Excursions in Art and Letters

by William Wetmore Story

This conclusion will seem all the more probable when we consider that Phidias, far from being rapid in his execution, was, on the contrary, a slow and elaborate worker, devoting much time to the careful and minute finish of his statues. Themistius is reported by Plutarch as saying of him, that “though Phidias was skillful enough to make in gold or ivory” (it will be observed that he speaks of his work in no other materials) “the true shape of god or man, yet he did require abundance of time and leisure to his work; so he is reported to have spent much time upon the base and sandals of his statue of the goddess Athena.”[2]

We must also add another consideration, and it is this: that in the time of Phidias it was necessary for a sculptor to do far more with his own hand than it is now. Modern facilities have greatly abridged the personal labor of the sculptor in marble or bronze. The present method of casting in plaster, which was then unknown, or at least unpracticed, enables the sculptor of our days to elaborate his work to the utmost finish, in its full size, in the clay model; and when this is completed and cast in such a permanent material as plaster, the workman has an absolute model, which he may, to a certain extent, copy with almost mathematical accuracy. The greater portion of the work may therefore be now committed to inferior hands, as it requires only mechanical dexterity and care; while it merely remains for the sculptor himself to finish the work in marble, and add such elaboration of detail and expression as he may desire. But in the time of Phidias this method was unknown; and the sculptor himself was forced to do a much greater part of his work in marble. In like manner, the modern method of casting in bronze is so admirable that the labor of the artist in finishing the cast is comparatively small; but in the earlier period of bronze casting, there is no doubt that the cast originally was far more imperfect, and the labor of the sculptor in finishing far greater. These facts will in some measure seem to account for the comparatively long time during which Phidias was engaged on his works. As there evidently was no full-sized and completely finished model of the Athena or Zeus for the workmen mechanically to copy, Phidias was forced to work out the details of his great works with his own hands, moulding and designing them as he went on; and this he was obliged to do, not in a plastic material like clay, but in the final material of his statue—whether gold, ivory, or bronze. Assistants of course he had, and undoubtedly they were very numerous. Plutarch tells us that the public works gave employment to carpenters, modelers, brass cutters and stampers, chiselers and engravers, dyers, workers of ivory and gold, and even weavers;[3] and some of these men certainly worked for Phidias. In fact, he used the hands of others as much as he could—as any sensible artist would; but a great part of his invention and work was carried on in hard and difficult materials, instead of being perfected in a facile clay, as it would be by a modern sculptor; and this carried with it, of course, a great expense of time and labor.

With these facts in view, and considering the great size and elaboration of the ivory and gold statue of Athena, it is quite evident that the few years which elapsed between the commencement of the Parthenon and its dedication would have been amply occupied by this work alone,—and with the other duties incident to his position as superintendent of public works. More than this, we shall find it difficult to fix the time when he made some other of his statues, unless it was during these six years; and it would seem probable that at or about this time he must have been engaged upon the Athena Areia for the Platæans, or at least upon his chryselephantine statue of the celestial Venus for the Eleans.

Before proceeding farther in this argument, it may be as well to give a glance at the artistic career of Phidias, and the various works executed by him, or assigned to him by different writers of an after-age.

A good deal of discussion has arisen as to the age of Phidias at his death. The date of his birth is distinctly given by no one, and is purely a matter of conjecture. Thiersch, among others, supposes him to have been already an artist of some distinction in the 72·3 Olympiad, or about B. C. 490—the date of the battle of Marathon; and this opinion he founds chiefly on the fact that the Athena Promachos, as well as the group of statues at Delphi and the acrolith of Athena at Platæa made by him, were cast, according to Pausanias, from the tithe of the spoils taken from the Medes who disembarked at Marathon. Other writers suppose him to have been born at about the date of the battle of Marathon, and that the statues executed by him out of the spoils were made some twenty-five years later. Mr. Philip Smith, in his “Dictionary of Biography and Mythology,” taking this view, places his birth in the 73d Olympiad; and Müller is of the same opinion. Dr. Brunn, on the contrary, thinks it probable that he was born about the 70th Olympiad, and Welcker and Preller agree substantially with him.

According to the supposition of Thiersch, placing his birth at 67·2 Olympiad, or B. C. 510, he would have been twenty years of age at the battle of Marathon (B. C. 490), seventy-two years of age when he finished the chryselephantine statue of Athena in the Parthenon in 85·1 Olympiad (B. C. 438), and seventy-seven years of age when he finished the chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia in 87·3 Olympiad (B. C. 433). This, if we suppose that five years elapsed after the battle of Marathon before the group of statues at Delphi was executed, would make Phidias twenty-five years old when he made them.

Taking the supposition that he was born in the 72·3 Olympiad, and that the statues at Delphi were modeled twenty-five years after, this would make him also twenty-five years of age when he executed them; and fifty-two years of age, instead of seventy-two, when he finished the Athena of the Parthenon; and fifty-seven, instead of seventy-seven, when he completed the Zeus—shortly previous to his death.

Dr. Brunn’s supposition that he was born in the 70th Olympiad, which is also held by Welcker and Preller, would make him fifty-six when he made the Athena, and sixty-one when he made the Zeus.

In opposition to these two later suppositions, there is this one undisputed fact, that on the shield of the Athena of the Parthenon he introduced his own likeness as well as that of Pericles, in which he is described as representing himself as a bald old man (πρεσβύτου φαλακρός) hurling a stone, which he lifts with both hands, while Pericles is portrayed as a vigorous warrior in the full prime of manhood. He must therefore have intended to represent himself as a much older man than Pericles; and Pericles at this time was over fifty-two years of age[4]—which is the age assigned to Phidias himself by some writers. Besides, a man of fifty-two, or even of fifty-six, could scarcely be accurately described as an “old man;” and an artist making a portrait of himself at that age would be inclined to give himself a little more youth than he really possessed. The mere fact that he represents himself as old shows that he had in all probability arrived at a more advanced period of life, when one accepts old age as too notorious and well-established a fact to be disguised. The supposition of Thiersch, therefore, would, in view of this fact alone, seem to be the best founded, as this would make him seventy-two years old when the Athena was completed,—an age which might fairly be called old.

Mr. Smith seems to think it very improbable that at the age of eighty-three Phidias could have undertaken to execute the Zeus; but the fact is, that Thiersch’s conjecture would only make him seventy-three when the Zeus was begun, and certainly at this age it is by no means uncommon for sculptors to undertake large works. Tenerani, for instance, in our own time, had passed that age when he executed the monument of Pius VIII., one of his largest works, and consisting of four colossal figures. Besides, it is to be taken into account that the Zeus was the last work of Phidias, and that death overtook him immediately after.