DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0341
THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
missing, one must look for the average, the norm of an
illustrious age.
The average exists. Masses of statues of the sixth and
early fifth centuries, which lay in the debris of the old
Acropolis after the Persian wars, dispel all doubts as to the
character of those works which were then thought fit to
decorate the temple of Athena. They tell us about the
fashions of the archaic period; we have ample opportunities
of learning about hairdressing and clothes. The upper and
under garment, the pleated shirt, Attic and Ionic, fold and
pucker, border and hem, tress and ringlet. Soon it all
becomes familiar, even to satiety. It affects neither the faces
nor the bodies. The faces are fabricated on the roughest
possible scheme, merely to show the hairdressing; the bodies
— if such one may call those padded marble members —
merely carry the clothes. They look all dolled up. Was the
Acropolis a dressmaker’s shop? We cling to our recollec-
tions; and like a miser counting his money, we recall with
jealous satisfaction the throne of Venus, the Fleur Enchantee.
Have they anything to do with these dressmaker’s dummies?
The slightest trace of any real connexion would poison them
for us. No: all poison slips harmlessly off the Ludovisi
throne; but I now know why I have never overcome a secret
anxiety over the Berlin seated goddess and have always
balked at placing that sumptuous affair on the same plane
as the quiet reliefs in Rome. Stylistically it comes close
enough. The lines run in a similar way, the forms are
related, and that is enough to assure its superiority over all
the dolls in Athens. One can imagine the Berlin goddess as
a worthy ornament for a temple, and dwell upon its pose
and gesture, upon its decorative qualities — which is as much
as to say, upon its rational values, which still survive
even when on closer examination you think you notice a
somewhat mechanical stylization, especially in the face. All
rational considerations seem remote in front of the reliefs in
3U
missing, one must look for the average, the norm of an
illustrious age.
The average exists. Masses of statues of the sixth and
early fifth centuries, which lay in the debris of the old
Acropolis after the Persian wars, dispel all doubts as to the
character of those works which were then thought fit to
decorate the temple of Athena. They tell us about the
fashions of the archaic period; we have ample opportunities
of learning about hairdressing and clothes. The upper and
under garment, the pleated shirt, Attic and Ionic, fold and
pucker, border and hem, tress and ringlet. Soon it all
becomes familiar, even to satiety. It affects neither the faces
nor the bodies. The faces are fabricated on the roughest
possible scheme, merely to show the hairdressing; the bodies
— if such one may call those padded marble members —
merely carry the clothes. They look all dolled up. Was the
Acropolis a dressmaker’s shop? We cling to our recollec-
tions; and like a miser counting his money, we recall with
jealous satisfaction the throne of Venus, the Fleur Enchantee.
Have they anything to do with these dressmaker’s dummies?
The slightest trace of any real connexion would poison them
for us. No: all poison slips harmlessly off the Ludovisi
throne; but I now know why I have never overcome a secret
anxiety over the Berlin seated goddess and have always
balked at placing that sumptuous affair on the same plane
as the quiet reliefs in Rome. Stylistically it comes close
enough. The lines run in a similar way, the forms are
related, and that is enough to assure its superiority over all
the dolls in Athens. One can imagine the Berlin goddess as
a worthy ornament for a temple, and dwell upon its pose
and gesture, upon its decorative qualities — which is as much
as to say, upon its rational values, which still survive
even when on closer examination you think you notice a
somewhat mechanical stylization, especially in the face. All
rational considerations seem remote in front of the reliefs in
3U