Читать книгу A History of Sculpture - Ernest Henry Short - Страница 12

In the early days of Athens the Acropolis had been a rocky eminence which served as a natural retreat, on which the dwelling of the chiefs was erected with the shrine of the tribal deity. Its precipitous cliffs enabled a body of determined defenders to keep an enemy at bay; so that those living at its foot soon obtained a commanding position among the village tribes of Attica from their ability to offer a place of safety in time of stress. In course of time these tribes became united in the common worship they paid to the Virgin Athena who gave her name to the leading settlement, and all offered their gifts at her shrine in the centre of the fortress when her inspiration gave them the victory. Now, however, Athens was to put the Acropolis to another use. Cimon levelled its rugged plateau, and, by building extensive walls around its slopes and filling in the gaps between the walls and the rock, considerably increased its area. On the top arose the buildings which were to make Athens one of the wonders of the world. The chief of these was, of course, the Parthenon—the temple of the virgin goddess Athena. On this all the genius of Attica was lavished. Ictinus, the greatest architect in Greece, furnished the design. Phidias was by common consent the most fitted to beautify the buildings with the marble groups and reliefs which were now the great feature of every public building in Greece. Under him were placed the most accomplished bronze-workers and stone-cutters of the day. Born about 500 b.c., Phidias was a boy when Miltiades and his eleven thousand Athenians and Platæans drove the army of Darius to its boats at Marathon. Like Sophocles, he may have borne arms at Salamis. He had grown up in an atmosphere saturated with his countrymen’s successes and ambitions. In temperament, the embodiment of the Attic spirit, Phidias was the very man to compose the pæan in marble which should cry his country’s prowess to the world when every Grecian voice was stilled. The others were to carry out his designs for the decoration of the temple, but his own work was to be the great ivory and gold statue of Athena which the Parthenon was to enshrine.

Ten years later (438 b.c.) the work was finished. When the second statue of Athena was unveiled the goddess was found to be no longer the warlike maiden who, spear in hand, led those who bore her name to victory. Phidias’ colossal figure, some forty feet high, portrayed the virgin in her robes of triumph, with the symbol of victory in her hand. From her shoulders hung the ægis wherewith her father Zeus had destroyed his foes, from the centre of which the dreaded gorgon’s head stared out. The face, arms and feet of the goddess were of ivory, the dress being decorated with gold. This statue of Athena Parthenos has been lost to the world since the coming of Christianity to Athens about 430 a.d., but the accounts of classical travellers and some rude reproductions enable us to reconstruct the masterpiece of Phidias, at least in imagination.

The Parthenon itself was built from the golden-hued marble of Pentelicus, quarried from the mines near Athens. Its architecture was of the simple yet stately Doric order. The principal chamber of the temple—the cella—in which the statue of Athena Parthenos stood, was surrounded by a colonnade of Doric pillars. The metopes, or square panels above the colonnade, were filled with groups sculptured in high relief, the outside of the cella being decorated with a frieze in low relief. In judging this it is important to remember that these reliefs stood forty feet above the floor of the colonnade. Colour was added to increase their effect, while the bridles and other appointments of the horses were of metal. The triangular pediments above the porticos were filled with two great groups sculptured in the round.

Throughout the series of sculptured marbles with which the Parthenon was decorated, Phidias’ aim was to illustrate the greatness of the goddess of the Athenians. In the pedimental groups the artist showed Athena’s miraculous birth and her victory in the contest with Poseidon. The eastern pediment pictured Olympus just after the axe of Hephaestus had freed Athena from her father’s head. The virgin stood fully armed by the side of Zeus in the midst of the wondering gods. The design for the western pediment portrayed a scene even more closely connected with Athenian history. Poseidon had claimed the right to give a name to the city of the sons of Cecrops, a demand to which Athena would not agree. It was decided that the one who, in the opinion of Zeus, produced the more serviceable gift for mankind, should secure the privilege. Phidias chose the moment when Zeus had awarded the right to Athena on the ground that the olive tree, which had sprung up on the Acropolis at her command, was of more value to the human race than the horse—the emblem of war—upon which Poseidon had relied.

The carvings of the metopes represented the overthrow of the personifications of the powers of evil of which it was the mission of the goddess of wisdom to rid the world. In some were depicted the victory of the Greeks over the Eastern amazons, in others the victory of the gods over the earth-born giants, and in the rest the contests of Centaurs and Lapiths. They were all in very high relief. It is certain that Phidias had less to do with this portion of the decoration of the temple than with the sculptures in the pediments or the frieze, and the work is of varying merit.

In the low relief on the frieze within the colonnade the sculptor depicted perhaps the most Athenian scene of all—the panathenaic procession. The festival of which this was the culmination was instituted in honour of Athena Polias—the Protectress of the City. Every town in Attica and each colony and subject town contributed its share to the sacrifices in honour of the occasion. On the last day the whole population of the State, some on foot, some on horseback or in chariots, marched in procession to lay the peplos of the goddess in her temple. The concourse included a band of the noblest maidens of the city carrying baskets of offerings, the right to be one of these being the greatest honour to which an Athenian girl could aspire. To adorn the frieze, Phidias imaged this great procession divided into two long lines, running along the north and south sides of the cella respectively. Both met in the eastern face. At this spot the sculptor showed the Athenian maidens with the vessels of sacrifice and the gods, who, though invisible, were among their people on that day. A priest stood in the centre possibly receiving the embroidered robe of the goddess from a little boy. On the right and left were seated the chief divinities of Hellas—on the one side Athena, Hephaestus, Poseidon, and Dionysus, and on the other Zeus and Hera attended by Isis.

“THESEUS”

British Museum

“THE THREE FATES”

British Museum

Enough remains of the various parts of the Parthenon decorations to enable us to judge of the supreme gifts of the artist to whose imagination they were due and under whose direction they were fashioned. An hour in the Elgin room of the British Museum, where the larger part are enshrined, should be sufficient to convince the greatest sceptic. The magnificent group “The Three Fates” show the marvellous skill of the Athenian sculptors in dealing with drapery. There is an ideal nobility in such a figure as that familiarly known as “The Theseus” which places it on a higher plane of art than either the beautifully proportioned forms of Polyclitus or the rhythmical translations of nature by Myron. The wonderful fertility of invention, which is, perhaps, the most noticeable feature of the whole of the Parthenon designs, would have been an impossible achievement for the steady imagination of the Argive sculptor. It needed the temperament of an Athenian artist working under the inspiration of his subject and certain of the appreciation of his countrymen. It is one of the tragedies of art that one who had deserved the esteem of his fellows so fully did not retain it. Phidias died in exile at Elis. An accusation of misappropriating the gold voted for the statue, together with a charge of sacrilege for engraving his own portrait and that of Pericles on the shield of Athena, caused the great sculptor to leave the city he had served so well. He died about 432 b.c.

So far we have spoken of Phidias, the sculptor, and Ictinus, the architect. Our modern ideas incline us to associate the artist with the work—Wren with St. Paul’s and Raphael with the “Sistine Madonna.” In reality, the foundation-stone of the Parthenon should be inscribed thus: “Pericles and the people of Athens made me.”

A work of art so great, which exemplified the struggles and aspirations of a race so completely, could not but owe the largest debt to the political leader of the State. All the forces of Athens were united to beautify the Acropolis, and these were marshalled, naturally enough, not by an artist but by a politician. The real creator of the temple of Athena was Pericles. He realised that the greatness of his countrymen depended, not upon the breadth of their dominions, but upon the healthy development of every citizen, physically, mentally, and emotionally. He divined that the proud boast “we love the beautiful without extravagance and knowledge without exaggeration” was incompatible with strivings after empire. To engage the Athenian imagination, and to wean it from the road which eventually led to ruin, Pericles bethought him of the erection of the series of monuments witnessing to the glory of the first city of Greece. His was the conception in its entirety, he found the means, and, above all, he never permitted the enthusiasm of his countrymen to flag.

GROUP OF GODS

From the Parthenon Frieze

BOY WITH PEPLOS

From the Parthenon Frieze

These are the chief facts. They prove that the temple of the Virgin goddess and the marbles with which it was adorned, played a part in the life of the fifth-century Athenian, for which there is no modern counterpart. The Parthenon brought heaven to earth. It satisfied the individual Athenian’s craving for light as to his personal destiny. But above all, it stood for those social and political ideals which he estimated far above his own personal wants. It spoke to his soul as the idea of Empire speaks to the patriotic Briton of to-day. The pedimental groups, too, were more than decorations or mere pictures of the great gods; they glowed with a message which we should deem inspired. When the Athenian’s gaze wandered towards the Acropolis—still more when, during some high festival, he stood before the temple marbles—he could forget the perpetual sacrifice of will, liberty and individuality—things which we Europeans deem altogether desirable—and say with all sincerity, “it is worth while.”