|
Plutarch writes for Parthenon's manufacture speed
(Pericles, 12): "For this, Pericle's work is being admired even more, because
in a so little time it became such so, to live for a long time. With regard to
their beauty, each one them was from the beginning ancient styled , but
continues even today to give the impression that is recent and new, this work
has an eternal spirit , soul that does not age… What distinguishes Parthenon
from all the other Greek monuments, is his original arrest, his studied harmony
and the conscience of aim that had his authors. In Parthenon, on the contrary to
what it happens with the Propylaia, the architectural part appears subjugated in
a sculptural idea. Phidias, more from Ictinus, is the father of monument. The
abundance of sculptural decoration, but also the decisive, organic place that
had the chryselephantine statue of Athena inside , confirm about that. Essential
is not the temple, but the statue. Containing could not be comprehended without
the content.
The sculptor and the
architect studied together the drawing and they
corrected each other many times, in order that the
proportions of statue suit absolutely with dimensions of
entire building. The goddess Athena should have been
visibly from everywhere, she was the matron of the area,
the protector of city.
Only Phidias, author of Athena Polias and Athena Lemnia,
was capable to create Athena of Parthenon. He had here a
complete freedom of action, contrary to what had
happened in Olympia, where the temple of Zeus had not
made for Zeus statue that finally Phidias manufactured.
They had not right those who say that Parthenon is the
more clearly model of Dorian temple. Actually, combines
the ionic proportions with the Dorian severity and this
solution suits with the atticism role, which reconciles
Greece of Asia with Greece of West. Eclecticism of
Parthenon raises him above the togh rules of the
sculpture schools and allows a superior composition. The
chryselephantine idol of Virgin Athena developing the
idea of an ultimate perfection, that her image could not
be carried out but only with the concentration of the
most precious and incorruptible materials. The statue of
Athena was made more to frighten than to warm hearts of
ordinary souls. It is characteristic that Athenians saw
her collectively, in the large celebrations and not
individually.
Those who wanted to submit their personal pay tribute to
the Goddess, prefered the old wooden statue of
Athena Polias, which found itself in Ekatompedos temple.
The enormous statue showed the Goddess in all her
gravity and rigidity, with all the armor (aegis, helmet,
spear, shield) with her follower, the Snake, and her
eternal companion, the Victory. From a copy survived
(the marble Athena of Varvakeios from the roman era,)
and we know that she stood upright she wear a golden
peplos, touched with her left hand the shield and held
the spear standing at her left shoulder. In her right
hand kept a chryselepahntine Nike. The helmet was full
of relief forms.
The aegis was golden, with snakes and a representation
of a head of a Gorgon. Her face was white youthful,
peaceful, cool and beautiful. Her expression showed
willingness and deep thinking, , but also virgin charm
and modesty. Phidias had given for ever the ideal type
of war-friendly but also peaceful Virgin, which
symbolized the purity, the force and the intelligence.
The statue of Athena stood on the cella of the temple,
between a double row of Doric columns, which behind the
statue were linking with a series of other cross-cutting
columns in the shape of Π. When columns have teetered up
to a certain level, they hold an epistyle and above
existed other columns , Dorian and those, that reached
up to the roof. With the help of this trick, the roof
was supported without needed to use very tall columns,
which would be necessarily thick and consuming large
area.
Cella had internal length of 100 Attic feet, it was "ekatompedos"
also, and was separated from the rest of the temple with
a transverse wall. Beyond from this wall existed the
western department of the temple, which had not worship
purpose, and four columns holding it's roof. There
existed offerings to the goddess and were staying the
virgin priestesses. By the name of this department (Parthenos
- Virgin) was named the entire building.
Around the central Structure, which was located on a
stylobate divided into three levels, dimensions 69.51 x
30.87 metres, there was a colonnade with a total of 46
Doric columns, 8 in the close quarters and 17 on the
long (the angle are counted twice ).
The lines of the Parthenon, either horizontal, as the
lynchpin, the architrave, the frieze, or vertical, such
as columns, they give the impression of the straight
line, but there is no straight and no vertical line at
all.
The surface of pillar has
a light elation in the long sides, in the middle, that
reaches 8 cm and is lost smoothly in the 69,51 metres of
total length. Proportional is also the curvature of the
architraves. As for the columns, while they refine from
the bottom up, they made a blister before the middle
lean slightly inside, so if we extend them mentally
upwards will form a pyramid.
Instead, the roof with
the cornices is flown somehow sideways to outside. This
divergence from straight on gave in the building the
appearance of live total, while the effervescent colours
cut the monotony of white, and underlined the
architectural members and their functional role. First
that observed this technical finenesses, designed to
correct the optical distortion, that reflects to a
geometric structure of such a building from the lens of
the eye, was an English architect Penrose, in his book
"Principles of the Athenian architecture".
Over the architrave, that
supported the columns, there was the frieze which was
separated in reliefs and metopes. Parthenon has 92
metopes with reliefs depicting goddess Athena in her
various fights (War of giants - Gigantomachy) or
encourages the heroes in the Troy-ian War in the wars
against the Centaurs. From these metopes, which are
works of many artists, 58 have survived, most in bad
situation.
Over the frieze is the
cornice and the roof, where from the two narrow sides is
leaving two pediments. In the eastern pediment is
representing the birth of Athena, and in the western the
fight of Athena and Poseidon for the possession of
Athens. And the two sculptures are work of Phidias.
In the four outer sides of the cella there is a frieze
of marble, total length 160 metres, in which Phidias had
depicted the great procession of the Panathenaia. This
is a parade of 350 and most of humans and over 125
animals, which gives the impression that the entire city
is heading toward the sanctuary, to offer the goddess
the peplos which the Arrifores made.
A big part of this sculptures and most of the statues of
the pediment, the more well maintained metopes, one of
the Caryatids of the Erechtheion, the statue of Bacchus,
the sculpted pediment of the temple of Athena Nike and
many other sculptures - a total of 253 - have been
transported from the British diplomat Lord Elgin in the
British Museum.
|
