DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0305
272 ARCHAIC SCULPTURE.
connection with the origin of Paionios and Alcamenes from the north, has pro-
pounded the theory that there existed in Northern Greece a peculiar school of
sculpture.474 To this school, he believes that both Alcamenes and Paionios
belonged. As yet, there are few monuments from Northern-Greek soil to
establish the foundations of this proposition ; and, furthermore, tradition makes
no mention of such a definite school. Comparison, however, of the groups of
the west pediment with paintings on a Greek vase, now in Berlin, with red
figures of the stern type, as well as of many single heads, with other vase-paint-
ings dating from this century, confirm remarkably this prophetic theory, as far
as it concerns the influence of painting, that strong point of Ionian art. Tak-
ing up Brunn's pregnant theory, Furtwangler has developed it more widely,
believing that these works, so pictorial, and full of a bursting realism struggling
for expression, are the creations of the Ionians of the northern provinces, from
whom the people of Attica learned much, as is indicated by the part played by
the Thasian Polygnotos, in Athens, during the early part of this century.475
The similarity even between motives in these sculptures, and those of red-
figured Attic vases of the sterner type, whose artists, as we know, drew their
inspiration from the great foreign Ionian painters, is most striking. Thus, on
a vase now in the Berlin Museum, is to be seen the same hero who, with arms
raised and drapery falling, in the Olympia pediment, attacks the centaur on
the left of Apollo, as well as that beautiful woman, whose bended head is
wrapped in a graceful kerchief, and who is being carried off by a centaur.
Besides, a further evidence of the influence of the old Ionian element here, is
the striking similarity between these marbles and the quaint story-telling and
pictorial terra-cotta reliefs found on the Greek islands of the /Egean, and
mentioned on p. 234. The treatment of the hair, and the caps and gay bands
adorning it, worn by women, were rendered by preference, according to tradi-
dition, by Polygnotos, and is clearly genuine Ionian. The faces, with their
attempt to express the emotions of the moment, and the intense excitement of
the scene; and, above all, the naturalistic forms of the old seers and fallen
slaves, — call to mind the recorded fact that Polygnotos knew how to represent
emotion and age as well as youth.476 it is very probable that the idea of river-
gods localizing the scene is also Ionian, and was later adopted by Pheidias for
the pediments of the Parthenon at Athens.
It may be that different streams united in Olympia, and that to Elis came
sculptors from far-off Mende and Lemnos, who worked in the lax archaic style,
as well as others who produced the severer forms of Southern Greece; a com-
parison between these Olympia marbles and statues, found in Athens and
elsewhere, seeming to favor this idea. Thus in the erect, nude male form of
the so-called Apollo on the Omphalos, found at Athens, the copy of some
celebrated old work, but of what master we do not know, there is in the
treatment a certain resemblance to the Apollo of the west Olympia pediment;
connection with the origin of Paionios and Alcamenes from the north, has pro-
pounded the theory that there existed in Northern Greece a peculiar school of
sculpture.474 To this school, he believes that both Alcamenes and Paionios
belonged. As yet, there are few monuments from Northern-Greek soil to
establish the foundations of this proposition ; and, furthermore, tradition makes
no mention of such a definite school. Comparison, however, of the groups of
the west pediment with paintings on a Greek vase, now in Berlin, with red
figures of the stern type, as well as of many single heads, with other vase-paint-
ings dating from this century, confirm remarkably this prophetic theory, as far
as it concerns the influence of painting, that strong point of Ionian art. Tak-
ing up Brunn's pregnant theory, Furtwangler has developed it more widely,
believing that these works, so pictorial, and full of a bursting realism struggling
for expression, are the creations of the Ionians of the northern provinces, from
whom the people of Attica learned much, as is indicated by the part played by
the Thasian Polygnotos, in Athens, during the early part of this century.475
The similarity even between motives in these sculptures, and those of red-
figured Attic vases of the sterner type, whose artists, as we know, drew their
inspiration from the great foreign Ionian painters, is most striking. Thus, on
a vase now in the Berlin Museum, is to be seen the same hero who, with arms
raised and drapery falling, in the Olympia pediment, attacks the centaur on
the left of Apollo, as well as that beautiful woman, whose bended head is
wrapped in a graceful kerchief, and who is being carried off by a centaur.
Besides, a further evidence of the influence of the old Ionian element here, is
the striking similarity between these marbles and the quaint story-telling and
pictorial terra-cotta reliefs found on the Greek islands of the /Egean, and
mentioned on p. 234. The treatment of the hair, and the caps and gay bands
adorning it, worn by women, were rendered by preference, according to tradi-
dition, by Polygnotos, and is clearly genuine Ionian. The faces, with their
attempt to express the emotions of the moment, and the intense excitement of
the scene; and, above all, the naturalistic forms of the old seers and fallen
slaves, — call to mind the recorded fact that Polygnotos knew how to represent
emotion and age as well as youth.476 it is very probable that the idea of river-
gods localizing the scene is also Ionian, and was later adopted by Pheidias for
the pediments of the Parthenon at Athens.
It may be that different streams united in Olympia, and that to Elis came
sculptors from far-off Mende and Lemnos, who worked in the lax archaic style,
as well as others who produced the severer forms of Southern Greece; a com-
parison between these Olympia marbles and statues, found in Athens and
elsewhere, seeming to favor this idea. Thus in the erect, nude male form of
the so-called Apollo on the Omphalos, found at Athens, the copy of some
celebrated old work, but of what master we do not know, there is in the
treatment a certain resemblance to the Apollo of the west Olympia pediment;