The Glory That Was Greece: a survey of Hellenic culture and civilisationStobart, J. C. (John Clarke)
History
The Glory That Was Greece: a survey of Hellenic culture and civilisation
Stobart, J. C. (John Clarke)
Art, Greek; Greece -- Civilization -- To 146 B.C.
America had added yet another to her list of trophies captured from
Europe. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has just acquired three more
slabs which obviously belong to the same monument, and of which, by the
courtesy of the Director, we are enabled to publish one of the earliest
photographic representations.[40] It is said that these additional slabs
had lain for years unrecognised in the hands of a collector at Lewes, in
Sussex. Whether they formed the other half of the same throne, tomb, or
altar, or whether they formed the second of a pair, the new slabs
correspond precisely in shape, subject, and treatment to the old. The
hooded figure of the old “throne” is balanced by the wonderfully
realistic old woman of the new. The nude flute-player has her
counterpart in the nude male citharist. And the long central slab is
matched by the new relief of the winged male god and the two seated
females.
As for the style, it is obviously identical; there is the same
remarkable mixture of archaic imperfection in the delineation of heads
and faces, with finished and confident mastery in the technique of
relief. The architectural ornament, the carving of the nude bodies, the
treatment of the wings and of the drapery, is as advanced as that of the
Parthenon sculptures. Yet the archaic smile of the faces, the carving of
the eyes, the imperfect setting of a head in profile upon a body
full-face recalls the early Æginetan sculptures and the metopes of
Selinus. We must, I suppose, date this work in the period between
Marathon and Salamis, or a very little later. Even so, there is nothing
even on vase-paintings to match the nude bodies or the winged god for
half a century to come.
The subjects are equally puzzling. In the long slab the male god must be
Love, or (as I rather think) Death. The holes in the marble indicate
where the bronze balances he was holding were attached. The two female
figures obviously indicate Joy and Sorrow. The god is smiling and the
balance is inclined towards Joy. Close by the knees of the two women
are mysterious objects of marble which seemed to hang from the scales
and actually supported them. On each is a nude male figure with hands
raised above the head as if in act to strike with the sword. The
architectural scrolls which support this and the corresponding single
figures of the new slabs seem to me to indicate a ship, especially as
there is a dolphin, the regular symbol of sea, under one of them. In
other corners there are pomegranates, a fruit associated with the
underworld.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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