Part 24 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4.--Relief from Mycenae, No. 217.]

PART II.

_MYRON AND PHEIDIAS._

Three great names represent the early prime of Greek sculpture, namely, Myron, Pheidias, and Polycleitos of Argos. These three are thought to have been fellow pupils of the Argive sculptor Ageladas.

The present part of the catalogue deals with Myron and Pheidias. The third part deals first with their immediate successors in Attica, and then turns to Polycleitos of Argos and the sculptures of the Peloponnese; and next to the special cla.s.s of Greek reliefs.

MYRON.

MYRON of Eleutherae in Attica worked at Athens in the first half of the fifth century B.C. Although he had not entirely abandoned the archaic style (notably, in his rendering of hair, Pliny, _H. N._ x.x.xiv., 58), he was distinguished for his skill in representing life. His power lay partly in the rendering of vigorous movement in sculpture, as in his athletic statues, and partly in a realistic imitation of nature, as in his famous cow.

No original works of Myron are extant. His best known work, the Discobolos, is preserved in copies, one of which is described below.

The bronze statuette of Marsyas in the Bronze Room may be studied after a group of Athene and Marsyas by Myron.

[Sidenote: =250.=]

Graeco-Roman copy of the bronze Discobolos of Myron. A young athlete is represented in the act of hurling the disk. He has swung it back, and is about to throw it to the furthest possible distance before him.

The head, as here attached, looks straight to the ground, but in the original it looked more backwards as in a copy formerly in the Ma.s.simi palace at Rome. (Cf. Lucian, _Philopseud._ 18.) Compare a gem in the British Museum (Fig. 5; _Cat. of Gems_, No. 742, pl. G), which is inscribed [Greek: HYAKINTHOS]. According to a judgment of Quintilian, the laboured complexity of the statue is extreme, but any one who should blame it on this ground would do so under a misapprehension of its purpose, inasmuch as the merit of the work lies in its novelty and difficulty. ”Quid tam distortum et elaboratum, quam est ille discobolos Myronis? si quis tamen, ut parum r.e.c.t.u.m, improbet opus, nonne ab intellectu artis abfuerit, in qua vel praecipue laudabilis est ipsa illa novitas ac difficultas?”--Quint. _Inst. Orat._, ii., 13.

10.--_Found in 1791 in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli._ _Townley Coll._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5. [Greek: HYAKINTHOS](=Hyacinth)]

Marble; height, 5 feet 5 inches. Restorations:--Nose, lips, chin, piece in neck, part of disk and r. hand; l. hand; piece under r.

arm; pubis; r. knee; a small piece in r. leg, and parts of the toes. _Specimens_, I., pl. 29; _Mus. Marbles_, XI., pl. 44; Clarac, V., pl. 860, No. 2194 B; Ellis, _Townley Gallery_, I., p. 241; _Guide to Graeco-Roman Sculptures_, I., No. 135; _Stereoscopic_, No. 149; Wolters, No. 452.

PHEIDIAS AND THE SCULPTURES OF THE PARTHENON.

The sculptures of the Parthenon ill.u.s.trate the style of Pheidias, the greatest of Greek sculptors.

PHEIDIAS, son of Charmides, the Athenian, was born about 500 B.C.

He was a pupil of the sculptor Ageladas, of Argos, or, according to others, of Hegias or Hegesias, of Athens. His youth was pa.s.sed during the period of the Persian wars, and his maturity was princ.i.p.ally devoted to the adornment of Athens, from the funds contributed by the allied Greek states during the administration of Pericles.

Among the chief of the works of this period was the Parthenon, or temple of the virgin G.o.ddess Athene. The architect was Ictinos, but the sculptural decorations, and probably the design of the temple, were planned and executed under the superintendence of Pheidias. The building was probably begun about B.C. 447 (according to Michaelis, B.C. 454). It was sufficiently advanced to receive the statue of the Parthenos in B.C. 438, and was probably completed either in that year or a little later. It stood on the Acropolis of Athens, on a site which had been already occupied by a more ancient temple, commonly supposed to have been an ancient Parthenon, which was burnt on the sacking of Athens by the Persians, B.C. 480. Recently, however, the foundations of an early temple have been discovered between the Parthenon and the Erechtheion. It has been thought that this is the Pre-Persian Parthenon, and that the traces of an older foundation below the existing Parthenon only date from the time immediately following the Persian wars. A building is supposed to have then been begun, on a plan somewhat different from that which was carried out by Ictinos and Pericles.

The Parthenon was of the Doric order of architecture, and was of the form termed _peripteral octastyle_; that is to say, it was surrounded by a colonnade, which had eight columns at each end. The architectural arrangements can be best learnt from the model, which is exhibited in the Elgin Room. See also the plan (fig. 6.) and elevation (pl. iv.).

The princ.i.p.al chamber (cella) within the colonnade contained the colossal statue of Athene Parthenos (see below, Nos. 300-302).

Externally the cella was decorated with a frieze in low relief (see below, p. 145). The two pediments, or gables at each end of the building (see below, Nos. 303, 304) were filled with figures sculptured in the round. Above the architrave, or beam resting on the columns, were metopes, or square panels, adorned with groups in very high relief, which served to fill up the s.p.a.ces between the triglyphs, or groups of three vertical parallel bands, representing beam ends.

All these sculptured decorations were executed, like the architecture, in Pentelic marble.