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.
the outlines are in a good state and reveal very fine workmanship,
especially in the treatment of drapery. They clearly belong to the next
period after the Parthenon frieze. From the platform in front of the
shrine there is a lovely view over the Attic plain towards Eleusis.
Beyond it, over Salamis and the blue Saronic gulf you can see the
citadel of Corinth and the distant mountains of the Argolid and the
Peloponnese. It was here that old Ægeus stood watching for the sails of
his dear son from Crete.
Pass through the wide portals of the propylæa. On your right was the
marble terrace where the little girls of Athens dressed up as bears to
dance in honour of Brauronian Artemis. Here was the group of Athena and
Marsyas, and here Praxiteles was to make his statue of Brauronian
Artemis. Beyond the Brauronian precinct was one of Athena the
Craftswoman. At this point the colossal bronze Athena “Promachos” of
Pheidias towered above you, 36 feet high. We have visited the Parthenon
already; to the left of it, just behind the foundations of the old
temple of Athena Polias, is the wonderful Erechtheum. This building,
though begun soon after the Persians had burnt the old “house of
Erechtheus,” and the adjoining temple of Athena built by Peisistratus,
was delayed by the Peloponnesian War, and not completed till the end of
the century. Here the task set to the architects was a peculiar one. To
begin with, the building was not a temple, but a house--the house of an
old Pelasgian hero; obviously it must not be of the Doric order. Also it
had to include a number of immovable sacred objects, such as the salt
spring which gushed up when Poseidon struck the rock with his trident
and the sacred olive-tree with which Athena defeated him. This patriotic
tree had sprung up into new life after the Persians destroyed it, and
had to be treated kindly. The illustration will show how the architect
overcame these problems with an unconventional building of extraordinary
grace and charm. The main building has a colonnade of six Ionic columns
in front, and a north porch of six Ionic columns projecting from one
side; at the west end a precinct of Pandrosos (daughter of Cecrops),
enclosing the sacred olive-tree, adjoined it, and on the south side the
lovely little portico of the Maidens.[65] This is its most celebrated
feature, from the figures of the six Athenian girls who carry the
graceful Ionic entablature. One of the Caryatids was taken to London by
Lord Elgin, and has been replaced by a terra-cotta copy. The capitals on
their heads are designed like baskets. I have already spoken of this use
of sculpture for columns in connection with the Telamones of Acragas.
The name Caryatids given to these figures in later times was derived
from the town of Karuæ, in Arcadia.
[Illustration: The Erechtheum: Modern Reconstruction]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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