DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0304
Chap, ix.] Olympia and the Festival. 281
The clearest result of the whole controversy is the per-
ception how far Pheidias was in advance of his pre-
decessors in the construction of groups and in all
qualities of design, and how superior were the Athenian
stone-cutters in knowledge of their craft to those of
other parts of Greece. This is a lesson which we might
have learned already from a study of the frieze of the
temple at Bassae; but now we are not likely ever to
forget it.
The metopes from the Temple of Zeus, representing
the various Labours of Heracles by an unknown artist,
though showing the same qualities of art, are certainly
more pleasing than the pedimental groups. They are
not, indeed, without rudeness and stiffness, but in their
backward style- there is the charm which so usually
marks the works of early Greek art, but which the
pediments have lost, without getting knowledge and
mastery in exchange. One of the most marked charac-
teristics of the metopes is the want of elaboration in
detail. The hair and beards of the figures are merely
blocked out; the parts of the garments are not clearly
distinguished from one another. Critics have long seen
that evidently the artist who made these groups trusted
chiefly to the use of colour for the effect of his com-
positions. And actual discovery has entirely verified
this conjecture. Among the discoveries is a head of
Heracles, from that metope wherein he is strangling
the lion. Of this head the hair and eyes still bear
distinct traces of colour. In the group of Heracles and
the bull, the background was blue, and the body of the
bull brown. Another metope had a red background. It
is thus quite certain that the sculpture of the metopes
of the temple was painted throughout. And, indeed,
the pedimental groups were also painted, for a part of
the chlamys worn by the middle figure of the western
The clearest result of the whole controversy is the per-
ception how far Pheidias was in advance of his pre-
decessors in the construction of groups and in all
qualities of design, and how superior were the Athenian
stone-cutters in knowledge of their craft to those of
other parts of Greece. This is a lesson which we might
have learned already from a study of the frieze of the
temple at Bassae; but now we are not likely ever to
forget it.
The metopes from the Temple of Zeus, representing
the various Labours of Heracles by an unknown artist,
though showing the same qualities of art, are certainly
more pleasing than the pedimental groups. They are
not, indeed, without rudeness and stiffness, but in their
backward style- there is the charm which so usually
marks the works of early Greek art, but which the
pediments have lost, without getting knowledge and
mastery in exchange. One of the most marked charac-
teristics of the metopes is the want of elaboration in
detail. The hair and beards of the figures are merely
blocked out; the parts of the garments are not clearly
distinguished from one another. Critics have long seen
that evidently the artist who made these groups trusted
chiefly to the use of colour for the effect of his com-
positions. And actual discovery has entirely verified
this conjecture. Among the discoveries is a head of
Heracles, from that metope wherein he is strangling
the lion. Of this head the hair and eyes still bear
distinct traces of colour. In the group of Heracles and
the bull, the background was blue, and the body of the
bull brown. Another metope had a red background. It
is thus quite certain that the sculpture of the metopes
of the temple was painted throughout. And, indeed,
the pedimental groups were also painted, for a part of
the chlamys worn by the middle figure of the western