DOI Artikel:
Essay II: The spirit of the art of Pheidias, in its relation to his age, life, and character
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0078
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ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[II.
her son Achilles. In all his works there is that simplicity which
is ever the outcome of the perfect harmony between the concep-
tion and the power of expression, between the spiritual aim and
the physical means, between form and matter. But man, even
the great man, is not isolated or unaffected by his surroundings,
and the spirit of his age. On the contrary, the greatest men
are the most perfect incorporations of the spirit of their age,
and we must, before all things, study and recognise the spirit of
the age, of which Pheidias was the child, in its bearing on the
character of his genius.
The chief features of the age of Pheidias are those of grand
and powerful life, conducive to width of thought and feeling
coupled with simplicity of purpose and action1.
Pheidias was born about 500, and died about 430 B.C. About
the time of his birth began the contest between Greeks and
Persians in the Ionian revolt, and this brought flocks of refugees
from the Ionian cities to Athens, placing before the eyes of
the Athenians a varied culture, and with it the widening feeling
of a relationship with that which was in many ways so different
from themselves. When he was a boy of ten years of age, the
news of the victory of Marathon thrilled the hearts of the
Athenian people, and must have left its broad stamp of heroism
upon the impressionable mind of the strongly feeling boy. When
a youth of twenty, three of the most stirring events in history
were crowded into the period of a little more than a year: the
battle of Thermopylae, the victory of Salamis, and the final
overthrow of the Persian supremacy at Plataeae, and Mykale.
It is more than likely that Pheidias himself took an active part
in some of these great struggles.
The effect of the Persian war upon the political spirit of
the Greeks may be summed up in two words: width (of vision),
and definiteness (of purpose). For the time being the narrow
limits of the cramped interests of each individual state were
torn down ; the Athenian felt the ties that united him with the
1 See a short sketch of the age of Pheidias as distinguished from the age of
Praxiteles by the present writer in a paper on 'Praxiteles and the Dionysos-child from
the Heraion at Olympia,' published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Litera-
ture, for 1879.
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[II.
her son Achilles. In all his works there is that simplicity which
is ever the outcome of the perfect harmony between the concep-
tion and the power of expression, between the spiritual aim and
the physical means, between form and matter. But man, even
the great man, is not isolated or unaffected by his surroundings,
and the spirit of his age. On the contrary, the greatest men
are the most perfect incorporations of the spirit of their age,
and we must, before all things, study and recognise the spirit of
the age, of which Pheidias was the child, in its bearing on the
character of his genius.
The chief features of the age of Pheidias are those of grand
and powerful life, conducive to width of thought and feeling
coupled with simplicity of purpose and action1.
Pheidias was born about 500, and died about 430 B.C. About
the time of his birth began the contest between Greeks and
Persians in the Ionian revolt, and this brought flocks of refugees
from the Ionian cities to Athens, placing before the eyes of
the Athenians a varied culture, and with it the widening feeling
of a relationship with that which was in many ways so different
from themselves. When he was a boy of ten years of age, the
news of the victory of Marathon thrilled the hearts of the
Athenian people, and must have left its broad stamp of heroism
upon the impressionable mind of the strongly feeling boy. When
a youth of twenty, three of the most stirring events in history
were crowded into the period of a little more than a year: the
battle of Thermopylae, the victory of Salamis, and the final
overthrow of the Persian supremacy at Plataeae, and Mykale.
It is more than likely that Pheidias himself took an active part
in some of these great struggles.
The effect of the Persian war upon the political spirit of
the Greeks may be summed up in two words: width (of vision),
and definiteness (of purpose). For the time being the narrow
limits of the cramped interests of each individual state were
torn down ; the Athenian felt the ties that united him with the
1 See a short sketch of the age of Pheidias as distinguished from the age of
Praxiteles by the present writer in a paper on 'Praxiteles and the Dionysos-child from
the Heraion at Olympia,' published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Litera-
ture, for 1879.