DOI Artikel:
Essay IV: The western pediment of the Parthenon, and the Venice fragment
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0149
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[IV.
the greatest similarity, the legs are held apart, the right one
drawn behind the left; and this position, together with the
drapery hanging down on either side, presents to the eye a larger
mass and gives to the composition something broad and
monumental, which is lost when the legs are placed together.
And yet there is nothing clumsy or heavy about any of these
figures. At the same time this position gives a reason for the
transparency of the drapery and the shining through of the forms
that it covers, and produces this pleasing effect in a perfectly
natural way, without the disturbing obtrusion of the artist's
intention above all things to please the eye of the spectator
by this transparency of the drapery. Now, in later works, even
in those immediately succeeding the age of Pheidias, such as the
beautiful sandal-binding Nike from the balustrade of the temple
of Nike Apteros and the reliefs from the temple of Apollo at
Phigalia, the transparency of the drapery in female figures is
impressed upon the spectator to a degree unwarranted by the
attitude and action of the figure, and this compromise between
truth and the application of skilful modelling, in the direction of
sensuality, is still more noticeable in the works belonging to the
period of decline after Praxiteles. This position of the legs,
finally, produces in the drapery the change between the large
simple surfaces, where it is drawn tight, and the intervening
smaller folds, which gives to it that natural play and flow of
lines which are to be found for the first time in the drapery of the
Parthenon sculptures. It appears, then, from these facts, that the
fragment in question does not belong to a period subsequent to
Pheidias ; and it will become more evident, as we proceed, that it
could not belong to a period previous to the time of Pheidias.
Yet with all this transparency the effect is not obtained to
the detriment of that quality in modelling, which, for the first
time in art, Pheidias put into marble—the indication of texture.
We are always impressed with the quality of the material which
covers the nude forms, with the textural difference between the
nude surface, and heavy and light drapery. This natural aspect
of drapery in marble Pheidias attained, through his peculiar
treatment of folds. I have elsewhere1 dwelt upon the peculiar
1 See Appendix II.
[IV.
the greatest similarity, the legs are held apart, the right one
drawn behind the left; and this position, together with the
drapery hanging down on either side, presents to the eye a larger
mass and gives to the composition something broad and
monumental, which is lost when the legs are placed together.
And yet there is nothing clumsy or heavy about any of these
figures. At the same time this position gives a reason for the
transparency of the drapery and the shining through of the forms
that it covers, and produces this pleasing effect in a perfectly
natural way, without the disturbing obtrusion of the artist's
intention above all things to please the eye of the spectator
by this transparency of the drapery. Now, in later works, even
in those immediately succeeding the age of Pheidias, such as the
beautiful sandal-binding Nike from the balustrade of the temple
of Nike Apteros and the reliefs from the temple of Apollo at
Phigalia, the transparency of the drapery in female figures is
impressed upon the spectator to a degree unwarranted by the
attitude and action of the figure, and this compromise between
truth and the application of skilful modelling, in the direction of
sensuality, is still more noticeable in the works belonging to the
period of decline after Praxiteles. This position of the legs,
finally, produces in the drapery the change between the large
simple surfaces, where it is drawn tight, and the intervening
smaller folds, which gives to it that natural play and flow of
lines which are to be found for the first time in the drapery of the
Parthenon sculptures. It appears, then, from these facts, that the
fragment in question does not belong to a period subsequent to
Pheidias ; and it will become more evident, as we proceed, that it
could not belong to a period previous to the time of Pheidias.
Yet with all this transparency the effect is not obtained to
the detriment of that quality in modelling, which, for the first
time in art, Pheidias put into marble—the indication of texture.
We are always impressed with the quality of the material which
covers the nude forms, with the textural difference between the
nude surface, and heavy and light drapery. This natural aspect
of drapery in marble Pheidias attained, through his peculiar
treatment of folds. I have elsewhere1 dwelt upon the peculiar
1 See Appendix II.