DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0181
X
DRESS AND DRAPERY
161
though their art is essentially Doric, yet when they set up draped
female figures on the top of the pediment as acroteria or finials,
copied the Ionic model.
During the first half of the fifth century the two styles ran side
by side, each developing in its own way. Ionizing artists in-
creased the fineness of the folds of the chiton, and constantly
refined the details. They also learned more and more to cause
the chiton to cling closely to the body, so as rather to reveal
than conceal its charms. This tendency governed the Attic
school of Calamis and Callimachus; their most complete suc-
cess is reached in such works as the Aphrodite of Frejus in
the Louvre (Fig. 41), in which the overgarment is used as a
background merely, and the undergarment only heightens
the charm of the form which it in no way hides.
Meantime artists of severer type, such as the sculptors of the
temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Boeotian Myron, tried to
add grace to the severity of the Dorian chiton. By this way
they could not rival the sensuous triumphs of the rival school.
Yet nothing could be more pleasing than the girl-Athena of
Myron,1 with slight form and undeveloped bosom, but a won-
derful mixture of purity and charm (Fig. 42).
But in the nature of things the refinement of the Dorian dress
could not go very far, for it was of the very essence of that dress
to fall perpendicularly and to swathe the body. By Pheidias
it was adopted for girls, and for the austere goddess Athena.
He could only refine it by making the lines over the breast
more adapted to the form of the bosom; and by drawing back
one foot and showing the outline of one leg under the chiton,
he found some compensation for the complete concealment of
the other leg. Among the figures of the Parthenon pediments,
Iris, the girl messenger, shows how by rapid motion the Doric
dress can be made to lose its stolidity; and the three Fates fur-
1 This figure has recently been identified in a statue at Frankfort, here
repeated.
M
DRESS AND DRAPERY
161
though their art is essentially Doric, yet when they set up draped
female figures on the top of the pediment as acroteria or finials,
copied the Ionic model.
During the first half of the fifth century the two styles ran side
by side, each developing in its own way. Ionizing artists in-
creased the fineness of the folds of the chiton, and constantly
refined the details. They also learned more and more to cause
the chiton to cling closely to the body, so as rather to reveal
than conceal its charms. This tendency governed the Attic
school of Calamis and Callimachus; their most complete suc-
cess is reached in such works as the Aphrodite of Frejus in
the Louvre (Fig. 41), in which the overgarment is used as a
background merely, and the undergarment only heightens
the charm of the form which it in no way hides.
Meantime artists of severer type, such as the sculptors of the
temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Boeotian Myron, tried to
add grace to the severity of the Dorian chiton. By this way
they could not rival the sensuous triumphs of the rival school.
Yet nothing could be more pleasing than the girl-Athena of
Myron,1 with slight form and undeveloped bosom, but a won-
derful mixture of purity and charm (Fig. 42).
But in the nature of things the refinement of the Dorian dress
could not go very far, for it was of the very essence of that dress
to fall perpendicularly and to swathe the body. By Pheidias
it was adopted for girls, and for the austere goddess Athena.
He could only refine it by making the lines over the breast
more adapted to the form of the bosom; and by drawing back
one foot and showing the outline of one leg under the chiton,
he found some compensation for the complete concealment of
the other leg. Among the figures of the Parthenon pediments,
Iris, the girl messenger, shows how by rapid motion the Doric
dress can be made to lose its stolidity; and the three Fates fur-
1 This figure has recently been identified in a statue at Frankfort, here
repeated.
M