middle helladic to the late helladic i shaft graves 17 страница

The hips are not level, with the figures right hip lower

compared to the left. The plane defined by the shoulders is not parallel to that defined by the but­tocks, and the figure’s right shoulder is slightly lower and brought forward, resulting in a slight tor­sion or twisting of the boy’s torso to his left while his head turns slightly to the right. The result is a figure represented as actively standing, perhaps ready to take a step. This effect of balanced move­ment and counter-movement is usually labeled with the Italian term contrapposto.

There are also differences between the Kritios Boy and the kouros in the rendering of the head. The mouth is now set in a more neutral position and the lips seem firmly closed as if the boy is con­sciously not speaking or reacting to what he sees. The cheeks are smoothed out, and the eye sockets (once filled with inset eyes) are truly recessed into the skull as they are in life. Along with the slight turn of the head, the eyes seem to be looking out into his surroundings and have the potential to react to what he sees.

The precise date of the Kritios Boy is uncertain. The statue was damaged not long after it was set up on the Acropolis in Athens; wear along the break between neck and torso suggests it lay exposed for a while. It was later buried in the construction trenches made during the Periklean rebuilding of the Acropolis starting around 451 bce, as were many other statues like the kore of Euthydikos dis­cussed in Chapters 7 and 8 (see Figure 7.18, page 175). Whether the Kritios Boy was destroyed when the Persians sacked Athens and the Acropolis in 480 or was set up after the return of the Athenians in 479 and damaged not long afterward is undeterminable, but the later scenario seems more likely (Hurwit 1989). The issue may seem relatively unimportant, but the destruction of Athens caused a break in its artistic production followed by a surge in rebuilding and new artistic projects. Was the classical style associated with the Kritios Boy already being developed before 480, or was it an inno­vation that belongs to the rebuilding of the city? To push the question further, was the classical style developed gradually out of the archaic, or was its development sudden? The kore of Euthydikos already shows elements of simplification that belong to the new style, but its pose does not have the complexity of the Kritios Boy. If it and the Kritios Boy belong after 480, as Andrew Stewart has argued, then the Kritios Boy may indeed reflect an innovative change (Stewart 2008a, 2008b).

The issue is more than simply a question of periods and boundaries. In labeling the naturalistic and idealized style of the Kritios Boy “classical" we use a term that designates more than a time period and has several simultaneous layers of meaning - historical, stylistic, and qualitative - as we discussed in the textbox to Chapter 4 (see page 95). As Cicero’s mini-history of Greek art mentioned in Chapter 1 suggests (see pp. 1-4), viewers recognized that these new statues were losing their “hardness" But whereas the Greeks used archaios or archaic to describe material from the seventh and sixth centuries, they themselves did not designate succeeding works as “classical" and we should be careful to recognize that there was no uniform standard that ruled art in this period. For the artists making and the viewers looking at “classical" art, it was contemporary art that was full of variations and new features, not unlike preceding periods.

The Tyrannicides (see Figure 5.9, page 108) reveal another important aspect of mimesis and the relationship between the work of art and the viewer in fifth-century art. The Tyrannicides are shown in action, stepping forward to attack and kill the tyrant Hipparchos. As we saw in the last chapter, this statue group creates a narrative tableau that engages the viewer in the story, either as a spectator or, from a certain position, as a stand-in for their target. This engagement of the viewer in the action is different from archaic sculpture, and we can consider that the contrapposto pose of the Kritios Boy also creates a potential for action and involvement different from the kouros. Indeed, as Richard Neer has argued, this narrative quality of classical sculpture is one of its key distinguishing features (Neer 2010).

We should not conclude that the archaic style stopped overnight. The sculptures from the Temple of Aphaia on Aigina, an island just south of Athens, have long been regarded as late archaic works that dated before 480 bce. The temple had two pediments, the east showing the first sack of Troy under Herakles and the west showing the sack of Troy under Agamemnon. Based on stylistic analysis, the archaic features of the west pediment figures, like the smile and twisted pose of the fallen warrior in the right corner, have caused that pediment to be dated between 500 and 480 (Figure 10.2). The fig­ures were brightly painted, as seen in the reconstruction by Vinzenz Brinkmann, which gives a vivid sense of the richly colored korai and relief sculpture of the sixth century (Figure 10.3). By compari­son, the fallen warrior from the east pediment is a more convincing representation of a mortally wounded soldier who struggles to move and live (Figure 10.4). This led to the hypothesis that the east pediment group is about a decade later than the west, but still probably before 480.

10.2 West pediment from Temple of Aphaia at Aegina, after 480 все. Height of pediment 5 ft 734 in (1.72 m). Munich, Glyptothek. Photo: © Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY.

Recent review of the excavation of the temple’s foundations, however, has led Andrew Stewart to argue that the building was constructed after 480 все and that both pediments must be nearly contemporary with or slightly later than the Tyrannicides and Kritios Boy (Stewart 2008b, 2008c). Indeed, Stewart has sug­gested that the stylistic differences between the east pediment and the west are divergent reactions to the work of Kritios and Nesiotes in nearby Athens, and do not indicate a difference in time. Comparing the fallen warriors in the two pediments does reflect a change in the viewer’s engagement between the two groups. The west fallen warrior, on the far right of the pediment in Figure 10.3, looks straight out into space, like archaic architectural sculpture (see Figure 8.6, page 188). The east warrior (Figure 10.5), however, looks down and turns his head outward, so that a viewer standing below in front of the temple entrance would look up and make eye contact with the figure. While the pose and anatomy of the east warrior are more life­like, they still have some archaic elements; it is the engagement with the viewer that most clearly signals a different relationship between image and viewer. Of course, such viewer engagement was not an invention of the classical period, as we saw heads turned toward the viewer in the Siphnian Treasury a half-century earlier (see Figure 9.1, page 212), but in the classical period it becomes a dominant mode of presentation.

Two other bronzes were found in the sea off the coast of southern Italy and are now called the Riace Warriors (Figure 10.5). The size, pose, and anatomical structure of the figures are virtually duplicates and were probably made with master molds formed from the same original model (Mattusch 1996, 64). In making these bronzes, the interior of the master mold, made of fired terracotta, would be lined with wax and then liquid clay to create a new working model. Surface details, such as the bulges of muscles and tendons, would be carved in the wax. This wax/clay working model would then have pins and wax channels set for pouring and venting and be placed inside a new clay container called the investment. When the molten bronze is poured, it dissolves the wax and fills the space where the wax used to be. With statues like these, the figure was cast in several pieces and then soldered together. In the case of the Riace Warriors, the wax surface of the working model was more articulated and defined on warrior A than on B, but it is the differences in the heads that really distinguish the figures for the viewer. Warrior B has a smooth domed skull where a helmet rested; his mouth is closed and neutral and his head tilted slightly to his right, as if he were listening. Warrior As head is turned more sharply to his right; his mouth is open and teeth are showing as if he were speaking to a group.

With few comparanda in bronze and without an original context, the identity and dating of the works are hypothetical. Most scholars date the works to just before 450 все, but there is a proposal that these statues are neoclassical works made in the first century все, and not fifth-century origi­nals, an issue we will address in the textbox in Chapter 14 (see pp. 378-379). Regardless of date, the two statues were most likely part of an ensemble showing a scene such as a debate among heroic warriors. Several such fifth-century groups are described by Pausanias at both Olympia and Delphi, and presumably the statues were being taken from somewhere in Greece to Rome, possibly as loot,

when they were lost at sea. For a spectator standing and observing this group in its original setting, it is as if one were a member of the Greek army, listening to a debate among the leaders, who tower over everyone because of their heroic scale (and being set on a base). The figures are like the actors on a stage performing a drama, and it is indeed during this period that tragedy, performed by two and then three actors with a chorus, became an important new literary medium.

Looking at the Artemision god and Riace bronzes, we can see that Greek sculptors had by 450 все mas­tered the ability to show rhythmos. They were also more adept at showing through gesture and facial expression the emotional state of the figure, its pathos, and differ­entiating their attitudes. This ability to represent both physical and psychological movement gave artists the opportunity to express the character of a figure, its ethos. This was of particular importance for narrative art, as we saw in the last chapter with the Iliupersis scene by the Kleophrades Painter (see Figure 9.7, page 219) and the contrast between the heroic Theseus and his less noble opponents on the Kodros Painter cup (see Figure 9.8, page 220). Contemporary playwrights such as Aeschylus and Sophocles were also interested in showing the ethos of their characters, as revealed by their words, choices, and actions. Looking at the Riace Warriors, one wonders if the speaking figure does not also display some sense of anger or arrogance, like the figure of Agamemnon in contemporary drama. Without a specific context or knowledge of the identity of the figures, however, such readings remain speculative, although the expectation would have been for the viewer to discern the character of the subject through pose and action.

The stylistic changes in large-scale sculpture also appear in smaller bronze and terracotta works, such as an Argive caryatid mirror (Figure 10.6). The woman here wears a heavy peplos, rather than the combination of chiton and mantle found on many archaic korai. The drapery falls in fewer folds but they are more asymmetric and responsive to the body underneath the clothing. The woman is set in a contrapposto pose with the left knee bent, causing the fabric to pull and smooth against her leg. The feet are set at an angle and the head is turned slightly to her right, in the direction of the bird in her hand. The erotes move as vigorously as those on the archaic mirror in Figure 8.19 (page 201), about a half-century earlier, but their bodies and heads are turned more toward her. The face has lost its stiffness and smile and appears more contemplative and engaged while making her offering.

The Doryphoros, or Spear-Bearer, of Polykleitos was a bronze statue created in Argos around 450-440 bce and is likely the same as the statue called the Canon, which was a demonstration of the principles of design written down by Polykleitos in a lost treatise of the same name (Figure 10.7). The treatise is known only indirectly from remarks and quotations by other writers, but what we know of it tells us that it articulated a system of proportions in which one unit, such as the fin­gertip, became the module that determined the length of the digits and hand using a series of mathematical ratios. This system embodies the concept of symmetria, translated as commensura- bility or the appropriate relationship and proportions among parts, as described by the Roman-era doctor Galen:

Beauty [kallos], he [Chrysippos] believes, arises not in the commensurability [symmetria] of the constitu­ent elements [of the body], but in the commensurability of the parts, such as that of finger to finger, and of all the fingers to the palm and the wrist, and of these to the forearm, and of the forearm to the upper arm, and, in fact, of everything to everything else, just as it is written in the Canon of Polykleitos. For having taught us in that work all the proportions of the body, Polykleitos supported his treatise with a work of art; that is, he made a statue according to the tenets of his treatise, and called the statue, like the work, the “Canon.” (De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 5; tr.

Pollitt 1990, 76)

The ratios, now lost, were probably based on harmonic intervals in music, such as 1:2 (so that dividing a string in half creates a tone one octave higher), 2:3, and so on. Since the statue is known only through later copies, we cannot be sure how precisely the ratios are used in the surviving examples. Of course, the use of numbers and ratios is not new in Greek art and was also featured in the grid system used by the Egyptians, but what is new is the link between visual proportions and philosophical, mathematical, and musical principles to express a more universal order, what Polykleitos labeled eu (perfection or goodness).

Polykleitos is also said to have been a follower of the phi­losopher Pythagoras. The Pythagorean theorem (a² + b² = c²) can be seen as another example of the proportional order underlying nature and the world, but the philosopher also articulated a concept of the world as being balanced between pairs of opposite values, such as light/dark, motion/rest, straight/curved, male/female, and so on. The mean (to meson) was the point between these opposites, and we can readily see this balancing principle even in the copies of the Doryphoros. Notice that the contrapposto pose makes the right leg straight while the left is bent or curved. The right arm is also straight, while the left arm was originally bent and carrying a spear, so that there is a balance between straight and curved lines. The weight-bearing limbs (left arm, right leg) are set diagonally opposite, creating a dynamically bal­anced chiastic (X-shaped) composition. The left heel is raised rather high, and in describing the figure’s movement, it seems balanced between motion and rest; he is either stopping from movement, or resting and beginning to move. The figure is neither young like the Kritios Boy nor old like the Riace Warrior, but at the perfect balance of youth and experience. He is neither too thin nor thickly muscled, and he could be the ideal warrior or athlete. One can see how such an idealized figure, representing both the mean and symmetria, became canonical as a standard for later artists.

Sculpture in the last part of the fifth century becomes more sensual and decorative. It is a time when artistic production is disrupted by the struggles of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 все), when the reality of destruction and death often stood in sharp contrast to the idealistic figures of contemporary art. A good example of the stylistic change is seen in a statue of Nike that was the top of a victory monument dedicated in Olympia (Figure 10.8). As the inscription tells us, “The Messenians and Naupactians dedicated this to Olympian Zeus, a tithe from the spoils of war. Paionios of Mende made this, and was victor to make the acroteria for the Temple" This victory was likely in a battle against the Spartans, and both cities fought with Athens in the Battle of Sphacteria in 425 все, making the statue a bit later in date. Rather than a calm and poised figure like the caryatid in Figure 10.6 or the women in the Parthenon frieze (see Figure 10.15), we see a winged figure rushing to earth to bring victory to one side. The fabric is pushed back by Nike’s speed and clings to the body like wet drapery, revealing much of the anatomical structure underneath. The light ridges and smooth surfaces of the front contrast with the deeply drilled ridges and shadows of the billowing drapery behind the figure, creating a complicated and calligraphic pattern of drapery that is labeled the florid style. While the figure is quite effective at representing the thrill of a triumphant moment, it no longer has the balance and moderation of works like the Doryphoros. Emotion and sensuality aptly describe much of the work found in painting and relief sculpture of this time, as we shall see later in this chapter.

architecture, architectural sculpture, and relief

We have already seen a number of the best examples of fifth-century architecture in Chapter 7. The Temple of Hera II at Poseidonia/Paestum, a Greek colony in southern Italy, dates to around 460 все; construction on a temple of this size would probably have taken about ten years (see Figure 7.7, page 163). The colonnade is six columns wide and fourteen long, with overall dimensions of 24.26 meters X 59.98 meters. The columns are both higher and proportionally taller than those of the archaic Temple of Hera I, which is virtually the same width (24.51 m). The intercolumnation, or distance between the columns, is less at the corners than in the rest of the colonnade, making the visual transition around the corner more rhythmic and adjusting for the problem of metope place­ment. This practice of contraction in Doric design appeared first at the Temple of Hera at Olympia in the early sixth century, and then spread throughout Greece and westward to Italy. Inside, the ceil­ing of the naos was supported by two rows of columns set vertically, an arrangement that is also found on the contemporary Temple of Zeus at Olympia (see Figure 7.12, page 168).

Pausanias (5.10.2-3) tells us that the Temple of Zeus at Olympia was built by the Eleans as an offering to Zeus for their victory over the Pisans to control the sanctuary, implying that construction started after 470 все. Pausanias also records an inscription on the Nike acroteria over the pediment that it was a votive offering from the Spartans for their victory over the Athenians at Tanagra in 457, providing a terminus ante quem for the building. The architect was Libon of Elis, who designed a 6 X 13 colonnade made from local limestone that was covered with stucco. The temple was about 15 percent wider (27.7 m) than the Temple of Hera II at Poseidonia/Paestum and proportionally just a little taller. The architectural sculpture consisted of two pedimental groups: on the west a Centauromachy and on the east, looking over the open area where the athletes took their oaths, the oath of Pelops and Oinomaos before their chariot race that we saw in Chapter 9 (see Figure 9.14, page 228). In addition there were twelve metopes, six each above the pronaos and opisthodomos showing the twelve deeds of Herakles, the first time there had been a canonical set. Rather than using the poor local stone for the sculpture, these works were made on the island of Paros and shipped to Olympia at very great cost, as we shall see in the next chapter (see p. 269).

10.8 Nike by Paionios, c. 420 все. Marble, 6 ft 4}A in (1.95 m). Olympia Museum. Photo: Marie Mauzy/Art Resource, NY.

We can study stylistic change in architectural sculpture by turning our attention to one of the metopes from the cyclic narrative of the labors of Herakles. Metope 10, which stood just to the right side of the opening of the opisthodomos, shows the retrieval of the apples of the Hesperides (Figure 10.9). The style of the figures has often been called doughy, as is characteristic of the Severe Style, but it has been recently argued that in fact the figures are mostly unfinished (Younger and Rehak 2009). To lessen the weight for transportation, much of the carving was done in the quarry and workshop on Paros. Apparently the sculptures were set into place without being finished completely on site, hence the hair, faces, and clothing lack some of the detailing seen in free­standing sculpture of the period.

On the right side of the metope we see Atlas, who has fetched the apples that provide immortality and holds them before Herakles. The hero is holding up the weight of the sky with both arms; although he has a cushion, his neck and back are bent and pressed down by the weight. Behind him Athena gives support, but clearly her lack of exertion demonstrates the different power of a god compared to a mortal. What is interest­ing about the narrative is that Herakles faces a problem: he cannot reach for the apples without being crushed, and so cannot rely on his physical strength as he does in most of his labors. He must think of a way out of the situation, since Atlas is in no hurry to resume his labors. The viewer might recall the story that Herakles tricked Atlas, asking him to hold up the sky so that Herakles could adjust his cushion, but then Herakles escaped with the apples. This wiliness is more typical of Odysseus than Herakles, but Athena is here to help Herakles think through the problem, which was not his greatest strength. Given his very human and mortal difficulty, it is noteworthy that Herakles not only looks down toward the apples, but also down and slightly outward toward the viewer below, who would also be seeking the wisdom and assistance of the gods in a visit to the sanctuary.

the acropolis at Athens

The first half of the fifth century was basically one of constant conflict in Greece. Athens and other cities were fighting the Persians most of the time, and between 462 and 451 bce Sparta and Athens were fighting each other as well. Following a truce with Sparta, Athens and Persia concluded a peace treaty in 450, so that for the first time in many years there was peace in Greece. Much of this was the result of the work of Perikles, who became prominent in Athenian politics when he was one of the prosecutors of Kimon in 463/2 that led to Kimon’s ostracism and exile. In the next year he was allied with Ephialtes in reforming the Athenian democratic constitution and, after the murder of Ephialtes, dominated Athenian politics until his death in 429. Under his leadership, jury pay of a half drachma was instituted for trials and Athenian citizenship was limited to those who had both an Athenian father and mother. He also oversaw the transformation of the Delian League from a defensive alliance of poleis against the Persians into an empire. Although he was challenged and at times charged with crimes like embezzlement, he was acquitted and continued to have the support of most of the citizens of Athens.

In 449 все, Perikles proposed a massive building program on the Acropolis and elsewhere in Athens, creating some of the key monuments in the history of Greek art. To help pay for this work, Perikles used revenue from the silver mines and also appropriated funds from the treasury of the Delian League, the confederacy led by Athens to fight the Persians, which had been moved from Delos to Athens for safekeeping in 454. This appropriation was opposed without success by the allies of Athens, who had, in reality, become tribute states of an Athenian empire. The public nature of the expenditure led to the building accounts being inscribed on marble tablets on the Acropolis, some of which still survive and give us more precise information about the Acropolis buildings and sculpture than almost any other monument of Greek art. From these, we can deter­mine that work began clearing and preparing the site and extending the bastion on the south side by 448. The Parthenon was designed by the architects Iktinos and Kallikrates between 447 and 438, with the metopes and colonnade built first, 447-442, and then the cella and frieze made in 442-438. Finishing work and the pedimental sculptures were completed 437-432.

The Parthenon is larger than the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and has eight columns across the front and seventeen down the side (Figures 10.10, 10.11). This larger size allowed the naos of the building to be just over 100 Attic feet in length, a hekatompedon, which would hold a massive gold and ivory statue made by Pheidias. The 8:17 colonnade ratio, like 6:13, follows a formula of x:2(x) + 1. Using 4 as “x” in the formula, one gets a proportion of 4:9, the squares of 2:3, and the basic ratio for the entire Parthenon. For example, this 4:9 proportion determines the width and length of the building (30.88:69.51 m). It also determines the height of the colonnade and entablature to the width (13.73:30.88 m). The diameter of the columns and the distance between the centers of the columns (1.91:4.29 m at the center) also is a ratio of 4:9. This use of ratio created symmetria in the building, as it had in the contemporary sculpture of the Doryphoros.

One particularly striking aspect of the Parthenon is the range of subtle adjustments made to account for viewer perception. Like earlier fifth-century temples, it uses contraction to make the intercolumnation at the corner (3.68 m) less than at the center (4.29 m), but this adjustment is carried out gradually across the first three columns, as can be seen in a view of the facade, creating an A:B:C:C:C:B:A spacing (Figure 10.12). To the eye, this makes the spacing appear regular when one first views the Parthenon upon entering the Acropolis and seeing its northwest corner (see Figure 10.10).