CLAS241 - High Classical Period (450-400 BCE)

Plan of the Parthenon — Athens — Iktinos and Kallikrates 

• Temple dedicated to Athena

• Major investment, used best architects, sculptors, etc.

• Doric Order
  - No base on columns
  - Triglymetope frieze

• General ratio of 9:4 (Plan and Elevation)
  - Gives building good flow
  - Meant to look perfect (no straight lines, most optical refinements)

• Parthenon: 4 Ionic Columns in the opisthodomos (for decor)

• One Doric and One Ionic Frieze

• Optical refinement: triglyphs must meet at a corner and aligned beneath a column

• Begins to abandon Doric Order

Parthenon, NE Corner

• Size?

Parthenon, Metope

• Greeks vs. Centaurs

• Looks like transitional period bodies (Riace Warriors and Artemisian God)
  - Lots of musculature and flow (X shape)
  - Cloak acts as a background

• Beefier bodies → athlete to body builder
  - Torso looks stuck into the centaur (contrasts the natural flow of old sculpture)

• Greeks look younger, ideal

• Centaurs look wild

• Muscles exaggerated on all sculptures in the Parthenon

Parthenon, Reconstruction of W Pediment

• Athena vs. Poseidon

• Body does not look natural (no flow); torso looks stuck on

Parthenon, the River Ilissos

Parthenon, Reconstruction of the E Pediment

• Athena and Poseidon falling away from e/o

• Birth of Athena

• Middle has an olive tree → story of Athena and how she gifted an olive tree to the people

Parthenon, Relining male

• Might be Dionysus

Parthenon, Three Goddesses

• Chiaroscuro: The interplay b/w light and shadow
  - Deeper drapery, folds, wrinkles
  - Clinging to body, body details show through
  - Has much more depth than other works w/ drapery

Parthenon, Ionic Frieze

• 12 m above ground, 1 m high, 160 m long

• Nowhere more than 6 m deep

• Slightly leaning

• Panathenaic procession (perfected version of the festival), mirrors e/o to culminating moment (Peplos), for viewers

Parthenon, Peplos Incident

• Central scene in the Panathenaic festival

• Young girl gives a peplos to the chief archon (ruler of everything) or Erechteus’ (first king of Athens) daughter?
  - Peplos: newly woven cloak to be put onto the statue of Athena

• Different types of rulers

• Butt showing (not appropriate for a girl) → maybe a guy?

Parthenon, Riders

• Riders entering a festival

• Classical bodies and face

• Chiaroscuro w/in the clothes

• More musculature on animals (like humans)
  - Mane is flowing, uses Chiaroscuro

• Shallow relief but great depth
  - More variation and layers
  - Compared to gigantomachy, which looks like bodies on top of e/o

• No saddle/sterum; humans move the horse using their legs

Parthenon, Seated Gods

• Left: Zeus

• Gods look more idealistic than humans (more everlasting)

• Play b/w light and shadow on drapery

• Drapery on women are more see through (see body details, like breasts)

Varvakeion — Phidias

• The Athena Parthenos was a chryselephantine (ivory + gold) statue

• Money from the Delian League

• Literary descriptions
  - Which is why some recreations look visually different (ex. different head pieces, some w/o column beneath hand. some w/ thinner drapery)

• Greek vs Centaurs depicted on her sandals

• Greeks (Athenians) vs Amazons depicted on her shield
  - Myth that amazons sacked Athens
  - Showing the glory of Athens
  - Some figures have an overhand chop
  - Woman pulling another person’s hair
  - Theory that Pheidias and Perkale’s faces were depicted on the figures; but, this is defensible b/c all the faces look the same (all trying to promote and ideal human)

Plan of the Propylaia — Athens — Mnesikles

• After parthenon

• Pinachotiki “Picture Museum” — Tiny art gallery (one room) wooden pictures hung

• Another section was cut which never got used (not sure why)

• N/S sides had rooms that mirror e/p
  - S side wasn’t used because it has a Bronze Age wall

• Doric Order w/ Ionic columns (similar to Parthenon)

• Propylaia — had many gateways > frames view
  - N door was used more
  - N side — able to see the acropolis better
  - Outside framed to give a perfect ¾ view → shows greatness

• Roof coffers to remove weight

Temple of Athena Nike — Athens

• The temple is fully Ionic
  - Column directly resting on base
  - Curly decoration at top
  - Running frieze

• Probably w/ Ionic frieze interpretation
  - Greeks fighting Greeks (Athenians vs Spartans)
  - Historical event
  - Athenians broke tradition and put a historical piece on a temple

• Would’ve had a fence (showing sculptures like Nike adjusting her sandal)

Temple of Athena Nike, Nike Adjusting Sandal

• Balustrade added in 410s BCE

• Series of Nikes in procession

• Example of “wet look”
  - Drapery clingier and see through
  - Definition of body details
  - Wearing clothes but it doesn’t look like it (can see flesh and silhouette very clearly)
  - Chiaroscuro

Plan of the Erechtheion — Athens

• Ionic and Split level; Several cults; Very influential

• The last of the buildings on the acropolis to be finished

• Split level: 3 levels
  - All 4 sides are seen

• Tomb of erectious

• Scratches

• Olive tree where Athena would’ve been born

• Most sacred place to Athena

• Daedalic looking statue, ritually washed, peplos put on it

• Dotted outline was a temple sacked by Persians

• Porch on the S side most copied — Looking towards Parthenon

Erechtheion, Caryatid 

• “The porch of the maidens”

• Ionic columns replaces w/ maidens

• Caryatid = Kore = Girlmaiden
  - Probably priestesses to Athena — Looking towards Parthenon

• Link to Siphnian Treasury

• In the style of classical period

• Contrapposto figures
  - Free leg and weight leg

• Deep cut drapery folds

• Overall weighty appearance
  - Thick shoulder, body, waist
  - Since Greeks did not understand weight distribution

Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) — Polykleitos

• Possibly Achilles or Theseus

• Walking stance
  - Front leg behind (look at position of foot)
  - Often copied or used as inspiration in antiquity

• Famous b/c of math + philosophy used in statue

• Flow from top to bottom on both sides of statue (not a hard X)
  - Cross flow to body

• Key idea is symmetry → Greeks thought of symmetry as everything was in proper proportion to e/o

• Ideal proportion was 1:7 → changed up the general proportion of the statue from 1:6; more realistic proportion

• Holding sword in R hand and shield in L; Hair is very flat against scalp

Diadoumenos (Filet Binder) — Polykleitos

• Similar to Doryphoros

• Later since movement of hair
  - Hair has more volume compared to the other

• This style of hair will become more popular in later pieces

• Same body, same silhouette as Doryphoros

• Shows Polykleitos had a distinctive style

Nike — Olympia — Paionios

• By Paionios

• Dedicated in front of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia

• Full of movement and action

• High on a pedestal
  - Position of legs and feet make it seem like Nike could be landing onto the pedestal
  - Wind forcing drapery to cling to legs

• We look to drapery

• Starting to see a lot of Amazons (one breast uncovered)
  - Myth of them cutting off one breast to comfortably use a bow and arrow during fights/hunts

Grave Stele of Hegeso — Athens

• Start to appear ca. 430 BCE

• Represents the dead as alive

• Generic + Inscription → they would just pick out random ones, and customize their name onto it

• Gravestone/gravemarker

• Rich people used these

• Laws changed b/c there was no room for any others

Attic White Ground Lekythos

• Started in Archaic period

• Height it High Classical

• Very fragile material

• Primarily funerary → pour in olive oil and slowly seeps down into grave as an offering

• Defines mass by line, not shading

• Slightly different kind of firing process (added on after firing)
  - White Figures

• Not using shading; parts separated by only lines

• B/c of the material, you need to do more linework on figures instead of shading