DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.804#0025
STATUES PROM EASTERN PEDIMENT. 18
Was rising in the east, terminated the composition on
this side. Euripides, the contemporary of Phidias,
describing in his Ion the rich hangings of the Pavi-
lion of Delphi, supposes that the car of Night was in
the middle, while the Sun was plunging into the sea
on the western side, and at the opposite end Aurora
was rising from the waves*." Those who turn to the
Ion of Euripides, will have some difficulty in disco1
vering iu the Greek text any thing like what Visconti
has got out of it. This instance may serve to show
how little confidence we can place in any modern ex-
planation of the figures of the pediments. Even if we
had them entire, we should find no small difficulty,
owing to the very scanty materials for their illustra-
tion furnished by antient writers.
The head of one of the horses of Night projected
I over the cornice, thus breaking the line which might
seem too rigidly to confine the composition of the
frontispiece. The heads of the other horses, receding
from the front, appeared to be already immersed in
the ocean.
Wheler and Spon, who supposed the sculptures
of the eastern pediment to represent the contest
between Neptune and Minerva, fancied this fragment
to have been the head of a sea-horse.
It is, as Visconti remarks, of the finest possible
workmanship, and its surface has been very little in-
jured. We observe in it that admirable expression of
life which great artists only are capable of bestowing
on their imitations of nature f. To use the words of
-n.the author of the ' Memorandum of the Earl of
* Eurip. Ion, ver. 114. Visconti adds that "in some antient
las-reliefs executed at Rome, the Sun rising and the Night sioking
under the horizon have been represented at the opposite ends of
the same composition. See Ficoroni, Roma antica, p. 115. Two
medallions placed at the sides of the arch of Constanline exhibit
also similar subjects."—Memoirs, p, 41«
t Visconti, p. 42.
Was rising in the east, terminated the composition on
this side. Euripides, the contemporary of Phidias,
describing in his Ion the rich hangings of the Pavi-
lion of Delphi, supposes that the car of Night was in
the middle, while the Sun was plunging into the sea
on the western side, and at the opposite end Aurora
was rising from the waves*." Those who turn to the
Ion of Euripides, will have some difficulty in disco1
vering iu the Greek text any thing like what Visconti
has got out of it. This instance may serve to show
how little confidence we can place in any modern ex-
planation of the figures of the pediments. Even if we
had them entire, we should find no small difficulty,
owing to the very scanty materials for their illustra-
tion furnished by antient writers.
The head of one of the horses of Night projected
I over the cornice, thus breaking the line which might
seem too rigidly to confine the composition of the
frontispiece. The heads of the other horses, receding
from the front, appeared to be already immersed in
the ocean.
Wheler and Spon, who supposed the sculptures
of the eastern pediment to represent the contest
between Neptune and Minerva, fancied this fragment
to have been the head of a sea-horse.
It is, as Visconti remarks, of the finest possible
workmanship, and its surface has been very little in-
jured. We observe in it that admirable expression of
life which great artists only are capable of bestowing
on their imitations of nature f. To use the words of
-n.the author of the ' Memorandum of the Earl of
* Eurip. Ion, ver. 114. Visconti adds that "in some antient
las-reliefs executed at Rome, the Sun rising and the Night sioking
under the horizon have been represented at the opposite ends of
the same composition. See Ficoroni, Roma antica, p. 115. Two
medallions placed at the sides of the arch of Constanline exhibit
also similar subjects."—Memoirs, p, 41«
t Visconti, p. 42.