DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0193
THE TREASURY OF THE ATHENIANS 177
edge is joined to the foremost borders of the oblique abdomen
muscles and serves thus as a firm frame round the softer
parts of the abdomen. This frame round the abdomen is
genuinely Attic; it meets us as early as the sixth century in the
Greek horseman of the Acropolis and appears again in
torsos from Daphne and Delos,1 which are contemporary,
and with regard to the last so closely akin to the metopes of
the Athenian treasury that they seem to be executed by the
same artist. Under the chest the epigastrium is divided
by the navel stripe, which is unusually deep, and by two
horizontal intersections into four sections. This division
only by two intersections is universal in Greek art at the
time of the Persian wars, and together with the little fold
of skin over the navel, which is also in the metope, appears
in Attic sculpture of the eighties, e.g. in the fine statue of
an Ephebus from the Acropolis, which is universally as-
cribed to the artists of the “ Tyrannicides.” 2 Thus we
have won a fixed point in favour of the dating to the period
after the battle of Marathon and in agreement with the
text of Pausanias.
In the intense passion with which not only the bone
structure is treated, but also the harmony between motion
and muscles is emphasized, there is something peculiar to
the period, an effervescing vigour and impatience, which
is repeated in the Aeginetan sculptures and belongs to the
art of this transitional period. An effort is made at a
thorough representation of the human body in all kinds of
movements in this or that given action, but not, on the other
hand, at characterizing the structure of an individual body
defined by nature and education. Glance at the nude
figures of the other metopes in succession : they are all
alike; all are formed like Heracles, both Theseus and the
Minotaur and Cycnus ! In this point Attic sculpture is
like Attic poetry. The three great tragedians also give
excellent representations of the behaviour of the typical
man in these or those definite situations, but do not know
of characters with individual aptitudes and the impress of
1 Dickins, Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum, 50 and 124, nr. 590 ; Delbriick,
Athen. Mitteil., xxv, 1900, 377 f.; L. Curtius, text to Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmaler,
plates 601-4. 2 Dickins, Catalogue, 264, nr. 698.
12
edge is joined to the foremost borders of the oblique abdomen
muscles and serves thus as a firm frame round the softer
parts of the abdomen. This frame round the abdomen is
genuinely Attic; it meets us as early as the sixth century in the
Greek horseman of the Acropolis and appears again in
torsos from Daphne and Delos,1 which are contemporary,
and with regard to the last so closely akin to the metopes of
the Athenian treasury that they seem to be executed by the
same artist. Under the chest the epigastrium is divided
by the navel stripe, which is unusually deep, and by two
horizontal intersections into four sections. This division
only by two intersections is universal in Greek art at the
time of the Persian wars, and together with the little fold
of skin over the navel, which is also in the metope, appears
in Attic sculpture of the eighties, e.g. in the fine statue of
an Ephebus from the Acropolis, which is universally as-
cribed to the artists of the “ Tyrannicides.” 2 Thus we
have won a fixed point in favour of the dating to the period
after the battle of Marathon and in agreement with the
text of Pausanias.
In the intense passion with which not only the bone
structure is treated, but also the harmony between motion
and muscles is emphasized, there is something peculiar to
the period, an effervescing vigour and impatience, which
is repeated in the Aeginetan sculptures and belongs to the
art of this transitional period. An effort is made at a
thorough representation of the human body in all kinds of
movements in this or that given action, but not, on the other
hand, at characterizing the structure of an individual body
defined by nature and education. Glance at the nude
figures of the other metopes in succession : they are all
alike; all are formed like Heracles, both Theseus and the
Minotaur and Cycnus ! In this point Attic sculpture is
like Attic poetry. The three great tragedians also give
excellent representations of the behaviour of the typical
man in these or those definite situations, but do not know
of characters with individual aptitudes and the impress of
1 Dickins, Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum, 50 and 124, nr. 590 ; Delbriick,
Athen. Mitteil., xxv, 1900, 377 f.; L. Curtius, text to Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmaler,
plates 601-4. 2 Dickins, Catalogue, 264, nr. 698.
12