DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0250
2l6
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
closely covered, and all is silent. Only outside, the
stone gods are still above in the pediments ; Athene is
born anew each morning ; every day is renewed her
triumph over Poseidon. In the metopes all day long,
Greek struggles with barbarian ; along the frieze from
morning till night the panorama of worship is unrolled.
From Athens, probably before he decorated the Par-
thenon, Pheidias went for a while to Olympia, there to
achieve an even higher task ; and here we enter on,
not indeed the last, but the crowning epoch of his life.
If about the figure of Athene there still hang some as-
sociations of a local cult, the Zeus of Olympia was in the
fullest, most indisputable sense Panhellenic. We have
seen how, from every part of the civilized world, the noblest
of the Greeks flocked to the Olympic contest, and how
every victor in his turn must stand before the face of the
Olympian Zeus to receive his olive crown. We shall
not, in this case, have to pause to consider the outer
sculptures of the temple, because, recently discovered,
and deeply interesting though they are, they have never
claimed to be the work of Pheidias. They were pro-
bably completed before he set foot in Olympia. His
aid was only invoked to add to the temple the crowning
glory of the chryselephantine statue within.
We may pass at once behind the veil, a curtain rich
with eastern devices and Tyrian dye, and standing within
behold the god himself.
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
closely covered, and all is silent. Only outside, the
stone gods are still above in the pediments ; Athene is
born anew each morning ; every day is renewed her
triumph over Poseidon. In the metopes all day long,
Greek struggles with barbarian ; along the frieze from
morning till night the panorama of worship is unrolled.
From Athens, probably before he decorated the Par-
thenon, Pheidias went for a while to Olympia, there to
achieve an even higher task ; and here we enter on,
not indeed the last, but the crowning epoch of his life.
If about the figure of Athene there still hang some as-
sociations of a local cult, the Zeus of Olympia was in the
fullest, most indisputable sense Panhellenic. We have
seen how, from every part of the civilized world, the noblest
of the Greeks flocked to the Olympic contest, and how
every victor in his turn must stand before the face of the
Olympian Zeus to receive his olive crown. We shall
not, in this case, have to pause to consider the outer
sculptures of the temple, because, recently discovered,
and deeply interesting though they are, they have never
claimed to be the work of Pheidias. They were pro-
bably completed before he set foot in Olympia. His
aid was only invoked to add to the temple the crowning
glory of the chryselephantine statue within.
We may pass at once behind the veil, a curtain rich
with eastern devices and Tyrian dye, and standing within
behold the god himself.