his Aphrodite Urania and other statues; but doubt hangs over all these attributions.
A more pertinent and more promising question is, how far we may take the decorative sculpture of the Parthenon, since Lord Elgin’s time the pride of the British Museum, as the actual work of Pheidias, or as done from his designs. Here again we have no conclusive evidence; but it appears from the testimony of inscriptions that the pediments at all events were not executed until after Pheidias’s death.
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| Fig. 38.—Statuette of Athena Parthenos. |
Of course the pediments and frieze of the Parthenon (q.v.), whose work soever they may be, stand at the head of all Greek decorative sculpture. Whether we regard the grace of the composition, the exquisite finish of the statues in the round, or the delightful atmosphere of poetry and religion which surrounds these sculptures, they rank among the masterpieces of the world. The Greeks esteemed them far below the statue which the temple was made to shelter; but to us, who have lost the great figure in ivory and gold, the carvings of the casket which once contained it are a perpetual source of instruction and delight. The whole is reproduced by photography in A. S. Murray’s Sculptures of the Parthenon.
An abundant literature has sprung up in regard to these sculptures in recent years. It will suffice here to mention the discussions in Furtwängler’s Masterpieces, and the very ingenious attempts of Sauer to determine by a careful examination of the bases and backgrounds of the pediments as they now stand how the figures must have been arranged in them. The two ends of the eastern pediment (Plate III. fig. 65) are the only fairly well-preserved part of the pediments.
Among the pupils of Pheidias who may naturally be supposed to have worked on the sculptures of the Parthenon, the most notable were Alcamenes and Agoracritus. Some fragments remain of the great statue of Nemesis at Rhamnus by Agoracritus. And an interesting light has been thrown on Alcamenes by the discovery at Pergamum of a professed copy of his Hermes set up at the entrance to the Acropolis at Athens (Plate II. fig. 57). The style of this work, however, is conventional and archaistic, and we can scarcely regard it as typical of the master.
Another noted contemporary who was celebrated mainly for his portraits was Cresilas, a Cretan. Several copies of his portrait of Pericles exist, and testify to the lofty and idealizing style of portraiture in this great age.
We possess also admirable sculpture belonging to the other important temples of the Acropolis, the Erechtheum and the temple of Nike. The temple of Nike is the earlier, being possibly a memorial of the Spartan defeat at Sphacteria. The Erechtheum belongs to the end of our period, and embodies the delicacy and finish of the conservative school of sculpture at Athens just as the Parthenon illustrates the ideas of the more progressive school. The reconstruction of the Erechtheum has been a task which has long occupied the attention of archaeologists (see the paper by Mr Stevens in the American Journal of Archaeology, 1906). Our illustration (Plate V. fig. 75) shows one of the Corae or maidens who support the entablature of the south porch of the Erechtheum in her proper setting. This use of the female figure in place of a pillar is based on old Ionian precedent (see fig. 17) and is not altogether happy; but the idea is carried out with remarkable skill, the perfect repose and solid strength of the maiden being emphasized.
Beside Pheidias of Athens must be placed the greatest of early Argive sculptors, Polyclitus. His two typical athletes, the Doryphorus or spear-bearer (Plate VI. fig. 80) and the Diadumenus, have long been identified, and though the copies are not first-rate, they enable us to recover the principles of the master’s art.
Among the bases discovered at Olympia, whence the statues had been removed, are three or four which bear the name of Polyclitus, and the definite evidence furnished by these bases as to the position of the feet of the statues which they once bore has enabled archaeologists, especially Professor Furtwängler, to identify copies of those Polyclitus. statues among known works. Also newly discovered copies of Polyclitan works have made their appearance. At Delos there has been found a copy of the Diadumenus, which is of much finer work than the statue in the British Museum from Vaison. The Museum of Fine Arts at Boston, U.S.A., has secured a very beautiful statue of a young Hermes, who but for the wings on the temples might pass as a boy athlete of Polyclitan style (Plate II. fig. 60). In fact, instead of relying as regards the manner of Polyclitus on Roman copies of the Doryphorus and Diadumenus, we have quite a gallery of athletes, boys and men, who all claim relationship, nearer or more remote, to the school of the great Argive master. It might have been hoped that the excavations, made under the leadership of Professor Waldstein at the Argive Heraeum, would have enlightened us as to the style of Polyclitus. Just as the sculptures of the Parthenon are the best monument of Pheidias, so it might seem likely that the sculptural decoration of the great temple which contained the Hera of Polyclitus would show us at large how his school worked in marble. Unfortunately the fragments of sculpture from the Heraeum are few. The most remarkable is a female head, which may perhaps come from a pediment (fig. 39). But archaeologists are not in agreement whether it is in style Polyclitan or whether it rather resembles in style Attic works. Other heads and some highly-finished fragments of bodies come apparently from the metopes of the same temple. (See also article Argos.)
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| Fig. 39.—Female Head: Heraeum. |
Another work of Polyclitus was his Amazon, made it is said in competition with his great contemporaries, Pheidias, Cresilas and Phradmon, all of whose Amazons were preserved in the great temple of Artemis at Ephesus. In our museums are many statues of Amazons representing 5th century originals. These have usually been largely restored, and it is no easy matter to discover their original type. Professor Michaelis has recovered
