DOI article:
Essay II: The spirit of the art of Pheidias, in its relation to his age, life, and character
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0084
64
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[II.
and did but strengthen the normal impulses of that period of
life in which restless striving is natural.
In a positive way, the new impetus that was given to the
Palaestric exercises and the sacred games (especially those of
Olympia and the Panathenaic festivities) and the growing custom
which had begun in the time of the Peisistratidae of associating
sculpture immediately with these games in making it commemo-
rate the victories, were among all events and institutions those
which most immediately advanced the study of the human figure
and its representation in the sculptor's material. Furthermore
the numerous public buildings which were erected in those times
and had to be adorned with plastic decorations, taxed the sculp-
tor's manipulative skill in all directions, even in those which from
natural indolence and unconscious intellectual cowardice the
purely spontaneous workers are liable to neglect. It provided
the inestimable blessing of a moderate amount of outer compul-
sion. Some definite space of prescribed form had to be filled
with figures either in the round or in relief: the eye was thereby
disciplined in composition, and the hand in execution. It is
highly probable that the Metopes of the Parthenon represent
partly such a trial sphere for Pheidias1. Finally we must not
forget that Athens was, and since the war had become still more,
the central point through which passed all the roads by sea and
land from all directions; and that the refugees who flocked there
brought with them not only their work but also their peculiar
modes of technique. The artistic votive offerings and dedica-
tions from the north and east to Olympia, and from the south
and west to Delphi, passed through Athens and trained the
eyes of the Athenian sculptors.
The technical training of Pheidias in particular was of the
most favourable kind. Though the age in which he lived en-
couraged his emancipation from the shackles of school, he did
not, as is often the case with a barren 'genius', begin with
opposition and ever continue in it; but he began with the regular
school, which forced upon him its priceless training, and then at
least he had something positive upon which his original power
could exercise itself, could fix, modify or in part cast away what
1 See Essay in.
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[II.
and did but strengthen the normal impulses of that period of
life in which restless striving is natural.
In a positive way, the new impetus that was given to the
Palaestric exercises and the sacred games (especially those of
Olympia and the Panathenaic festivities) and the growing custom
which had begun in the time of the Peisistratidae of associating
sculpture immediately with these games in making it commemo-
rate the victories, were among all events and institutions those
which most immediately advanced the study of the human figure
and its representation in the sculptor's material. Furthermore
the numerous public buildings which were erected in those times
and had to be adorned with plastic decorations, taxed the sculp-
tor's manipulative skill in all directions, even in those which from
natural indolence and unconscious intellectual cowardice the
purely spontaneous workers are liable to neglect. It provided
the inestimable blessing of a moderate amount of outer compul-
sion. Some definite space of prescribed form had to be filled
with figures either in the round or in relief: the eye was thereby
disciplined in composition, and the hand in execution. It is
highly probable that the Metopes of the Parthenon represent
partly such a trial sphere for Pheidias1. Finally we must not
forget that Athens was, and since the war had become still more,
the central point through which passed all the roads by sea and
land from all directions; and that the refugees who flocked there
brought with them not only their work but also their peculiar
modes of technique. The artistic votive offerings and dedica-
tions from the north and east to Olympia, and from the south
and west to Delphi, passed through Athens and trained the
eyes of the Athenian sculptors.
The technical training of Pheidias in particular was of the
most favourable kind. Though the age in which he lived en-
couraged his emancipation from the shackles of school, he did
not, as is often the case with a barren 'genius', begin with
opposition and ever continue in it; but he began with the regular
school, which forced upon him its priceless training, and then at
least he had something positive upon which his original power
could exercise itself, could fix, modify or in part cast away what
1 See Essay in.