Greek Art and Architecture

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Sculpture

Early Classical sculpture does not have the typical Archaic smile or the delicate and tender details characteristic of the Archaic period. Instead it expresses a solemnity, or a new seriousness, along with a new strength and simplicity of form. Examples include the pediment sculptures from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (Archaeological Museum, Olympia); the Charioteer (Archaeological Museum, Delphi); the Standing Youth, or the Kritios Boy, so named after the Athenian sculptor Critius or Kritios, and Blond Head (both in the Acropolis Museum, Athens); and Idolino (Museo Archeologico, Florence).

Sculptors of the period usually depicted their subject at the moment before or the moment after a significant action. The sculptures from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia are of this type. On the east pediment of the temple were depicted the preparations, supervised by Zeus, for the fateful chariot race between the legendary figures Oenomaus and Pelops. On the west pediment was represented the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The 12 extant metopes from this temple portray the labours of Hercules, helped by the goddess Athena.

Many works of the Early Classical period were lost in antiquity. Some works, however, survive in the form of copies made by the Romans, to whom the Classical style held considerable appeal. Among such copies are those of the Tyrannicides (National Museum, Naples) by Critius and his co-worker Nesiotes, and of several works of Polyclitus, including the Doryphorus, or Spear Bearer (National Museum, Naples), the Diadumenus (National Archaeological Museum, Athens), and the Amazon (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In these works the symmetrical frontal stance of the Archaic figures is replaced by more complex positions and more lifelike forms.

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Painting

Almost no mural painting dating from the Early Classical period has survived. It includes the work of Polygnotus, the greatest painter of his time. His murals in the Lesche, or assembly hall, of the Cnidians in Delphi, which depicted the fall of Troy and the world of the dead, were described by Pausanias; Pliny the Elder wrote that Polygnotus was the first master of expression. The discovery in 1968 of a fresco-painted Greek tomb in Paestum (c. 470 bc, Museo Archeologico, Paestum) suggests the achievements of Early Classical muralists. The figures of banqueters and of a diver show understanding of anatomy, line, and facial expression. Eyes are drawn in profile instead of full face, and landscape painting appears.

In vase painting, decorative figural scenes were gradually replaced by three-dimensional representations, as on vases by the Pistoxenus Painter and the Penthesilea Painter. Forms are broader, the eyes are in profile, and folds of drapery assume natural shapes and depth. These characteristics, especially in the vases of the Niobid Painter, suggest the influence of Polygnotus and provide further information on his style.

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Middle Classical Period

(c. 448-400 bc). Mature classicism developed during the second half of the 5th century bc, especially under the patronage of the Athenian statesman Pericles. The architecture and sculpture of Periclean Athens reached a perfection rarely, if ever, equalled.

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Architecture

Architects developed a number of refinements to counteract the apparent distortions of perspective. For example, the temple terrace was curved upwards in the centre, the taper of a column was reversed, the axes of columns were inclined inwards, and the vertical lines of a building were given an inward or outward tilt, depending on the desired “correction”.

In the West, the huge Temple of Apollo in Selinus, Sicily, was completed after 100 years of work. In Attica, Pericles ordered the restoration of the many temples burned by the Persians. He entrusted supervision of the work on the Acropolis, the citadel that was the traditional site of Athenian temples, to the sculptor Phidias. The most important of the temples was the Parthenon, designed by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates. Another significant structure was the Propylaea, the monumental gateway to the Acropolis.

The Parthenon was built on the site of two previous temples, the old temple of Athena, known as the Hecatompedon, built about 570 bc and enlarged about 530 bc, and the older Parthenon, begun in 488 bc and burned by the Persians in 480 bc, while it was still unfinished. Construction of the new building began in 447 bc.

The Parthenon is built entirely of marble from the renowned quarries on Mount Pentelikon. It is surrounded by an unusually large colonnade consisting of 8 slender columns front and back and 17 on each side. The colonnade had a coffered marble ceiling. The sanctuary had two sections, each entered through a shallow porch. The ceiling of the larger, east room, or cella, which contained the huge chryselephantine (gold-and-ivory) statue of Athena, protector of the city, was supported by a two-storey Doric colonnade on three sides. That of the smaller, west room, or treasury, was supported by four tall Ionic columns. An ambitious sculptural programme filled the metopes, the pediments, and a frieze high around the outside of the cella.

The style of the Parthenon sculptures was created by Phidias, but most of them were executed probably by pupils under his direction. The metopes on the east side depicted a battle of giants, those on the west a battle with the Amazons, those on the north the fall of Troy, and those on the south the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The frieze depicts the people of Athens approaching Athena in the festal procession of the Panathenaea, wherein they presented her with a new robe. On the east pediment was represented the birth of Athena, surrounded by the Olympian gods; on the west pediment, her contest with the god Poseidon for the land of Attica. Sculptures from the Parthenon and other edifices of ancient Athens are preserved as the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum in London.

The Propylaea was begun in 437 bc but was never completed, probably because of the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 bc. Phidias entrusted its construction and design to the architect Mnesicles (fl. c. 437-409 bc), who pierced its wall with five openings and constructed both of its porches in the manner of those fronting Doric temples. In addition, he used Ionic columns, which are among the finest examples of this order, and reinforced the architraves of the building with iron bars.

Other Doric works of the period are the Hephaesteion, formerly called the Theseion, which stands on a hill west of the Agora, or marketplace, in Athens and is one of the best-preserved Greek temples in Greece; the Temple of Poseidon in Sunium; and the Temple of Apollo Epicurus (450 bc) at Bassae in Arcadia, in which the earliest examples of Corinthian capitals also appear.

An outstanding Ionic temple is the Erechtheum, built, perhaps by Mnesicles, on the Acropolis opposite the Parthenon. Uneven ground, and the religious fear of destroying former sanctuaries, forced the architect to build the temple on a complicated asymmetrical floor plan. The entablature of the porch is supported by statues of female figures, called caryatids, instead of by columns.

Another Ionic work, a light, graceful building, is the Temple of Athena Nike, at the south-west corner of the Acropolis. The temple stood until the 17th century, when the Ottoman Turks pulled it down to make an artillery position, but was rebuilt in 1835 in close accordance with the original structure.

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Sculpture

The greatest sculptors of the Middle Classical period were Phidias and Polyclitus. Ancient Greek opinion held that, Phidias was the sculptor of gods, and Polyclitus the sculptor of mortals. Phidias created two colossal chryselephantine statues, that of Zeus, at Olympia (see Statue of Zeus), and that of Athena, in the Parthenon. Neither statues have survived, and not even good copies exist, although the Zeus probably is depicted on certain coins, and the Varvakeion Statuette may remotely resemble the Athena. The head of the Athena Lemnia (Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna) is a Roman copy of a work by Phidias, and, together with the work of his pupils Alcamenes and Agoracritos, it conveys some idea of his art.

Contemporary with the Parthenon are the Flying Nike by Paionius, at Olympia, and the subsequent works of the distinguished sculptor Myron. Two of his most celebrated works, Discobolus (Discus Thrower) and Athena and Marsyas, formerly on the Acropolis, survive only as copies.