pediment-groups

Updated: May 17, 2025

The two pediment-groups and the metopes of this temple show such close resemblances of style among themselves that they must all be regarded as products of a single school of sculpture, if not as designed by a single man. On various grounds it seems almost certain that Pausanias was misinformed on this point.

Frank Bigelow Tarbell - A History of Greek Art

The young god or hero reclines in an easy attitude on a rock; under him are spread his mantle and the skin of a panther or some such animal. We possess but the broken remnants of these two pediment-groups, and the key to the interpretation of much that we do possess is lost. We cannot then fully appreciate the intention of the great artist who conceived these works.

Frank Bigelow Tarbell - A History of Greek Art

Each of these three compositions must, of course, have been designed by one master-artist and executed by or with the help of subordinate artists or workmen. Now the pediment-groups, so far as preserved, strongly suggest a single presiding genius for both, and there is no difficulty in ascribing the design of the frieze to the same artist. Was it Phidias?

Frank Bigelow Tarbell - A History of Greek Art

If this statement be true, it still leaves open a wide range of conjecture as to the nature and extent of his responsibility in this particular case. Appealing to the sculptures themselves for information, we find among the metopes such differences of style as exclude the notion of single authorship. With the frieze and the pediment-groups, however, the case is different.

Frank Bigelow Tarbell - A History of Greek Art

Observe too that, while pediment-groups, metopes, friezes, and reliefs upon pedestals would often be executed by subordinates following the design of the principal artist, any important single statue or group in marble was in all probability chiseled by the very hand of the master.

Frank Bigelow Tarbell - A History of Greek Art