Rambles and Studies in Greece by P. Mahaffy

Author:P. Mahaffy [Mahaffy, P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Non Fiction
ISBN: 9780548289235
Publisher: BiblioBazaar
Published: 2009-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Statue of Niké, by Paeonius

For even if the restoration were never accomplished, there is enough in the fragments of the figures already recovered to show the genius of both sculptors, but particularly of Alkamenes, the author of the western pediment. This perfectly agrees with the note of Pausanias, who adds, in mentioning this very work, that Alkamenes was considered in his day an artist second only to Phidias.

It was objected to me by learned men on the spot, that the eastern pediment, being the proper front of the temple, must have been the more important, and that Pæonius, as we know from an inscription, boasts that he obtained the executing of it by competition, thus proving that he was, at least in this case, preferred to his rivals. But the decided superiority of Alkamenes’s design leads me to suppose that the boast of Pæonius only applies to the eastern pediment, and that probably the western had been already assigned to Alkamenes. Nor do I agree with the view that the eastern pediment must have been [pg 308]artistically the most important. In several Greek temples—e. g., the Parthenon, the temple at Bassæ, and in this—the great majority of visitors must have approached it from the rear, which should accordingly have been quite the prominent side for artistic decoration. Let me add that far more action was permitted in the groups on this side, while over the entrance the figures were staid and in repose, as if to harmonize with the awe and silence of the entering worshippers. Be these things as they may, the work of Alkamenes is certainly superior to that which remains to us of Pæonius in the eastern pediment, and in his figure of winged Victory, which was, I think, greatly overpraised by the critics who saw it soon after its discovery.118

The composition of the groups in the pediments and friezes has been described by Pausanias (V. 10, §§ 6–10) in a passage of great interest, which has given rise to much controversy. The general impression of Drs. Hirschfeld and Weil, when I was at Olympia, was against the accuracy of Pausanias, whom they considered to have blindly set down whatever the local cicerones told him. That of Dr. Purgold was in his favor. The traveller says, however, that the eastern pediment, in which, [pg 309]as already remarked, it was not usual to represent violent action, depicted the preparation of the chariot race between Pelops and Œnomaus. In the centre was Zeus, whose torso has been recovered, and at the narrow ends of the field were figures of the Alpheus and Kladeus, to the right and left of the spectator respectively. These figures are partly recovered—graceful young men lying forward on the ground, and raising their heads to witness the contest.

It is worth pausing for a moment upon this disposition, which was so usual as to be almost conventional in the pediments sculptured during the best epochs of Greek art. In the centre, where the field was very

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