Who Was The Artist Responsible For The Sculptural Program Decorating The Parthenon

Quick Time Line:
Geometric Period 1050 BCE - 700 BCE (700 BCE)
Orientalizing Period 700 BCE - 600 BCE (600 BCE)
Archaic Period 600 BCE - 480 BCE (600 BCE)
The Aureate Age of Perikles (Classic Phase) 480-350 BCE (450)
Late Hellenism 350-30 BCE

For all the videos in social club with a textbook and study guides delight visit:

http://art-and-art-history-university.usefedora.com/

The Acropolis, Athens, Hellenic republic.
450 BCE The Archetype Era

Architects and artists: Iktinos, Kallikrates and Mnesicles were the master architects for the circuitous. Phidias was one of the sculptor/painters responsible for the design of much of the ornamentation.

The Acropolis

Context: Located on the highest bespeak in Athens, Greece, the Acropolis was first constructed equally a fortress/governmental palace for the male monarch or Anax effectually g BCE. Still, after the Athenian defeat of the Persian army, the city embarked on a new Classical Era and began to rebuilt the site. The version nosotros now know dates from 450 BCE, which is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Historic period of Perikles", the Athenian leader at the time. There are many acropolai (the plural for Acropolis) in Hellenic republic; however, the one in Athens is the most famous in existence.

The Acropolis is equivalent to our modern day civic middle. On information technology there were galleries, temples, a banking company and at its base of operations was a marketplace and ii theaters. Temples were included because religion and patriotism were combined. There was no separation of church and land every bit in our regime; withal, similar us, the Athenians were a democratic culture. At the base of the Acropolis are markets chosen "stoas" where merchants would sell their goods. Philosophers would hire out stoas to preach their beliefs and laissez passer out pamphlets.

The term "acropolis" is actually two words placed together. "Acro" means high and "polis" means city: and so the Acropolis of Athens is the highest betoken of the city. Although the Acropolis was originally established around yard BCE, the Acropolis and the buildings on information technology nosotros are most familiar with were renovated during the leadership of the Greek General named Perikles. The Greek period we volition be discussing the most is between 480-400 BCE.

Perikles, who fought as a general in the Persian War (c480 BC), returned home to find that his city and most of the Acropolis had been destroyed by the Persians in his absence. Perikles took it upon himself to rebuild the city and to practise then he founded an alliance of city states in 478 BC called the Delian League. The coin from the Delian League was the primary source of funding for the reconstruction of the Acropolis.

Around 480 BCE, Sparta, Athens, and Corinth formed the League of Delos(1) (equivalent to or modern solar day NATO). The Greek island Delos was originally the "bank" for the League; however, Perikles, a keen economist, wanted Athens to be the treasury of the Delos League. He knew that the island would boost the economy of Athens and in one case he found the ACropolis completely destroyed, he used the money from the Delos League to rebuild it.

A skilful mode to understand Perikles and his part in Athens is to read "Perikles' Funereal Oration" which was recorded by the Greek historian Thucydides. Find it in Mencher, Liaisons 49, 87-90 (Thucydides: Perikles' Funeral Oration)

Context: The Panathenaic Procession

This side by side department will be in the order of the procession in which the Athenian celebration would take encountered the buildings of the Acropolis. The term Panathenaic literally means "all of Athens." "Pan"- Ways "all" and is besides associated with the god of all the woods, "athenaic" - Athenian.

Although the Acropolis was home to a polytheistic (many gods) culture, the bulk of the complex was devoted to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the main goddess of the urban center. Below is the basic program of the Acropolis, its buildings and the ii theaters at its base of operations. Along the perimeter of the colina on which it is perched is a pathway, marked in gray. On sure festival days, every four years, the entire boondocks of Athens came out and took the long route effectually the Acropolis to its top which is known equally the "Panathenaic Procession."

For all the videos in social club with a textbook and study guides please visit:

http://fine art-and-art-history-academy.usefedora.com/

This procession would begin in Athens'southward Agora have the Panathenaic fashion and pass by the Herodean Theater continuing on past the Theater of Dionysus all the style around the base of the colina and finally ending with entry into the Propylaia, also known as the Pinakotheke. By moving all the way effectually the colina instead of only walking up, each Athenian could understand the magnificence of this sacred high indicate. The journey would end at the Parthenon where the Athenians who had fabricated the trek would exit their offer to the goddess Athena.

Course: These Athenian theaters follow the aforementioned blueprint as the theater at Epidauros (see Marylin Stokstad "Fine art History" 5-72). The design is a symmetrical hemisphere (half circle) that is arranged similarly to modern 24-hour interval stadiums and can seat virtually 12,000 people. The stone material and the shape of the theater allowed the audio of the actors, who stood in the orchestra, to be heard throughout the theater. The actors entered onto the orchestra from the parados (wings). Behind them was usually a static building that was the backdrop called the skene. This properties had no ornamentation or painting and was adequately simple. In fact, props were kept to a minimum on the stage.

Iconography: The theater itself was an important place for Athenians to gather and although information technology was probably not designed to be a symbol of borough pride, it developed a similar meaning to our stadiums and theaters inside our ain towns. 1 mod example would be Oakland'due south "Coliseum."

Context: Theater and operation of Greek Tragedy and Comedy were an important component in the lifestyle of the Athenians. The theater was a identify in which stories, mythology, and cultural values were conveyed and ideas were explored. The theater also served as an of import social setting and helped the economic system past bringing in tourists for festivals. The fact that a theater was devoted to the god Dionysus indicates the importance of the ideas and values personified by him. Dionysus (as well called Bacchus) was the god of drama and of wine. In essence he was the god of liberation. Theater was considered a type of liberation and served every bit a great distraction from the exterior difficulties of the aboriginal globe.

"Ancient tragic drama was a public upshot done in large scale. At Athens the Theater of Dionysus, congenital against the steeply rising east gradient of the Acropolis, was big enough to suit fourteen to seventeen grand people. This group saturday together on benches without divisions and so that as arms, legs, and haunches touched, emotions could race through the audience. A large oversupply is characteristically animal. Probably it was in reaction to the natural volatility of a oversupply that the Athenian associates passed a constabulary making an outright and provocative disturbance during a functioning a capital offense. The setting offered trivial form of crowd control. Performances were out of doors, in daylight, continuous, starting at dawn in a large arena where in that location must take been constant move, as at nowadays-day sporting events or a Chinese opera. People leaving to relieve themselves, hawkers selling food, these were moving elements of the panorama as much every bit the actors and the chorus".

(Charles Rowan Beye, Ancient Greek Literature and Lodge
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975 and 1987) 127-128.
1 of the almost important festivals in Athens focused on the operation of Greek drama. The festival named the City Dionysia or Greater Dionysia which took identify in late March was an of import result dedicated to the god Dionysus.

Form: The physical course of the Greek theater strongly influenced the manner in which the plays were written and performed. The actual components of a Greek play echo the physical grade and symmetry of the theater itself.

Components of Greek tragedy and the structure of the Greek tragedy This is the club of a play's functioning, how each i of the acts is structured and what it contains.

prologos (prologue) This is the opening scene in which an opening monologue or dialogue is presented. This establishes the background information in the play and likewise introduces the "conflict," past outlining some events to follow. The prologos therefore is similar the skene or setting because it provides the background data.

parados The name for the wings of the stage on which the chorus stands and comments. The parados is also the name for when the chorus enters, chanting a lyric. Remember of the word parody from our culture. A parody is a commentary on a text that nosotros are usually familiar with.

episode This is like to individual acts in a play. These unremarkably consist of dialogues between actors, which are complimented past choral odes known as the stasimon. The episode is similar to the central location of the main action that occurs on the orchestra.

stasimon The choral ode that normally comes at the terminate of each episode. It is a type narrative in which the chorus summarizes the activeness and hints at what volition happen next. This is the instant replay and contains pretty much the aforementioned information as the parados.

exodos This is the last stasimon which accompanies the activeness and the formalism exit of the actors from the stage. This could also exist referred to as an ending stasimon.

Dionysus in a Gunkhole past Exekias
Interior of an Attic black-figured kylix
c 540 BCE diameter 12"
Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich
Primitive, Black-figure

Form: The interior of this symmetrical, nevertheless balanced kylix (wine loving cup) was busy in black-figure style with the figure of the Greek god Dionysus in a boat. Out of the deck of the boat springs a grape vine and surrounding the ship are several dolphins or porpoises. The figures are painted with a slit watered-downwards clay over the red, therefore creating that black-figure fashion The ground of the vessel is the natural ruddy of the clay and the sheet is heightened with white coat. The scraffito technique is used as a means to bring out the details with an carving tool.

Iconography: It makes perfect sense that a wine vessel would be decorated with an image of the Greek god of wine, theater and ecstatic liberation, Dionysus. (The Romans called him Bacchus.) The grape vine represents his role as the god of wine and the dolphins are probably transformed sailors who committed an act of hubris against the god in one of the myths that precede the story told by the Greek tragic play The Bacchae (also chosen the Bacchic women). The "lucky" number of seven figures into the symbolism with seven dolphins and seven bunches of grapes.

Context: Origin of Dionysus. (Run into Mencher "Liaisons" 49-86 (Ovid "Semele"). Dionysus's mother Semele, the girl of King Cadmus of Thebes, had an affair with Zeus (called Jove past the Romans) who bearded himself as a shepherd boy. Unfortunately, her family unit does non believe she is carrying Zeus' child. Hera, Zeus' wife finds out nigh the affair and goes downward to globe disguised as a nurse maid to comfort Semele. Hera, aroused at her married man and jealous of the immature maiden, tells Semele to make Zeus promise that the next time he appears to her it would be in all his glory (robes, thunder, etc.). When Zeus keeps his hope, his powerful presence burns the immature woman to ashes and all that remains is Dionysus. Zeus picks him upwards and inserts him into his thigh where he is reborn. Hera finds out about Zeus' devotion to his new son and chops Dionysus into pieces. Zeus then swallows him and he is reborn a third time.

Dionysus then lives with the satyrs in the forest, away from Hera's harm. They devoutly teach him the lessons of life and he becomes the god of liberation and goes back to his mother's land. On his mode dorsum to his dwelling house he comes across sailors who told the immature god they would take him wherever he wanted to go. Instead, they try to take advantage of him by using him as a slave, so Dionysus curses them by calling snakes and panthers to appear on the boat. Every bit the sailors jump overboard he ends the events by turning them into dolphins. The kylix depicts Dionysus turning his gunkhole around to go back to Thebes and take revenge upon his mother'south family who did non believe that Zeus was her kid'southward father.

The Athenian variety of gods consisted of a group of gods who exhibited extremely human characteristics: they would dear similar people, play favorites, steal from each other and cheat each other. In some ways, co-ordinate to our civilization's values, they were not very morally developed. At that place are many myths which discuss the exploits of the gods and utilise them every bit models to explain the faults and triumphs of human characteristics. These myths not only pass on the stories, but, transmit cultural values besides. Mythology was passed on in many forms, decorative motifs on pottery, walls, and architecture, as well through poetry and performing arts. At the base of the Acropolis are two theaters, the Herodean Theater and the Theater of Dionysus. The inclusion of these theaters as integral office of the Acropolis tells the states quite a lot about the culture of the Greeks.

Greek temple architecture is designed in the post and lintel fashion. The posts are the columns and the lintel is the entablature that rests on top of them. Each ane of these columns is a different mode or order and has a distinct physical advent.

The Doric:
Class: The Doric is the simplest of the designs. It has no base, elementary fluting up the shaft of the columns and a simple capital that has no intricate ornamentation. The entablature is divided into three sections consisting of the unornamented architrave, the frieze, which is subdivided in to the triglyph (tri- three glyph marks) and the metope. The metope can also contain relief sculptures. (By the fashion, the Parthenon is a Doric order.)

Iconography and Context: I was taught to wait at the orders in a rather antipathetic way which is probably how the Greeks saw them every bit well. The Doric gild is the most dignified and masculine of the orders and was named after the Dorian region.

Sometimes the Doric order will exhibit a slight swelling in the center of the column. This swelling, known equally entasis, is thought to either correct the curvature of a temple for the eyes or to prove that the cavalcade is responding to the weight of the building as it is begin held upward.

The Ionic:

Form: The Ionic is more complex. It has a base of operations, simple fluting up the shaft of the columns and has an ornamented upper-case letter that makes it look like the letter "i". The entablature of the Ionic order is less circuitous than the Doric and is divided in two sections. These sections are the unornamented architrave and the frieze, sometimes decorated with relief sculptures. (The Nike Temple is Ionic.)

Iconography and Context: I was taught to expect at the orders in a rather antipathetic manner which is probably how the Greeks saw them. The Ionic club is a bit more feminine in its design because of the soft volutes of its uppercase. It is a rather problematic column considering information technology does not plough corners well as you can see from this detail of the Nike Temple corner. Information technology was named after the Greek region of Ionia.

The Corinthian:
Grade: The Corinthian is every bit complex as the Ionic simply a bit overdressed. It has a base, simple fluting up the shaft of the columns and has an ornamented capital that makes it look like a salad basket with its acanthus leaves. The entablature is divided in ii sections consisting of the unornamented architrave, and the frieze which is sometimes decorated with relief sculptures.
Iconography and Context: I was taught to await at the orders in a rather chauvinistic way which is probably how the Greeks saw them. Just, in a more 20th century context, the Corinthian order is the Carmen Miranda or "drag queen" of the orders with its overly ornate basket on its caput. It was named after the region of Corinth, conquered past the Greeks.

Nike Temple, (Temple of Athena Nike) c425 BCE
by Kallikrates, Acropolis Athens,
Classic Greek Ionic Temple Manner

Form: The Nike Temple is a pocket-size (27'x9') ionic club temple. The temple is amphiprostyle with iv columns on both the due east and west facades. There is footling infinite between columns considering of stone's lack of tensile strength (flexibility). At that place is a continuous running frieze in the entablature. The Nike Temple faces in one direction (west), simply appears to have two entrances with blank side walls. Surrounding the temple is a low wall called a parapet which contained low flat relief sculptures. On the parapet's(three) side is a bass relief carving(iv) (a statue) of Winged Victory, or Nike.

Iconography: The goddess Nike is a winged female figure that represents victory. The fact that this temple is located at the very entrance of the Acropolis could mean that victory is at the forefront of Athenian ideology.

Course: This high relief etching is just i of many of the same type of winged figures in unlike poses. In this sculpture the winged effigy of Nike is adjusting her sandal. Unfortunately most of the caput and the wings sprouting out of her back have been destroyed just the body and legs are well preserved. The beefcake and carving of the figure is very naturalistically rendered; still it struggles to maintain a certain idealized figure. In other words, her figure adheres to the natural parts of a man torso, but it too tends to preserve certain features as ideal. This mixture of natural and ideal is heightened by the drapery that clings to her body. The manner of sculpting drapery, as if it were wet, is chosen the wet drapery style.

Iconography: Winged figures in Greek art are personifications of victory. These nike figures are placed well-nigh the pediment of the Nike temple in different attitudes or poses as if they are part of a parade in commemoration of Athens' victory during the Persian Wars. The idealization of the female form hither is probably an illustration of the concept of kalos.

Context: Many of the male figures found on the Acropolis from all eras are nude. Yet, it isn't until the second century that nosotros brainstorm to come across nude females in Greek fine art. The wet drapery style is a happy medium for representing idealized women because the folds and contours tin be used to highlight the ideal features of each figure. Interpretations of the drapery roofing this figure'due south form might exist in keeping with our ain taboos confronting female person nudity. In our civilization men are allowed to reveal a larger part of their torso than females withal we design fashions that tease viewers past accenting certain role of the female form. The Greeks' use of wet curtain might fill a like need and indicate the concept of the female class equally submissive versus the male form representing strength.

Stele of Hegeso
c.410-400 BC, Marble, 5'9"
Athens. Archetype

Form: This stele is rendered in way very similar to the Nike parapet. The 2 female person figures are rendered in profile right against the front of the picture aeroplane. The figures inhabit what looks to be a postal service and lintel temple which gives the viewer the sense of an surroundings. Each woman is arcadian physically through the utilize of wet drapery.

The folds of each wearing apparel emphasis the protruding knees and fluid bodies. The anatomy of their faces is naturalistic with some idealized features as well. An example of this is the span of the noses is representing every bit a direct line, a minor distortion of how noses fit in with the geography of the face: the bridge is usually slightly curved at the top. This aquiline feature is referred to as the Greek olfactory organ.

Iconography: Scenes like this are called genre, or everyday, scenes. This is a scene of everyday life in which a maid brings a jewelry box to her mistress and she examines her trophies. This kind of scene, which is oft referred to as the "Mistress and Maid" motif is one that can also be constitute on vases too as steles. It tin can best be interpreted as a typical scene of upper class feminine pursuits. The maid, the jewels, the chair, and the implied literacy of the visitors to the grave by the inscription on the lintel, are emblems of economic power that compliment the seated woman's beauty and status. (Compare this to the iconography of vases that draw ii males such equally in the Exekias vase.)

Context: This stele was used as a grave marker and is probably an effort by the creative person and the people who commissioned it to make an idealized portrait of the represented, seated woman, buried in this grave.

Grade: This stele is rendered in style very similar to the "Stele of Hegeso." The two female person figures are rendered in contour view up close against the front end of the picture aeroplane. Each is arcadian physically and wearing wet drapery. The anatomy of their faces is naturalistic simply arcadian as well: the bridge of their noses is a straight line which is a slight distortion of how noses fit in with the geography of the face. This aquiline feature is referred to every bit the Greek nose.
The white-ground technique is a vase painting technique in which the pot was offset covered with a slip of very fine white clay, over which black coat was used to outline figures, and diluted chocolate-brown, purple, red, and white were used to color them.

Iconography: This scene is a slight correction on the Stele. In this 1 the maid brings the mistress a stool for her maid. (I think information technology is the chest itself.) This is also a kind of genre scene, in which a maid brings a jewelry box to her mistress and she examines her trophies. This motif, which is oftentimes referred to as the "Mistress and Maid", is one that can too exist found on vases and can best be interpreted as a typical scene of upper class feminine pursuits. The maid, jewels, the writing and the wearing apparel are emblems of economical ability that compliment the seated woman'southward beauty and condition. (Compare this to the iconography of vases that depict 2 males such as in the Exekias vase.)

For all the videos in order with a textbook and study guides delight visit:

http://art-and-art-history-academy.usefedora.com/

Context: Stokstad relates that this vase was used as a memorial ornamentation and is probably an attempt past the artist and the people who commissioned it to make an arcadian portrait of the woman who information technology memorializes. Art is and then establishing male and female roles through its depictions.