The three great masters of the 5th century, Myron, Pheidias and
Polyclitus are all in some degree known to us from their works. Of Myron
we have copies of two works, the Marsyas (Plate III. fig. 64) and the
Discobolus. The Marsyas (a copy in the Lateran Museum) represents the
Satyr so named in the grasp of conflicting emotions, eager to pick up
the flutes which Athena has thrown down, but at the same time dreading
her displeasure if he does so. The Discobolus has usually been judged
from the examples in the Vatican and the British Museum, in which the
anatomy is modernized and the head wrongly put on. We have now
photographs of the very superior replica in the Lancelotti gallery at
Rome, the pose of which is much nearer to the original. Our illustration
represents a restoration made at Munich, by combining the Lancelotti
head with the Vatican body (Plate IV. fig. 68).
Of the works of Pheidias we have unfortunately no certain copy, if we
except the small replicas at Athens of his Athena Parthenos. The larger
of these (fig. 38) was found in 1880: it is very clumsy, and the
wretched device by which a pillar is introduced to support the Victory
in the hand of Athena can scarcely be supposed to have belonged to the
great original. Tempting theories have been published by Furtwangler
(_Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture_) and other archaeologists, which
identify copies of the Athena Lemnia of Pheidias, his Pantarces, 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.
[Illustration: 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
Furtwangler'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.
Polyclitus.
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 Furtwangler, to identify copies of those 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.)
[Illustration: 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 successfully three types (fig. 40).
The attribution of these is a matter of controversy. The first has been
given to the chisel of Polyclitus; the second seems to represent the
Wounded Amazon of Cresilas; the third has by some archaeologists been
given to Pheidias. It does not represent a wounded amazon, but one
alert, about to leap upon her horse with the help of a spear as a
leaping pole.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Types of Amazons (Michaelis.)]
Lycia.
We can devote little more than a passing mention to the sculpture of
other temples and shrines of the later 5th century, which nevertheless
deserve careful study. The frieze from the temple of Apollo at Phigalia,
representing Centaur and Amazon battles, is familiar to visitors of the
British Museum, where, however, its proximity to the remains of the
Parthenon lays stress upon the faults of grouping and execution which
this frieze presents. It seems to have been executed by local Arcadian
artists. More pleasing is the sculpture of the Ionic tomb called the
Nereid monument, brought by Sir Charles Fellows from Lycia. Here we have
not only a series of bands of relief which ran round the tomb, but also
detached female figures, whence the name which it bears is derived. A
recent view sees in these women with their fluttering drapery not nymphs
of the sea, but personifications of sea-breezes.
The series of known Lycian tombs has been in recent years enriched
through the acquisition by the museum of Vienna of the sculptured
friezes which adorned a heroon near Geul Bashi. In the midst of the
enclosure was a tomb, and the walls of the enclosure itself were adorned
within and without with a great series of reliefs, mostly of mythologic
purport. Many subjects which but rarely occur in early Greek art, the
siege of Troy, the adventure of the Seven against Thebes, the carrying
off of the daughters of Leucippus, Ulysses shooting down the Suitors,
are here represented in detail. Professor Benndorf, who has published
these sculptures in an admirable volume, is disposed to see in them the
influence of the Thasian painter Polygnotus. Any one can see their
kinship to painting, and their subjects recur in some of the great
frescoes painted by Polygnotus, Micon and others for the Athenians. Like
other Lycian sculptures, they contain non-Hellenic elements; in fact
Lycia forms a link of the chain which extends from the wall-paintings of
Assyria to works like the columns of Trajan and of Antoninus, but is not
embodied in the more purely idealistic works of the highest Greek art.
The date of the Vienna tomb is not much later than the middle of the 5th
century. A small part of the frieze of this monument is shown in fig.
41. It will be seen that in this fragment there are two scenes, one
directly above the other. In the upper line Ulysses, accompanied by his
son Telemachus, is in the act of shooting the suitors, who are reclining
at table in the midst of a feast; a cup-bearer, possibly Melanthius, is
escaping by a door behind Ulysses. In the lower line is the central
group of a frieze which represents the hunting of the Calydonian boar,
which is represented, as is usual in the best time of Greek art, as an
ordinary animal and no monster.
Portraits.
Archaeologists have recently begun to pay more attention to an
interesting branch of Greek art which had until recently been neglected,
that of sculptured portraits. The known portraits of the 5th century now
include Pericles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Anacreon, Sophocles, Euripides,
Socrates and others. As might be expected in a time when style in
sculpture was so strongly pronounced, these portraits, when not later
unfaithful copies, are notably ideal. They represent the great men whom
they portray not in the spirit of realism. Details are neglected,
expression is not elaborated; the sculptor tries to represent what is
permanent in his subject rather than what is temporary. Hence these
portraits do not seem to belong to a particular time of life; they only
represent a man in the perfection of physical force and mental energy.
And the race or type is clearly shown through individual traits. In some
cases it is still disputed whether statues of this age represent deities
or mortals, so notable are the repose and dignity which even human
figures acquire under the hands of 5th-century masters. The Pericles
after Cresilas in the British Museum, and the athlete-portraits of
Polyclitus, are good examples.
_Period III. 400-300 B.C._--The high ideal level attained by Greek art
at the end of the 5th century is maintained in the 4th. There cannot be
any question of decay in it save at Athens, where undoubtedly the loss
of religion and the decrease of national prosperity acted prejudicially.
But in Peloponnesus the time was one of expansion; several new and
important cities, such as Messene, Megalopolis and Mantinea, arose under
the protection of Epaminondas. And in Asia the Greek cities were still
prosperous and artistic, as were the cities of Italy and Sicily which
kept their independence. On the whole we find during this age some
diminution of the freshness and simplicity of art; it works less in the
service of the gods and more in that of private patrons; it becomes less
ethical and more sentimental and emotional. On the other hand, there can
be no doubt that technique both in painting and sculpture advanced with
rapid strides; artists had a greater mastery of their materials, and
ventured on a wider range of subject.
[Illustration: _Heroon of Gyeul Bashi Trysa_, Pl. 7.