FIG. 76.--APOLLO AT DELPHI.
(From _Fouilles de Delphes_, by permission of A. Fontemoing.)]
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
_Photo, Giraudon._
FIG. 77.--APHRODITE PF MELOS. (LOUVRE.)
_Photo, Alinari._
FIG. 78.--NIOBE AND HER YOUNGEST DAUGHTER. (FLORENCE.)
_Photo, Anderson._
FIG. 79.--APOXYOMENUS. (VATICAN.)
_Photo, Brogi._
FIG. 80.--DORYPHORUS OF POLYCLITUS. (NAT. MUS., NAPLES.)
_Photo, Alinari._
FIG. 81.--ANTIOCH SEATED ON A ROCK. (VATICAN.)
_Photo, English Photographic Co._
FIG. 82.--HERMES OF TELES. (OLYMPIA.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Metope: Europa on Bull: Palermo.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Restoration of West Pediment, Aegina.]
Delphi.
The recent French excavations at Delphi add a new and important chapter
to the history of 6th-century art. Of three treasure-houses, those of
Sicyon, Cnidus and Athens, the sculptural adornments have been in great
part recovered. These sculptures form a series almost covering the
century 570-470 B.C., and include representations of some myths of which
we have hitherto had no example. We may say here a few words as to the
sculpture which has been discovered, leaving to the article DELPHI an
account of the topography and the buildings of the sacred site. Of the
archaic temple of Apollo, built as Herodotus tells us by the
Alcmaeonidae of Athens, the only sculptural remains which have come down
to us are some fragments of the pedimental figures. Of the treasuries
which contained the offerings of the pious at Delphi, the most archaic
of which there are remains is that belonging to the people of Sicyon. To
it appertain a set of exceedingly primitive metopes. One represents Idas
and Dioscuri driving off cattle (Plate IV. fig. 66); another, the ship
Argo; another, Europa on the bull, others merely animals, a ram or a
boar. The treasury of the people of Cnidus (or perhaps Siphnos) is in
style some half a century later (see fig. 17). To it belongs a long
frieze representing a variety of curious subjects: a battle, perhaps
between Greeks and Trojans, with gods and goddesses looking on; a
gigantomachy in which the figures of Poseidon, Athena, Hera, Apollo,
Artemis and Cybele can be made out, with their opponents, who are armed
like Greek hoplites; Athena and Heracles in a chariot; the carrying off
of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux; Aeolus holding the
winds in sacks. The Treasury of the Athenians, erected at the time of
the Persian Wars, was adorned with metopes of singularly clear-cut and
beautiful style, but very fragmentary, representing the deeds of
Heracles and Theseus.
Aegina.
We have yet to speak of the most interesting and important of all Greek
archaic sculptures, the pediments of the temple at Aegina (q.v.). These
groups of nude athletes fighting over the corpses of their comrades are
preserved at Munich, and are familiar to artists and students. But the
very fruitful excavations of Professor Furtwangler have put them in
quite a new light. Furtwangler (_Aegina: Heiligtum der Aphaia_) has
entirely rearranged these pediments, in a way which removes the extreme
simplicity and rigour of the composition, and introduces far greater
variety of attitudes and motive. We repeat here these new arrangements
(figs. 27 and 28), the reasons for which must be sought in Furtwangler's
great publication. The individual figures are not much altered, as the
restorations of Thorwaldsen, even when incorrect, have now a
prescriptive right of which it is not easy to deprive them. Besides the
pediments of Aegina must be set the remains of the pediments of the
temple of Apollo at Eretria in Euboea, the chief group of which (Plate
II. fig. 58), Theseus carrying off an Amazon, is one of the most finely
executed works of early Greek art.
_Period II. 480-400 B.C._--The most marvellous phenomenon in the whole
history of art is the rapid progress made by Greece in painting and
sculpture during the 5th century B.C. As in literature the 5th century
takes us from the rude peasant plays of Thespis to the drama of
Sophocles and Euripides; as in philosophy it takes us from Pythagoras to
Socrates; so in sculpture it covers the space from the primitive works
made for the Peisistratidae to some of the most perfect productions of
the chisel.
Architecture.
In architecture the 5th century is ennobled by the Theseum, the
Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the temples of Zeus at Olympia, of Apollo
at Phigalia, and many other central shrines, as well as by the Hall of
the Mystae at Eleusis and the Propylaea of the Acropolis. Some of the
most important of the Greek temples of Italy and Sicily, such as those
of Segesta and Selinus, date from the same age. It is, however, only of
their sculptural decorations, carried out by the greatest masters in
Greece, that we need here treat in any detail.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Restoration of East Pediment, Aegina.]
Painting.
It is the rule in the history of art that innovations and technical
progress are shown earlier in the case of painting than in that of
sculpture, a fact easily explained by the greater ease and rapidity of
the brush compared with the chisel. That this was the order of
development in Greek art cannot be doubted. But our means for judging of
the painting of the 5th century are very slight. The noble paintings of
such masters as Polygnotus, Micon and Panaenus, which once adorned the
walls of the great porticoes of Athens and Delphi, have disappeared.
There remain only the designs drawn rather than painted on the beautiful
vases of the age, which in some degree help us to realize, not the
colouring or the charm of contemporary paintings, but the principle of
their composition and the accuracy of their drawing.
Polygnotus of Thasos was regarded by his compatriots as a great ethical
painter. His colouring and composition were alike very simple, his
figures quiet and statuesque, his drawing careful and precise. He won
his fame largely by incorporating in his works the best current ideas as
to mythology, religion and morals. In particular his painting of Hades
with its rewards and punishments, which was on the walls of the building
of the people of Cnidus at Delphi, might be considered as a great
religious work, parallel to the paintings of the Campo Santo at Pisa or
to the painted windows of such churches as that at Fairford. But he also
introduced improvements in perspective and greater freedom in grouping.
[Illustration: _From monumenti dell' Instituto di Correspondenza
archeologica_, xi. 40.