DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0435
PHIGALEIA SCULPTURES. 401
but often its very continuousness wearies the unimpassioned beholder, and
fails to awaken sympathy. While many motives seem to occur, met with in
Attica, carried up to the superlative, others are altogether new and startling.
There is, besides, a decided attempt at foreshortening and pictorial effect, appear-
ing, for instance, in the fallen centaur, and in those who seem to come out of
the background, — motives which call to mind their old predecessors, the cen-
taurs of the Olympia pediment. The treatment of the drapery, with its flut-
tering ends tortured by the wind, is different from any thing we know of
elsewhere, except the newly found reliefs at Gjolbaschi, and seems to imply
the addition of color. Altogether, though these sculptures are in very high
relief, still they make a more pleasing impression in drawings than they do in
the marble, which is overcrowded and confused. Coming from Attic friezes
with their exquisite feeling for finish, and truly sculptural style, we are sadly
disappointed in the execution of these reliefs ; there being something coarse
and very summary about the vigorous forms, and confusing in the exaggera-
tion of the pictorial element. Moreover, the faces of all, males and females,
are unprepossessing, and have no shadow of expression accompanying the
violent gestures. As for the composition, it is impossible to find a connection
between the different slabs, which seem to consist of a number of single scenes
without the unity found in Attic friezes of this age. It is most probable, that
here each slab was composed and carved by itself, and put up and fitted to its
neighbor afterwards, this having been done often in a very crude manner, as
is evident from the slabs, even in their present state. This frieze, having so
many reminders of Attic motives, treating so extensively of Attic myth, and
decorating a temple built by an Attic master, it has been thought, must be
the composition of Attic sculptors, carried out by provincial workmen. Others
see, rather, in these sculptures such exaggeration and even coarseness of con-
ception, unlike any thing known of the fifth century, that they suppose them
to be the work of Arcadian sculptors, only so far dependent upon Attica as to
copy Attic models in some details, while throwing over the composition a
robust realism peculiarly their own. In opposition to this view, that Attic
influence was here active, some archaeologists see here traces of those older
Ionian sources from which Attica also drew, and which were strongly pictorial,
but must have been here in Phigaleia colored by local peculiarities.
In other parts of the Peloponnesos, during the latter half of the fifth cen-
tury we hear of but little artistic activity. From Elis two unimportant names,
Aristocles and Cleoitas, alone meet us./65 In Sparta several ambitious works,
of which no notice remains except Plutarch's and Pausanias' dry accounts,
seem to have been put up in thanks for the victory of Aigospotamoi and for
earlier victories over the Persians."66 From Megara, Theocosmos, already
spoken of (p. 319), and his son, Callicles, are mentioned as men of note;
and, in Northern Greece, one Telephanes of Phokis, according to one story,
but often its very continuousness wearies the unimpassioned beholder, and
fails to awaken sympathy. While many motives seem to occur, met with in
Attica, carried up to the superlative, others are altogether new and startling.
There is, besides, a decided attempt at foreshortening and pictorial effect, appear-
ing, for instance, in the fallen centaur, and in those who seem to come out of
the background, — motives which call to mind their old predecessors, the cen-
taurs of the Olympia pediment. The treatment of the drapery, with its flut-
tering ends tortured by the wind, is different from any thing we know of
elsewhere, except the newly found reliefs at Gjolbaschi, and seems to imply
the addition of color. Altogether, though these sculptures are in very high
relief, still they make a more pleasing impression in drawings than they do in
the marble, which is overcrowded and confused. Coming from Attic friezes
with their exquisite feeling for finish, and truly sculptural style, we are sadly
disappointed in the execution of these reliefs ; there being something coarse
and very summary about the vigorous forms, and confusing in the exaggera-
tion of the pictorial element. Moreover, the faces of all, males and females,
are unprepossessing, and have no shadow of expression accompanying the
violent gestures. As for the composition, it is impossible to find a connection
between the different slabs, which seem to consist of a number of single scenes
without the unity found in Attic friezes of this age. It is most probable, that
here each slab was composed and carved by itself, and put up and fitted to its
neighbor afterwards, this having been done often in a very crude manner, as
is evident from the slabs, even in their present state. This frieze, having so
many reminders of Attic motives, treating so extensively of Attic myth, and
decorating a temple built by an Attic master, it has been thought, must be
the composition of Attic sculptors, carried out by provincial workmen. Others
see, rather, in these sculptures such exaggeration and even coarseness of con-
ception, unlike any thing known of the fifth century, that they suppose them
to be the work of Arcadian sculptors, only so far dependent upon Attica as to
copy Attic models in some details, while throwing over the composition a
robust realism peculiarly their own. In opposition to this view, that Attic
influence was here active, some archaeologists see here traces of those older
Ionian sources from which Attica also drew, and which were strongly pictorial,
but must have been here in Phigaleia colored by local peculiarities.
In other parts of the Peloponnesos, during the latter half of the fifth cen-
tury we hear of but little artistic activity. From Elis two unimportant names,
Aristocles and Cleoitas, alone meet us./65 In Sparta several ambitious works,
of which no notice remains except Plutarch's and Pausanias' dry accounts,
seem to have been put up in thanks for the victory of Aigospotamoi and for
earlier victories over the Persians."66 From Megara, Theocosmos, already
spoken of (p. 319), and his son, Callicles, are mentioned as men of note;
and, in Northern Greece, one Telephanes of Phokis, according to one story,