History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

“He said, and nodded with his shadowy brows,
Wav’d on th’ immortal head th’ ambrosial locks,
And all Olympos trembled at his nod.”

That Pheidias attained his ideal was unanimously attested by his own time, and by the later world so long as it had opportunity to see this wonderful production. Even divinity itself must have approved, since, according to the beautiful legend, as the master, at the perfecting of his work, prayed for a sign of favor from heaven, a stroke of lightning entered the temple and fell upon the floor in a spot which was marked in later times as sacred. A feeling pervaded all antiquity that the Olympian Zeus of Pheidias was the grandest and most divine of all works of art, which not to have seen was a misfortune to be lamented, and the sight of which lifted from the soul its cares and sorrows. Instead, therefore, of dwelling upon the praises given by the ancients to the details, we should seek rather to understand the principal traits which justified this opinion, and which were characteristic of the master. The archaic constraint prevalent in works of Ageladas and Calamis had been overcome; but the combination of all previous results, and a nearly absolute correctness of form, united to an ideal beauty quite beyond any real experience, could not have been the chief causes of this admiration. These were, indeed, important, especially in view of the enormous difficulties presented by the chryselephantine process—in the working of gold-plate; in the preparation, shaving, and uniting of the ivory, so unpliant to the chisel, and, finally, in securing it to the wooden form. But the essential and characteristic merit lay in the bodily incarnation of a grand and truly godlike ideal, employing the human form only as a word through which the elevated thought found expression. The artist had set before himself the most exalted aim—namely, to present to the eyes of the world the highest conception of divinity as seen in Athene, the goddess of the mind, and in Zeus, the king of gods. Hence the large number of Athenes executed by Pheidias, and the Aphrodite Urania, the great “heavenly” goddess, the feminine principle of the universe; hence, also, the fewer representations of masculine or heroic forms, or of subordinate deities, in which this master might be excelled—as by Polycleitos in his Amazon—because they did not accord with his nature, or contain within themselves that ideal greatness which he wished to unfold. Although the two chryselephantine colossal statues, notwithstanding the perishable nature of their construction, were comparatively long preserved—being in existence at the end of the fourth century A.D.—still, there are no copies which show more than their general composition. The marble statuette of Athene (Fig. 204) has already been mentioned; in regard to the Olympian Zeus, a copy upon a coin of Hadrian, which shows the usual carelessness and weakness (Fig. 206), has in later times been justly preferred to the mask of Zeus from Otricoli, formerly considered a copy after Pheidias. Though the classical notices frequently give the only information concerning the masterpieces of Pheidias, numerous original remains from his workshop still exist. We cannot adduce as examples the glorious metopes and frieze of the so-called Theseion in Athens, perfect as appear these representations of the deeds of Heracles and Theseus upon the former, and of the battle of the Centaurs and Titans upon the latter; for as it is not known when this temple was dedicated, it cannot be shown that its ornaments were executed in the period which came under the artistic direction of Pheidias. Nor can we attribute to this school the sculptures of the Erechtheion, which were not completed until 408—the beautiful caryatides of the portico, or the remnants of relief from the frieze, preserved, unfortunately, only in scanty fragments. These figures, indeed, instead of being carved from the blocks of the frieze itself, were formed piecewise of Pentilic marble, and fastened upon a dark ground of Eleusinian stone, probably for the effect of color. As little may we cite the better-preserved reliefs upon the frieze and balustrade of the small temple of Wingless Victory before the Propylæa, which, from their great likeness to the sculptures upon the mausoleum of Halicarnassus, seem rather to belong to the following period. Overbeck thinks it probable that the frieze has reference to the battle at Platæa; and the balustrade, according to Kekule, may have something to do with the return of Alkibiades. In judging the Pheidian school, the Parthenon offers, however, abundant material in the three kinds of sculpture—round statues, high and low relief; although the unhappy bombardment of Athens by the Venetians in 1687, when the bursting of a bomb in the beautiful temple, then used as a powder-magazine, and the succeeding explosion, destroyed more than half the work. The last two centuries also have not passed without leaving their mark; so that Lord Elgin’s robbery may, after all, have proved an advantage, the greater part of the sculptures having been protected and rendered accessible, since the beginning of this century, in the halls of the British Museum. It is particularly unfortunate that the gable groups have suffered most; for the perfection of these chief works must have appeared of the greatest importance to the artist, and these colossal statues would have given the best exposition of his ability. Before the catastrophe above mentioned, however, these were badly injured in consequence of the Temple of Athene Parthenos having been transformed into the Church of Maria Parthenos, and later into a mosque, the destruction appearing also to have been aided by the wilful malice of Christian and Moslem fanatics. They were still further reduced after the explosion by the unsuccessful attempt of the Venetians to carry off as trophy a marble chariot and horses. The few notes of Pausanias upon the subjects of the gable groups, the drawings of a French artist, Carrey (taken not long before the bombardment), and the remains preserved in the British Museum are sufficient to convey a conception of the general composition. The eastern gable represented the birth of Athene; not the unfortunate, artificial scene where the goddess springs, ready equipped, from the head of Zeus, as frequently shown in pictures upon vases and bronze mirrors, but the moment after, when she appears before the deities of Olympos. The entire central part of the group including the highest deities, the chief feature of the composition, is lost; the rest is in greater part preserved. As the scene was in Olympos, Helios and Selene, with their quadrigas, were fittingly chosen as the limits of the composition; the former rising from the sea, in the left angle of the gable, the latter sinking in the right; night disappearing before the dawn. The adjoining statues, though much mutilated, have been preserved. Next to Helios was Dionysos, resting upon his tiger’s skin; with two sitting female figures, Demeter and Persephone (Fig. 207), to whom hastens Iris, announcing the birth of Athene. Upon the other side, next to Selene, lay Aphrodite in the lap of Peitho (Fig. 208); and then Hestia, to whom Hermes, as the other messenger, brings the glad tidings: these latter sculptures were almost entirely destroyed in the time of Carrey. Nike—Victory—remaining only as a torso, appears to have followed with Ares, advancing towards the middle of the gable bringing greetings to the newly born goddess. All the rest was destroyed before 1680 A.D., and the principal figures of the composition are consequently unknown; but it is probable that between the Victory and Athene stood Hephaistos, recoiling after having delivered the blow upon the head of Zeus. Athene stood beside her father, but it is not certain whether the latter was exactly in the centre of the gable, or whether the two figures were equally removed from it. If this last were the case, which is perhaps probable, the division of the space would require still another deity upon the right side. The remaining gods of Olympos, Poseidon, Artemis, and Apollo, were probably arranged in this order between Zeus and Iris. The group of the western gable represented the contest of Athene and Poseidon for the Attic land. The composition is reasonably certain, though the middle figures have here also disappeared. The two chief deities, standing at either side of the olive-tree in the centre, turn towards their chariots, that of Athene being driven by Victory, that of Poseidon by Amphitrite; horses were harnessed to both, that of Poseidon not having been drawn by dolphins or hippocamps, as formerly supposed. The consciousness of victory was expressed by the bearing of Athene and of her steeds, while the bowed head of Poseidon acknowledged his defeat: the exclusion of the salt waves of the sea from the blooming meadows and groves watered by the Kephissos. The angles of the gable beyond the chariots were occupied by the retinue of the contestants, and by local deities; the accurate determination of these is impossible, though upon the side of Athene may have been grouped the representatives of the Athenian continent, and upon that of Poseidon those of the sea and the islands; while the figure of Kephissos is supposed to have filled the extreme corner at the left, and Ilissos with Callirrhoe that of the right. The scene was laid in Attica; and, as the earthly locality was to be clearly characterized and populated, it was advisable not to introduce again all the Olympian deities of the eastern gable. It is probable that during antiquity the landscape seen from this chief front of the Acropolis was famous for many local myths no longer familiar to the scholar, in ignorance of which an adequate explanation is impossible. The compositions alone give evidence of the grandeur and elevation of the master who produced and arranged them, in a truthfulness to nature at once ornamental and unconstrained. The remains, with great simplicity and breadth of detail, show a force and majesty which raise them above all known works of sculpture. In their loving and perfect modelling of the nude and of the drapery, in their freedom from affectation of motive or of rendering, and in their utter lack of any striving after meretricious effects, they appear rather the creations of magic than the labored carvings of men.