Part 20 (2/2)

192. The Use of Color upon Athenian Architecture and Sculptures.--While we look upward at this group of temples and their wealth of sculptures, let us state now something we have noticed during all our walks around Athens, but have hitherto left without comment.

Every temple and statue in Athens is not left in its bare white marble, as later ages will conceive is demanded by ”Greek Architecture”

and statuary, but is decked in brilliant color--”painted,” if you will use an almost unfriendly word. The columns and gables and ceilings of the buildings are all painted. Blue, red, green, and gold blaze on all the members and ornaments. The backgrounds of the pediments, metopes, and frieze are tinted some uniform color on which the sculptured figures in relief stand out clearly. The figures themselves are tinted or painted, at least on the hair, lips, and eyes. Flesh-colored warriors are fighting upon a bright red background. The armor and horse trappings on the sculptures are in actual bronze. The result is an effect indescribably vivid.

Blues and reds predominate: the flush of light and color from the still more brilliant heavens above adds to the effect. Shall we call it garish? We have learned to know the taste of Athenians too well to doubt their judgment in matters of pure beauty. And they are right. UNDER AN ATHENIAN SKY temples and statues demand a wealth of color which in a somber clime would seem intolerable.

The brilliant lines of the Acropolis buildings are the just answer of the Athenian to the brilliancy of Helios.

193. The Chief Buildings on the Acropolis.--And now to ascend the Acropolis. We leave the discussion of the details of the temples and the sculpture to the architects and archaeologists. The whole plateau of the Rock is covered with religious buildings, altars, and statues. We pa.s.s through the Propylaea, the worthy rival of the Parthenon behind, a magnificent portal, with six splendid Doric columns facing us; and as we go through them, to right and to left open out equally magnificent columned porticoes.[*] As we emerge from the Propylaea the whole vision of the sacred plateau bursts upon us simultaneously. We can notice only the most important of the buildings. At the southwestern point of the Acropolis on the angle of rock which juts out beyond the Propylaea is the graceful little temple of the ”Wingless Victory,” built in the Ionic style.

The view commanded by its bastion will become famous throughout the world. Behind this, nearer the southern side, stands the less important temple of Artemis Brauronia. Nearer the center and directly before the entrance rises a colossal brazen statue--”monstrous,”

many might call its twenty-six feet of height, save that a master among masters has cast the spell of his genius over it. This is the famous Athena Promachos,[+] wrought by Phidias out of the spoils of Marathon. The warrior G.o.ddess stands in full armor and rests upon her mighty lance. The gilded lance tip gleams so dazzlingly we may well believe the tale that sailors use it for a first landmark as they sail up the coast from Cape Sunium.

[*]That to the north was the larger and contained a kind of picture gallery.

[+]Athena Foremost in Battle.

Looking again upon the complex of buildings we single out another on the northern side: an irregularly shaped temple, or rather several temples joined together, the Erechtheum, wherein is the sanctuary of Athena Polias (the revered ”City Warden”), the ancient wooden statue, grotesque, beloved, most sacred of all the holy images in Athens. And here on the southern side of this building is the famous Caryatid porch; the ”Porch of the Maidens,” which will be admired as long as Athens has a name. But our eyes refuse to linger long on any of these things. Behind the statue of the Promachos, a little to the southern side of the plateau, stands the Parthenon--the queen jewel upon the crown of Athens.

194. The Parthenon.--Let others a.n.a.lyze its sculptures and explain the technical reasons why Ictinus and Callicrates, the architects, and Phidias, the sculptor, created here the supreme masterpiece for the artistic world. We can state only the superficialities.

It is a n.o.ble building by mere size; 228 feet measure its side, 101 feet its front. Forty-six majestic Doric columns surround it; they average thirty-four feet in height, and six feet three inches at the base. All these facts, however, do not give the soul of the Parthenon. Walk around it slowly, tenderly, lovingly. Study the elaborate stories told by the pediments,--on the east front the birth of Athena, on the west the strife of Athena and Poseidon for the possession of Athens. Trace down the innumerable lesser sculptures on the ”metopes” under the cornice,--showing the battles of the Giants, Centaurs, Amazons, and of the Greeks before Troy; finally follow around, on the whole inner circuit of the body of the temple, the frieze,[*] showing in bas-relief the Panathenaic procession, with the beauty, n.o.bility, and youth of Athens marching in glad festival; comprehend that these sculptures will never be surpa.s.sed in the twenty-four succeeding centuries; that here are supreme examples for the artists of all time,--and THEN, in the face of this final creation, we can realize that the Parthenon will justify its claim to immortality.

[*]This, of course, is on the outside wall of the ”cells,” but inside the surrounding colonnade.

One thing more. There are hardly any straight lines in the Parthenon.

To the eye, the members and the steps of the substructure may seem perfectly level; but the measuring rod betrays marvelously subtle curves. As nature abhors right angles in her creations of beauty, so have these Greeks. Rigidity, unnaturalness, have been banished.

The Parthenon stands, not merely embellished with inimitable sculptures, but perfectly adjusted to the natural world surrounding.[*]

[*]It was an inability to discover and execute these concealed curves which give certain of the modern imitations of the Parthenon their unpleasant impressions of harness and rigidity.

We have seen only the exterior of the Parthenon. We must wait now ere visiting the interior, for Phormion is beginning his sacrifice.

195. A Sacrifice on the Acropolis.--Across the sacred plateau advances the little party. As it goes under the Propylaea a couple of idle temple watchers[*] give its members a friendly nod. The Acropolis rock itself seems deserted, save for a few wors.h.i.+ppers and a party of admiring Achaean visitors who are being shown the glories of the Parthenon.[+] There seems to be a perfect labyrinth of statues of G.o.ds, heroes, and departed worthies, and almost as many altars, great and small, placed in every direction. Phormion leads his friends onward till they come near to the wide stone platform somewhat in the rear of the Parthenon. Here is the ”great altar” of Athena, whereon the ”hecatombs” will be sacrificed, even a hundred oxen or more,[&] at some of the major public festivals; and close beside it stands also a small and simple altar sacred to Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin. Suitable attendants have been in readiness since dawn waiting for wors.h.i.+ppers. One of Phormion's party leads behind him a bleating white lamb ”without blemish.”[$] It is a short matter now to bring the firewood and the other necessaries. The sacrifice takes place without delay.

[*]The most important function of these watchers seems to have been to prevent dogs from entering the Acropolis. Probably they were inefficient old men favored with sinecure offices.

[+]The Acropolis seems to have become a great ”show place” for visitors to Athens soon after the completion of the famous temples.

[&]We know by an inscription of 169 oxen being needed for a single Athenian festival.

[$]This was a very proper creature to sacrifice to a great Olympian deity like Athena. Goats were not suitable for her, although desirable for most of the other G.o.ds. It was unlawful to sacrifice swine to Aphrodite. When propitiating the G.o.ds of the underworld,--Hades, Persephone, etc.,--a BLACK victim was in order. Poor people could sacrifice doves, c.o.c.ks, and other birds.

First a busy ”temple sweeper” goes over the ground around the altar with a broom; then the regular priest, a dignified gray-headed man with a long ungirt purple chiton, and a heavy olive garland, comes forward bearing a basin of holy water. This basin is duly pa.s.sed to the whole company as it stands in a ring, and each in turn dips his hand and sprinkles his face and clothes with the l.u.s.tral water.

Meantime the attendant has placed another wreath around the head of the lamb. The priest raises his hand.

”Let there be silence,” he commands (lest any unlucky word be spoken); and in a stillness broken only by the auspicious twittering of the sparrows amid the Parthenon gables, he takes barley corns from a basket, an sprinkles them on the altar and over the lamb.

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