities they give them a severe, large, and noble character.
Such is the case with the severe conception of Aphrodite, Apollo,
Artemis, and Dionysos. After the great age, as in politics so in art, the
step is made from the ideal down to the individual again, from god
to man, from the type to the portrait of living individuals. At the same
time in religious art, the great gods no longer form the chief subjects
represented by the sculptor and painter ; minor deities, nay, mythical
personifications of lower nature, such as fauns, satyrs, maenads, are now
represented by preference. In the gods again the most human side is
emphasised; in Aphrodite and in Apollo, who is made younger and
younger, the more sensuous and less divine side of their beauty is made
prominent, until in Kephisodotos the younger, when the fourth century
passes over into the third, sensuousness merges into sensuality. The grave
and noble simplicity of the ancient religious art expires with the decline
of religious faith in the gods and the dissolution of national greatness,
and in the school of Pergamon and Rhodes the dramatic and sensational
phase of sculpture prevails. In this period we pass from genre sculpture
to the comic, the grotesque, and the brutal
The palaestra follows the same course. In the first and earliest
stages of the palaestra the athletic games are not completely organised;
they have not yet established a character of their own, but are a class of
religious institutions without the human life and interest which they gain
when once they are brought down from gods to man. From having
been religious, they must, in the great period of their development,
which coincides with the great period of political and intellectual
life, become a national institution. This step is made during the period
called in the history of Greek art the period of transition. In the
highest period of the palaestra this institution has a real national aim, to
provide and encourage perfect physical education for the youths and
men who are to form the strength of the nation. It is a noble aim, and,
throughout, the character of the great games and of the palaestra is
of the wide and lofty nature which stamps itself upon its artistic produc-
tions, and thus affects the spirit of art. The statues in honour of
4I4 APPENDIX. [III.
athletic victors are broad, large and monumental in character, in subject,
and in execution. An individual victory is not commemorated by the
portrait-statue of the victor, but by a perfect type of that class of athlete
and that game. It is that which lasts when the individual passes away,
just as in the representation of gods during this period all that is ephe-
meral and individual in mortal life was avoided. So too, in the execution
of the works, the transient and sensational is shunned. The attitudes
are restful, however great the life and the suggestions of active vitality
may be; there are no sensational momentary poses; the modelling is
broad and large, without any of the tricks of craft and the display of
technical skill which distinguish the later works.
In the next period marked in art by the growth of individualism and
the gradual spread of sensuality, the palaestra is marked by the most
pronounced individualism and the introduction and spread of professional
athleticism. As the palaestra grows in importance, and as the rivalry
between the various states grows hotter, the interest in the individual
victor and his importance grow, and thus in the age of Alexander the
Great and of the sculptor Lysippos, when in other spheres the feeling
for personality ran higher, the custom is for the first time introduced of
erecting portrait statues in honour of athletes who vanquished three
times. Before this, it was considered sacrilege to place the portrait
of living persons on public monuments, as is evident from the charge
brought against Pheidias for having given his own likeness and that of
Pericles to two Lapiths in the Amazon battle represented on the shield
of the Athene Parthenos. When once this innovation is introduced,
towards the close of the fourth century B.C., the public character of such
monuments makes these portraits a bridge over into more ideal arts. It
will readily be seen what influence this custom of athletic art must have
had upon the arts of portrait-painting and portrait-sculpture, and how
this directed the course of art towards realism.
This greater realism is also to be noticed in the attitudes and poses
given to athlete statues, more momentary and less monumental than they
were in the great age. The same causes which led to the growth of indi-
vidualism effected the great change in the spirit of athletic institutions.
While before they were a means to a great political and social end, they
now become ends in themselves to which all other considerations become
subservient. While before athletic exercise was a part of the daily occu-
pation of the Greek youth, which was meant to contribute its share to the
great end of making him a sound and normal being, harmoniously deve-
loped both in mind and body, and thus a serviceable citizen to his state,
it now, step by step, becomes itself the great aim to which time, life, and
III.] APPENDIX. 4I 5
aspirations of the youth are devoted, and to which they are made subser-
vient. It is the step recurring in the history of athletic games in all times,
the step from the gentleman athlete to the professional athlete. In art
we see the signs of the loss of proportion in such works which increase
in the next period. We hear from ancient authorities how pugilists and
pancratiasts were fattened up and made bulky, how muscular deve-
lopment was exaggerated even to ugliness. In the mythical figure most
immediately influenced by athletic art, in Herakles, we see this in later
instances, where the muscular development is abnormal and repulsive.
The germs of the rapid decline of this great institution are to be found
in the fungus growth of its own importance, growing till it obscured the
great aim which gave it life and characterised its highest development.
It leads to degeneration or, as the pathologist would more accurately
term it, to hypertrophy. Let me only bring before you one interesting
instance to illustrate this step towards professional athleticism. This
coin of Amyntas III. of Macedon, who reigned from 389 to 369 B.C.,
representing a horse with its rider, is typical in one respect of all similar
representations before the middle of the fourth century B.C., namely, in
respect of the relation of rider and horse and of the corresponding im-
portance of both in the minds of the people of that time. Like all
representations of riders down to the middle of the fourth century, the
rider is here large in comparison with the horse. If now we turn to this
coin of Philip of Macedon, there is a striking difference in this respect,
the horse being disproportionately large, while the rider has dwindled
down to an undergrown jockey. The whole matter is explained by the
fact that this coin of Philip represents his racer whom he sent to
Olympia and who there came out the winner. Now, in the previous pe-
riods it was for the rider's sake that horse-racing existed, it was to show
and encourage his skill in horsemanship, and he got the glory; there
existed no jockeys. In the time of Philip the horse became the great
centre of interest, and the gentleman rider and warrior of the Parthenon
frieze is no longer to be found at Olympia. In the course of this
natural or unnatural selection the horse too has altered its form, merely
to excel in fleetness. It is curious to consider how similar the action of
these “laws” has been in ancient and in modern times. Thus not only
with the human form but even with animals the course taken by the ath-
letic games in the later periods tended to destroy the ideal of form estab-
lished, during the great age of Greek culture, by art through the earlier
influence of the same institution.
In the last phases of the history of the palaestra we can distinguish
three manifestations of the decline. Corresponding, first, to the dramatic
416 - APPENDIX. * [III.
stage in the history of Greek sculpture which led to the groups of the
Pergamene and Rhodian schools, we have sensationalism in the games,
encouraging wonderful feats of abnormal strength or skill, and in athlete
statues, dramatic attitudes, boxers with arms upraised, wrestlers leaning
forward with arms extended, and a development of muscles that remind
us more of the dissecting-room than of the artist's studio. Secondly, the
brutality, of which we noticed the germs in the previous period, now
manifests itself fully. Instead of the noble grandeur of a Doryphoros or
a Choiseul-Gouffier Pugilist, we have fleshy monsters who would be
comic if they were not repulsive. The drawing of this figure is from a
terra-cotta in the possession of M. Camille Lecuyer at Paris, and repre-
sents a pugilist with arms upraised, whose bull-head reminds us so much
of the Minotaur that we may fairly doubt whether it does not represent
a bull-headed athlete or the Minotaur turned pugilist. Another telling
instance of this class is a bronze in the Cabinet des Medailles of the
Bibliothèque Nationale of the same city. It represents a pancratiast
thick and fleshy, with swollen face, arms upraised, in the act of kicking
with his right heel. Such representations are inconceivable in the time
of Pheidias.
The history of the Greek boxing-gloves, the iudvres, typifies and
illustrates the three chief phases in the history of the palaestra, from
its height to its decline. The earliest forms were the pºetxtxa, which
were to soften the blow to the striker and the one struck, and were thus
subservient to the exercise. The second form was the ipºds dé'ſs, a
leather thong wound round the hand, protecting the hand of the striker,
but increasing the severity of the blow. This belongs to the period when
professional athleticism was beginning to be introduced. The third form,
marking the period of decline, the Graeco-Roman and Roman age, was
the brutal caestus, garnished with leaden balls, which produced disfigur-
ing blows, sometimes leading to death.
As in the decline of Greek religious art, when practically the faith in
the great gods was shaken, we have the introduction of genre and comic
elements, such as putti or little cupids carrying the attributes of the
gods, the thunderbolts of Zeus, the trident of Poseidon, or the club of
Herakles, so in the last stages of the palaestra, when its dignity had van-
ished along with that of the gods, we see the sacred games robbed of all
solemnity and transposed into the comic genre, in the form of little
cupids, undergoing athletic hardships in quaint mock solemnity and
exertion. The diagram before you shows one out of a large number of
late reliefs, with chubby children hurling the discus, boxing, wrestling,
running, jumping, racing in chariots and on horseback. Here is one led
III.] APPENDIX. - 4I?
away after a defeat in the pygme; here another miniature Diadumenos
fixes the victor's wreath to its brow; here are chariots colliding and
crashing asunder, horse and driver overthrown, and so on—all scenes of
the great palaestra made quaint and comical. Surely all solemn or
religious associations must have left the games when once they could be
represented in this form. Such representations, too, are utterly incon-
ceivable in the age of Pheidias. The real death of all great institutions
has set in when once the ridiculous side is brought out. The most nota-
ble instance of this is the final death-blow administered to chivalry by
Cervantes in ‘Don Quixote.” When once the Greek games are made
the subjects of these comic scenes their end is reached, and they die
with the extinction of Greek political freedom and the fall of Greek
literature and art.
I have brought before you the influence of the Greek athletic institu-
tions upon art in the effect they produced, leading the Greek artist to
nature, and the ideal in the representation of man. This applies chiefly
to the single figures in sculpture. There is one more great achievement
of Greek art, in which it has supplied all ages with an artistic principle
as fundamental as the ideal of the human form ; and this again, I hold,
is chiefly due to the influence which the athletic games had upon the
development of Greek art.
The masterpieces of Greek painting have all been destroyed, and our
information concerning them is derived from the numerous accounts of
ancient authors, and from their feeble reflection in the works of the
minor arts, such as mural and vase painting. Thus the common error
is widespread that Greek painting was comparatively on a quite different
scale of excellence to Greek sculpture. I have reason to hold that
this is not so, and that, with the exception of landscape painting, the
standard of Greek painting was comparatively as high as was that of their
sculpture. However this may be, one fact remains, that they are the
first to have established the fundamental principle of pictorial art, and
that this was first done in athletic art.
This fundamental principle of pictorial art is expressed by the word
composition. What constitutes a picture a work of art is the artistic
organisation which the artist gives to the elements which he copies from
nature. It is not merely a tree and a house and a man that make up a
picture, but it is the combination of these elements into unity and
harmony suggested and demanded by the feeling for and need of design
inherent in the human mind. In our most complicated pictures we can
distinguish the following elements of composition. First, linear compo-
sition, in which this unity is given by means of an outline to the whole
W. 27
418 APPENDIX. [III.
drawing which meets in some central point; secondly, perspective compo-
sition, in which the representation of distance from the point of vision
enables the artist to indicate the foreground and background with regard
to the centre of interest; and in the third place composition is given to
a picture by light and shade, the gradation of values of colours and of
tone which give the same artistic unity with variety. But all these forms
have this in common, that they impress upon the eye of the spectator a
central point of design and interest, and that the other parts of the work
lead up to it, making of the whole an artistic organisation with unity or
harmony of design. -
In the paintings of the East and of Egypt we have long successions
of figures tier above tier relating in an imperfect language a scene as we
should relate it in a succession of sounds called words. In fact it is
picture-writing which must be translated into a form of thought corre-
sponding to words before it brings a real picture before the mind's eye.
This is symbolical art, in which the artistic representation is a mere
sign appealing to and stimulating the constructive imagination of the
spectator to fashion an inner picture of his own making. It is
not yet a work of real art which has its life and unity in itself, and
attracts and holds the eye of the spectator at its most living point of
interest. - - -
This principle of composition was first carried out by the Greeks,
when they left the sphere of symbolical picture-writing, and presented
scenes with a real centre of interest and design. In the earliest works of
Greek art, such as the Chest of Kypselos and the François vase, we have
the oriental arrangement of tier upon tier of successive figures. It is in
athletic vase-paintings like this black-figured archaic one that we have
the first instances of composition. In the centre are the two boxers
engaged, to the right and left are the Ephedros and the Paidotribes
facing the centre. By their attitude as well as their action these two
figures give a completeness to the scene, separate it from the outside,
and drive the eye towards the real centre of action and interest. Unity,
life, and variety are at once given to the whole scene. Unity in that the
scene has a localised centre of interest towards which the other parts
tend and lead; life in that each part contributes to the unity of the
whole; variety in that there is a gradation of interest as we approach or
leave the centre. In this simple and conventional form of work we have
in embryo all the germs of the highest variety of composition. The
attendant figures on either side represent the foreground and back-
ground to the central combatants, and we need but reach the perfection
of technique in the acquisition of the laws of perspective, the power of
III.] APPENDIX. 4. I9
shading, and the gradation of tones of colours to carry this fundamental
principle to its highest variety and expressive power.
It was in the palaestra that the early painter had the centre of artistic
interest impressed upon him by the combatants whose struggle engrossed
the attention of all spectators, it was here that he had this rudimentary
form of composition impressed upon his eye by the ever-recurring
figures of the Ephedros and the Paidotribes standing on either side.
Yet not only by a priori probability is this statement supported.
The monuments themselves, if carefully studied, give the weightiest
evidence. In the first place, the earliest works of art do not give us this
form of composition, it comes in with the athletic vases. Furthermore
if we analyse the later vases, even those representing subjects most
“unathletic” and of late complex forms, we can always trace this
simple schematic form here given in the pugilists, the Ephedros and
the Paidotribes. I have chosen these diagrams, serving to illustrate
quite different lectures, at random. Here you have a scene representing
the birth of Athene, here another relating to a tradition of Athene Ergane,
and in all you have the two chief figures in the centre with standing
figures on either side facing them. Sometimes the side figures are
doubled, sometimes there is but one central figure in the middle, but the
scheme remains the same. Here you have late vase-paintings with
numerous figures free and bold in composition and execution, represent-
ing an Amazonomachia and a Gigantomachia, and all this large group
resolves itself into smaller groups of the form of this early athletic vase.
However complicated and perfect the composition of a late vase, the
traces of this simplest form of pictorial composition will always be
noticed, the fundamental principle of pictorial art which was impressed
upon the eye of the artist through the athletic games of the Greeks.
What we owe to the Greek artists constitutes the principle of art even
in our time; it is the combination of nature and the ideal in the human
figure, and the principle of composition in pictorial art, both of which
were developed in him chiefly through the influence of the athletic
games, and this fact I hope to have made clear to you this evening.
From the nature of the subject dealt with in this address we have
necessarily only noticed Greek art in its expression of the physical side
of human life, leaving unobserved the spiritual side of their great works.
There is an erroneous notion abroad, started by those who have but a
superficial acquaintance with Greek art, that though the Greeks repre-
sented with perfection the physical side of beauty, they failed to render
due justice to the spirit and the soul. If sufficient time were at my dis-
posal, I believe that I could show you how erroneous is this notion. It
27—2
42O APPENDIX. . [III.
is true the Greeks avoided the expression of physical emotion in their
statues when it led to grimace, yet their great statues are replete with the
true soul of art. The soul of art does not depend upon the immediate
expression of emotion in facial changes, any more than goodness
with man depends upon the immediate act of charity in the most
restricted sense. It may be a truer and greater act of charity to teach
our pupils mathematics when pleasure calls us away, or to conform to
the laws of good-breeding when our inclination and comfort drive us the
other way, than to distribute a small share of our ready money to some
beggar. The soul of art is not to be found in the immediate attempts at
representing what we believe to be the outer manifestation of human
souls; but in the unity and harmony of organisation given to a work
through the design inherent in the creative artist’s mind, the share of
soul which the creating artist transfers from himself to the work of his
hands, and above all in the complete and inseparable harmony that
obtains between the subject represented and the material which embo-
dies the idea. A marble angel of death bearing heavenwards in his arms
a dead infant, with marble tears trickling down his cheek, suspended
from the ceiling of a drawing-room by a silver cord, has less artistic soul
than this Choiseul-Gouffier Pugilist; because in the athlete there is
complete and inseparable harmony between the man represented and
the artistic stuff that he is made of
“eſduuÁIO ¡e snæZ JO 9IduI3.JL 0\}. Jo quouſ pºd u 194seQI 9ųL ‘q
ºuouºqqieq oq) Jo queuįpºd u 19ļsº M 9ųL ' ºo 9 z 31 I
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NO. IV.
THE EASTERN PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS
AT OLYMPIA AND THE WESTERN PEDIMENT OF
THE PARTHENON.
[Åeprinted from the journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. v. (1884), pp. 195-204.]
AN initial cause of opposition to the acceptance of the interpretation
of the Eastern pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia here offered
will no doubt lie in the fact that this proposed interpretation will, in
some of the details, run counter to the direct statements of Pausanias.
But though it is a dangerous proceeding in archaeology to discredit the
direct statement of an ancient authority, there is one authority more
conclusive than the statement of any ancient eye-witness, that is, the
direct evidence of the remains themselves. When in addition to this we
have reason to know that this particular writer was apt to be misled in
the recognition of subjects of the very nature of those in question, and
that his sources of information were often of the most illiterate and
untrustworthy kind, we are then more than ever justified in turning,
nay, called upon to turn, to the unbiassed study of the monuments
themselves and their relation to all works of that class, with a view to
the solution of the problem.
Every reader of Pausanias will soon notice that there was a certain
bias in the mind of the traveller, a certain tendenz pervading the whole
of his writings, modifying the character of his book, and sometimes the
correctness of his statements. It might be called a religious, or rather
mythographical, bias which arose in him in great part out of the spirit of
his age (an age marked by the death-struggle of Greek paganism against
rising Christianity), and which drove him to look for illustrations of
myths and mythical personalities in every monument. He will never
424 APPENDIX. . [IV.
lose an opportunity of recounting some out-of-the-way myth with a
definite mention of names, and will often introduce them where no
apparent opportunity was offered. The first thing he seems to look for
upon entering a new town or sanctuary is some local mythical story
which he recounts at great length with all the on dits of ignorant people,
while he gives but short space to the description of facts which it
would often be valuable to know. It is moreover most unfortunate
that this credulous myth-seeker was most uncritical and indiscriminate
with regard to the sources of his information. There is no doubt that
a large number of the myths and traditions he recounts and of the
interpretations he gives of the monuments with which he met in his
travels, were gathered from the ignorant people he chanced to meet,
more especially from the ciceroni who flocked about Delphi and Olympia,
and obtruded their services upon the tourist with a persistency only
equalled by their ignorance, and a corresponding readiness to invent
facts and names where their knowledge was at fault. Luckily Pausanias
often alludes to his source of information and to the fact that “the
éénymrijs said so, and thus gives us fair warning to receive with some
reservation the statement thus backed. This is so in the very tenth
chapter of the fifth book in which he describes the Eastern pediment of
the Temple of Zeus, and ends up with the announcement that the
Troizenians call the groom of Pelops who is represented in the pediment
Sphairos, while the exegetes who is showing him about said he was
called Killas. g -
But that he or his guide or both are not to be implicitly followed in
the interpretation they give of the figures in the pediment, has become
completely demonstrated by the results of the excavation. Pausanias
enumerates and interprets the figures as follows: To 8& év toſs derois,
to ruv ćuarpoo'6ev IIé\otros j trpos Oivápaov táv trarov duº Aa eru péAXovora
kai to pyov too 8pópov trapó duºporépov čv trapaakevi. Atós 8e dyāAparos
kard pºéorov retrotmuévov pºdżuora röv deróv, toru Oivápaos év Šešu roi,
Atos étrukeiuevos kpdivos tí, keſha)\fi, trapd 88 airów yuvm Xrepárm, 6vyatépov
kai airm rôv "ATAavros. MupriNos 8é, és #Aavve rig Oivopuig to 3ppa,
kä0mrat Tpó rôv irºrov' oi 8é eioty dpuffudy oi introv régorapes. per& 8:
aúrów elow &vöpes 830 - 6vépara pºév or buow oik to ru, 6epaireſſelv 8e dpa
toūs introvs Kai rotºrous ºrpoo’erétakro into tod Oivopºdov, trpós arg 88
kard keural rô arépart KA68eos' yet 8& Kai és ra. d.MXa trap' "HXetov ripºds
Torapºv pºtoºra perá ye ‘AAqetáv. td 88 €s dpio repò dro roi, Avôs
6 IIéAoi kai ‘Iriročápeta Kai & re jviox6s éort roo IIé\otros kai introt, 8tſo
re &vöpes, irrokópot 87 kai otºroi ré IIéAort. Kai at 6ts d derös käretoruv is
\ 2 So Aſ ey
orévôv, kai kard rotiro "AAqetos étrº añroö retroënrat, tº 8& divöpi Ös
IV.] APPENDIX. 425
*A
#vioxé ré IIéAort Aéye pºv rô Tpotènviov to riv čvoua Sºhaipos, 3 &
éémyrris d v 'OXupatríg baoye KāXav etval.
There are thus twenty-one figures (including the horses) in the
pediment. Zeus is in the centre, on his one side Pelops with Hippo-
dameia, on the other Oinomaos with Sterope. Then follow on either
side the charioteers (Myrtilos and Sphairos) crouching before the horses,
then the four horses, then follow on either side two men, and then
at the left corner the river Alpheios, at the corresponding right corner
the river Kladeos.
The real uncertainty of interpretation for us attaches itself to the
“two men’ between the river-gods and the horses, and this uncertainty
was evidently also felt by Pausanias himself. In dealing with the first
set of two he merely calls them two men; he then goes on to say that
they have no names, and that their function was to take care of the
horses of Oinomaos; the other two he simply calls grooms (introkéuot)
of Pelops. Considerable fragments, making the nature of each one of
the figures enumerated by Pausanias intelligible, have been unearthed in
the recent German excavations, and have made it possible to reconstruct
the whole pedimental composition seen by Pausanias. The three
principal restorations are those made by Treu', Curtius", and quite
recently, by Kekulé”.
These restorations differ only with regard to the distribution of the
crouching figures. The one here reproduced (Fig. 2) is that of Curtius,
chosen by the present writer because it conforms more to the laws
of composition which, from analogous cases, appear to have prevailed in
such works.
It seems more than unlike % that the four figures between river-gods
and horses should be grooms. Despite Welcker's" ingenious explanation
* Archaeol. Zeitung, 1876, pp. 174 seq., Taf. º 1882, pp. 217 seq., Taf, 12.
See also Boetticher, Olympia, Das Fest und seine Stätte, p. 285 seq.; and Overbeck,
Gesch. der Griech. Plastić (3rd edit.), I. pp. 420 seq.
* Die Funde von Olympia (Berlin, 1882), pp. 71 seq., Taf. VI. VII. ; see also
Furtwängler, Arch. Zeit. 1882, p. 365; Mrs Mitchell, A History of Ancient
Sculpture, pp. 262 seq., Fig. I27.
* Rheinisches Museum f. Philolog. N. F. xxxix. pp. 481 seq., Taf, III. This has just
come to my hand. Taf. III. contains outlines of the three restorations mentioned
above. For earlier remarks on this pediment by other authors, see Urlichs, Bemer-
Aungen überden Olympischen Tempel, &c. (Würzburg, 1877), pp. 20 seq.; G. Hirschfeld,
Aleutsche Rundschau, 1877, pp. 309 seq.; Adler, Ausgrabungen in Olympia, II. p. 16,
Taf, Xxxv.; Milchhoefer, Im Neuen Reich, 1877, pp. 206 seq.; Robert, Arch. Zeit.
1878, p. 31.
4 Alte Denkmäler, I. pp. 178 seq.

426 APPENDIX. . [IV.
‘that the artist was wise in throwing the chief figures into prominent
relief by placing these unimportant personages instead of inferior deities
at either side, we cannot help feeling that this would be a very clumsy
contrivance on the part of the artist for the purpose of filling up space,
and that the introduction of such figures into such compositions is
contrary to the custom of Greek art. Furthermore, it is evident that
Pausanias and his guide did not examine the figures in the pediment
very carefully, for one of the “men” or ‘grooms’ turns out to be a
woman. Another one of them, the bearded old man seated on the
right side, can hardly be held to represent the type of the groom, nor
have the modern writers on the subject, despite the statement of
Pausanias, ventured to call him by that name. He generally goes by
the name of ‘The Pensive Old Man' (Sinnender Greis). But if we
examine a large number of ancient monuments, especially later reliefs,
we shall repeatedly come upon this type of an old man reclining in a
contemplative attitude, watching the scene which he, sometimes in
company with similar figures, serves to frame, and by their presence such
figures fix the locality in which the scene takes place. The crouching
male figure between him and the Kladeos again corresponds exactly in
his attitude to the type of a youthful river-god, more especially to the
fragment of the Ilissos Crouching at the right side of the western
pediment of the Parthenon. The same applies to the two figures
on the other side. All the three figures at either angle are evidently
not immediately concerned in the action which is preparing in the
centre of the pediment. They are in the background, or, as I should
like to say, they are the background, and belong to a different sphere of
beings from the figures in the centre. The figures in the centre are
of one class; and the figures at the angles, separated from them by
the horses, are of another. What the nature of the latter group of
figures is, is clearly indicated by the river-gods Kladeos and Alpheios
at the end of either side ; they are personifications of the localities
in which the scene takes place.
But to feel thoroughly convinced of the correctness of this interpre-
tation one must needs have examined from this point of view a large
number of later monuments, especially reliefs, bearing the evident traces
of the earlier pedimental compositions, and the eastern and western
pediments of the Parthenon, and must compare these pediments with
them. One then comes to recognise a whole system of mythological
composition; and of this recognition our interpretation of the figures of
the angle of the Olympia pediment is but a necessary consequence.
I must refer the reader to the treatment of this subject in the
IV.] APPENDIX. - 427
fourth and fifth Essays in the present volume. I have there dwelt upon
the principles of Greek pedimental composition, which may be briefly
summarised as follows: -
The customary method in which the sculptor represented a mytho-
logical scene, especially in pediments, was for him to follow in the
broader mode of arranging his composition the general constructive
indications of the space assigned to him for his composition. In the
case of a pediment this space is a triangle with the highest and most
important point in the centre. The height and importance of this
space are not, as in the case of a frieze, the same throughout, but grow
gradually towards the centre as the sides rise from either angle at the
base, and diminish gradually as the sides descend from the centre to
either angle. The effective narration of any story by means of a plastic
composition demands that there should be a visible unity in the
composition with a culminating point of interest, otherwise we shall
have monotony and diffusion. The sculptor thus follows the simple
suggestion of the construction of the pediment in placing the most
important and central part of the scene depicted in the highest central
point of the pediment, the parts most essential to the central action on
either side nearest the centre, and the figures lose in their importance
in the central action the more they approach either angle. Or, be-
ginning at either angle, the figures by their nature and action will
manifest less interest and participation in the central scene at the
beginning of the composition, and these will grow as the pediment
rises until we approach the central climax. In the best of these
compositions a further element of variety is introduced in that the
whole scene as represented is subdivided into different phases or
groups, without robbing the whole of its unity. This subdivision would
correspond to the foreground or the background. It is generally
indicated by the line between the reclining and the erect figures, and
by a corresponding distinction in the nature and meaning of the figures
and their relation to the central action. The figures forming the
central Scene, generally in erect attitudes of action, form the one group
of beings belonging to a definite sphere, and are distinctly separated
from the other figures seated or reclining in contemplative attitudes,
generally manifesting the greater interest in the scene the nearer the
place assigned to them is to the centre. The proportion of space
assigned to each one of these classes is about the same in the
pediments of the Parthenon and this eastern pediment of Olympia. In
the western pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia was repre-
sented the Centauromachia; and this subject led the sculptor to give
428 APPENDIX. [IV.
greater space to the scene of actual conflict, while but a small space is
assigned to the local nymphs.
The class of figures on either side of the centre, distinct from
the immediate participators in the action, I maintain to be traditionally
personifications of nature and localities in which the scene is supposed
to have taken place. To Brunn belongs the great merit of having first
ventured to maintain that the figures filling the sides of the western
pediment of the Parthenon up to the Nike and Amphitrite driving the
chariots (where the lines are drawn in Fig. 25 a), are personifications of
Attic localities; and though I cannot subscribe to the definite inter-
pretation of the individual figures, the principle as evinced in the
interpretation as a whole I have found-confirmed by the examination of
all similar monuments. In the eastern pediment of the Parthenon
(representing the birth of Athene, Fig. 5), where, I maintain, the centre
was occupied by Athene and Zeus and the admiring gods, and the
seated and reclining figures now extant were personifications of nature
like Helios and Selene at the extreme angles, an intermediary figure
(the messengers Iris and, probably, Hermes) was introduced between
the two larger classes on either side. These erect figures show by
their action towards the figures in the angles that, though erect and of
the nature of the gods in the centre, they also hold some relation to the
figures of the other sphere; they form a transition from one group to
the other, and by the fact that they convey the news of the central
scene to the seated figures at the angles they clearly indicate that the
two classes of figures belong to different spheres.
In the western pediment of the Parthenon the transition is more
abrupt. The lines drawn in our illustration show this marked division.
Beginning from these lines the figures are all turned towards the
centre; both by action and composition it is made manifest that they
are immediately concerned in the central event (the strife between
Athene and Poseidon for the Attic land). The figures on the other
side of the line, however, all belong to the same sphere, which differs
from that of the central figures; and their nature is made clear by the
character of the two figures nearest either angle, which is beyond
dispute. It is admitted by all that in the left angle there is Kephissos
with a nymph (now missing) as in the right angle there is a nymph with
Ilissos. The other figures up to the lines are personifications of the
Same nature. -
If we compare the eastern pediment of the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia with this western pediment of the Parthenon, we realise a
thorough correspondence in the general composition and arrangement
IV.] APPENDIX. 429
of the groups which calls for a similar interpretation of the figures at
the sides. -
In both pediments the horses with their drivers complete the
central group containing the action. In the Olympia pediment the
horses form a more intrinsic part of the central scene, inasmuch as the
moment represented is that of preparation for a mythical chariot race,
while in the Parthenon pediment they are mere accessories to the
acting figures, Athene and Poseidon; and they here serve to indicate
the fact that the judgment confirming the supremacy of Athene has
been passed and that the gods will in the next moment retire from the
Attic locality where they have performed their miraculous deed. Thus
in the Olympia pediment the horses stand at rest awaiting the beginning
of the race, and those who will mount the chariots (the most important
element of the scene), Pelops and Oinomaos and their charioteers, are
placed together near the centre and in front of the horses; while in the
Parthenon pediment it is clearly indicated that the horses have just
arrived in that they are vigorously advancing, Athene and Poseidon
form the really prominent centre, and Nike and Amphitrite are sepa-
rated from them and are behind the horses. In the Parthenon
pediment the centre ends with the figures driving the horses, in the
Olympia pediment with the horses themselves. The figures after the
horses in the Olympia pediment hold no further immediate relation to
them. Even though in Treu's restoration the crouching figure placed
by Curtius in front of the horses on the right is placed behind the
horses on the left, and might thus be restored as holding the reins, the
corresponding old man on the right in a contemplative attitude with
his hand to his chin can in no way be considered to fulfil any definite
function with regard to the horses, and the symmetry pervading the
whole of this composition would demand that there should be no
essential difference between the corresponding figures on either side.
I cannot refrain from remarking that, as far as symmetrical composition
is concerned, the restoration of Curtius has far more in its favour than
either of the two other restorations; for the seated and draped old man
on the right, occupying a comparatively wide space, is well balanced on
the other side by the seated and draped figure which of all the
remaining figures possesses to the highest degree these characteristics;
and the monotony of line in the direction of their feet is counterbalanced
to a certain degree by the fact that the one is looking forward, the
other turning backwards, and still both are turned towards the centre.
In Curtius's restoration the next two crouching figures towards the
angle are turned away from the centre, until at either end the
43O APPENDIX. [IV.
river-gods have a decided movement towards them and towards the
Centre. .
In the Parthenon pediment there are seven figures in the angles at
either side, in the Olympia pediment there are only three; yet even
here there is the most striking resemblance of composition. Beginning
at the right angle the reclining Kladeos with the crouching youth
correspond in composition to the reclining nymph with the Ilissos
in the Parthenon pediment; the larger profile lines of the seated old
man correspond to the lines of the only figure seated in profile in the
Parthenon pediment, namely, the seated female figure with the nude
girl in her lap on the same side of the pediment. At the other angle of
the pediment we have the reclining Alpheios whose similarity to the
Kephissos has been universally remarked; the figure corresponding to
the crouching girl is wanting in the Parthenon pediment, yet the seated
half-draped figure next to it and turned towards the centre is in
composition most strikingly like the next figure in the Parthenon
pediment, namely, the seated and draped male figure looking towards
the centre.
Both in the general arrangement of composition, the chief acting
figures in the centre, bounded on either side by the horses and their
drivers, with the personifications of the locality in either angle, as well
as in the details of the seated figures, the correspondence of these two
pediments is so great that we are driven to acknowledge an immediate
relation between these two pediments. Whether the older artist Paionios
on his way from the north to Olympia saw and studied the Parthenon
pediments without for all that being able to produce in any way the
superiority of the modelling; or whether, as is now maintained by
Loeschcke, Pheidias was at Olympia before the completion of the
Parthenon, and was there influenced by the composition of the North-
Grecian artist, I do not venture to decide. I am only concerned with
establishing this strong inter-relation.
I must not omit to remark that Treu, in his first paper”, pointed to
the resemblance between the crouching figure on the right of the
Olympian pediment and the Ilissos, as well as between the seated
figures on the left in both pediments and the general arrangement of
the composition. Furthermore, Curtius has gone so far as to consider
the figure beside each one of the river-gods to be personifications of
localities. But the interpretation here proffered for all the figures not
forming the centre of the scene is the result of a comparative study of
* Phidias Tod, und Chronologie des Olympischen Zeus; Historische Untersuchung.
* Arch. Zeit. 1876, p. 179.
IV.] APPENDIX. 43 I
pedimental compositions in general, more especially in connexion with
the Parthenon pediments, and the question must thus be viewed as a
whole in order to discover its true bearing. To Brunn will ever remain
the great merit of having broken ground in the right direction with the
general spirit of his interpretation of the western pediment of the
Parthenon.
. (Tambringe:
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SON.
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