United States or Kenya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Whence that pearly skin and lithesome form; the proud, sweet mouth, the nose that Phidias might have taken for a model; the clear, spiritual, sapphire eyes, and the wealth of silky hair, that if unbound would cover her as with a garment of surpassing beauty? With such a problem vexing my curious brain, what sleep could a philosopher get?
'Some will have it to be the Jupiter Tonans of Phidias, and others the Venus of Paphos from Praxiteles; but I don't think it fierce enough for the first, nor handsome enough for the last.... Therefore I am inclined to join with Signor Julio de Pampedillo, who, in a treatise dedicated to the King of the Two Sicilies, calls it the Serapis of the Egyptians, and supposes it to have been fabricated about eleven hundred and three years before the Mosaic account of the creation. A bystander inquires what has become of the nose of the bust?
And we, who have still before us the remnants of her temples and statues, and learn from them what man can accomplish under the inspiration of great ideals, need not scan too closely her claim to appropriate the funds which she employed for so noble a purpose. For this was the great age of Grecian art, the age of Phidias, Polycletus, Myron, and Polygnotus.
But in the representative collection of casts belonging to the Cambridge Archaeological Museum, one may trace the career of Greek art backwards from Phidias to the rude idol. 'Savage realism' is the result of a desire to represent an object as it is known to be, and not as it appears. Thus Catlin, among the Red Indians, found that the people refused to be drawn in profile.
She gossiped with old Herodotus across the earth to the black and blameless Ethiopians; she saw the sculptured glories of Phidias marbled amid the splendor of the swamp; she listened to Demosthenes and walked the Appian Way with Cornelia while all New York streamed beneath her window. She saw the drunken Goths reel upon Rome and heard the careless Negroes yodle as they galloped to Toomsville.
Suppose that, in restoring the Minerva of Phidias according to the texts, we produced a dry, jarring, artificial whole; what must we conclude? Simply that the texts want an appreciative interpretation; that we must study them quietly until they dovetail and furnish a whole in which all the parts are happily blended. Should we then be sure of having a perfect reproduction of the Greek statue?
On the highest part of the platform of the Acropolis, not more than 300 feet from the entrance-buildings just described, stood and yet stands, though shattered and mutilated, The Parthenon, justly celebrated throughout the world, erected of white Pentelican marble, under the direction of Callicrates, Ictinus and Carpion and adorned with the finest sculptures from the hand of Phidias.
When Phidias and Praxiteles had their statues of goddesses unveiled in the temples of the AEgean, don't you suppose there was a passionate beating of hearts, a thrill of mysterious terror? I mean to bring it back; I mean to thrill the world again! I mean to produce a Juno that will make you tremble, a Venus that will make you swoon!"
In what consisted the real glory of the country we are never weary of quoting, the land of Phidias and Pericles and Demosthenes?
The high altar is of great beauty and richness, . . . . and also the tomb of John of Bologna in a chapel at the remotest extremity of the church. In this chapel there are some bas-reliefs by him, and also a large crucifix, with a marble Christ upon it. I think there has been no better sculptor since the days of Phidias. . . .
Word Of The Day