What is the significance of the Parthenon friezes?
Traditionally scholars of Greek art and architecture have believed that the Parthenon Friezes depict a Panathenaic procession, which was an element of the popular Panathenaic festival celebrated on the day of Athena’s birth.
What is the purpose of the images on the Parthenon?
Here they are meant to offer a sacrifice. The images on the building’s frieze mimic what would actually occur in reality: a procession of individuals would come up the Acropolis and weave their way to the front of the temple in the culmination of the large festival to Athena Parthenos.
How are the sculptures at the Parthenon executed?
The sculptures are executed in low relief and depict the people of Athens in two processions that begin at the southwest corner and parade in opposite directions until they converge over the door of the cella at the east end of the Parthenon.
Who numbered the frieze blocks in the Parthenon?
The system of numbering the frieze blocks dates back to Adolf Michaelis's 1871 work Der Parthenon, and since then Ian Jenkins has revised this scheme in the light of recent discoveries.
What does the frieze on the Parthenon represent?
The traditional interpretation of the Parthenon frieze is that it depicts, in some sense, a Panathenaic procession, part of the festival of the same name celebrated each year on the occasion of Athena's birthday.
What is shown on the Ionic frieze of the Parthenon?
The Parthenon frieze runs around the upper edge of the temple wall of the Parthenon. On the north, west, and south the frieze portrays a procession of horsemen, musicians, and sacrificial animals.
Who appears in human form on the Ionic frieze of the Parthenon?
The sculpted decoration of the Parthenon included ninety-two metopes showing scenes of mythical battle. Those on the south flank of the temple included a series featuring human Lapiths in mortal combat with Centaurs. The Centaurs were part-man and part-horse, thus having a civil and a savage side to their nature.
Where is the frieze on the Parthenon?
the cellaThe frieze of the Parthenon is a long sculpted band of Pentelic marble on the top of the exterior wall of the cella (the central building inside the colonnade) and above the columns of the end porches. It was probably carved from 449 and installed by 440 BCE.
What does the Parthenon represent?
The Parthenon has long been upheld as a symbol of democracy. The ideal of rule by the people was established in Greece as a political system at the same time as the Parthenon was built, the mid-fifth century BCE.
What is the subject theme on the Parthenon's Ionic frieze?
Unlike the metopes, the frieze has a single subject on all four sides. On three sides (north, west, and south) it depicts a procession of horsemen, musicians, sacrificial animals, and other figures with various ritual functions.
What was notable about the depiction of Greeks on the Ionic frieze of the Parthenon?
What was notable about the depiction of Greeks on the Ionic frieze of the Parthenon? The Athenians were shown as allies of the Spartans. It shows the earliest-known interaction between gods and men.
What is a frieze in Greek architecture?
frieze, in Greco-Roman Classical architecture, the middle of the three main divisions of an entablature (section resting on the capital). The frieze is above the architrave and below the cornice (in a position that could be quite difficult to view).
How many friezes does the Parthenon have?
The Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum are 247 feet (around 75 metres) of the original 524 feet (around 160 metres) of frieze, 15 of the 92 metopes, 17 figures from the two pediments, and various pieces of architecture from the building.
Who made the Parthenon frieze?
PhidiasParthenon Frieze / ArtistThe Parthenon frieze is a marble sculpture that adorned the upper part of the Parthenon temple. It was constructed between c. 443 and 437 BC, most likely under the supervision of the Greek sculptor, Pheidias. The original frieze measures 160 meters in length but only about 80% of it survives today.
What is being brought to Athens during the Panathenaic procession as shown on the Parthenon frieze?
In the middle of the east end, above the entrance to the temple, is the high point of the Panathenaia, Athens' most important festival lasting several days. The procession ends with the giving of the peplos, the gift of the Athenian people to the cult statue of the goddess.
Why is the Parthenon so special in the history of architecture?
The Parthenon is unique for its proportion and for the way it was built. The Parthenon is the final result of a long course of development of the Doric order, which had begun at least 250 years earlier. It is built from Pentelic marble. The precision with which the marble was worked is astonishing.
What is an Ionic frieze?
The frieze in ancient temples was a continuous zone of panels, usually adorned with carved reliefs, which in Ionic-style buildings replaced the metopes above the columns of the outer colonnade. The Ionic frieze incorporated into the Doric Parthenon wrapped around the outer, upper walls of the cella – the temple proper.
Which statement best explains the exceptional nature of the depiction of Greeks in the Ionic frieze on the Parthenon?
Which statement best explains the exceptional nature of the depiction of Greeks in the Ionic frieze on the Parthenon? t depicts a real human event (the Athenian Panathenaic Festival), which had never before been done on a temple.
Where is the plaque of the Ergastines?
Plaque of the Ergastines is a fantastic replica of the on found in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Where was the plaque of Ergastines found?
the Parthenon"Plaque of the Ergastines" fragment from the frieze on the east side of the Parthenon. .
What does the Frieze represent?
As no description of the frieze survives from antiquity and many religious rituals involved secret symbolism and traditions left unspoken, so the question of the meaning of the sculpture has been a persistent and unresolved one. The first published attempt at interpretation belongs to Cyriacus of Ancona in the 15th century, who referred to it as the “victories of Athens in the time of Pericles ”. What is now the more accepted view of the piece, however, namely that it depicts the Greater Panathenaic procession from the Leokoreion by the Dipylon Gate, to the Acropolis, was mooted by Stuart and Revett in the second volume of their Antiquities of Athens, 1787. Subsequent interpretations have built largely on this theory, even if they disallow that a temple sculpture could represent a contemporary event rather than a mythological or historical one. It has only been in recent years that an alternative thesis in which the frieze depicts the founding myth of the city of Athens instead of the festival pompe has emerged.
What is the Parthenon frieze?
The Parthenon frieze is the defining monument of the High Classical style of Attic sculpture. It stands between the gradual eclipse of the Severe style, as witnessed on the Parthenon metopes, and the evolution of the Late Classical Rich style, exemplified by the Nike balustrade.
How many blocks are there in the Parthenon?
It is composed of 114 blocks of an average 1.22 meters in length, depicting two parallel files in procession. It was a particular novelty of the Parthenon that the cella carries an Ionic frieze over the hexastyle pronaos rather than Doric metopes, as would have been expected of a Doric temple.
What is the numbering system for the frieze blocks?
The convention, here preserved, is that blocks are numbered in Roman and figures in Arabic numerals, the figures are numbered left to right against the direction of the procession on the north and west and with it on the south.
When was the Parthenon frieze sculpted?
The Parthenon frieze is the high-relief pentelic marble sculpture created to adorn the upper part of the Parthenon ’s naos. It was sculpted between c. 443 and 437 BC , most likely under the direction of Pheidias.
How many horses are on the south frieze?
Next are the four-horse chariots, each with charioteer and armed passenger, there are ten on the south frieze and eleven on the north. Since these passengers are sometimes depicted as dismounting they may be taken to represent the apobatai, participants in the ceremonial race found in Attica and Boeotia.
What instruments did the women celebrants carry?
The priestesses carry the sacrificial instruments and paraphernalia including the phiale ( phial or jug), oinochoai (wine jars), thymiaterion ( incense burner), and in the case of E50–51, evidently they have just handed the marshal E49 a kanoun, making the girl the kanephoros. The next groups E18–23, E43–46, are problematic. Six on the left and four on the right, if one does not count two other figures who may or may not be marshals, then this group might be taken to be the ten eponymous heroes who gave their names to the ten tribes. Their proximity to the deities indicates their importance, but selecting differently, then nine of them may be the archons of the polis or athlothetai officials who managed the procession; there is insufficient iconographic evidence to determine which interpretation is correct.
When Was the Parthenon Built?
In 447 B.C. , some 33 years after the Persian invasion, Pericles commenced building the Parthenon to replace the earlier temple. The massive structure was dedicated in 438 B.C.
What is the Parthenon dedicated to?
Dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the Parthenon sits high atop a compound of temples known as the Acropolis of Athens. Throughout the centuries, the Parthenon withstood earthquakes, fire, wars, explosions and looting yet remains, although battered, a powerful symbol of Ancient Greece and Athenian culture.
Why are the columns in the Parthenon tapered?
The columns are slightly tapered to give the temple a symmetrical appearance. The corner columns are larger in diameter than the other columns. Incredibly, the Parthenon contains no straight lines and no right angles, a true feat of Greek architecture.
Why was the Parthenon important?
Importance of the Parthenon. The Parthenon was the center of religious life in the powerful Greek City-State of Athens , the head of the Delian League. Built in the 5 century B.C., it was a symbol of the power, wealth and elevated culture of Athens. It was the largest and most lavish temple the Greek mainland had ever seen.
What are the square blocks on the exterior walls of the Parthenon?
Ninety-two carved metopes (square blocks placed between three-channeled triglyph blocks) adorn the exterior walls of the Parthenon. The metopes on the West side depict Amazonomachy, a mythical battle between the Amazons and the Ancient Greeks, and were thought to be designed by the sculptor Kalamis.
How many stones were used to build the Parthenon?
It’s estimated that 13,400 stones were used to build the temple, at a total cost of around 470 silver talents (roughly $7 million U.S. dollars today). READ MORE: How the Ancient Greeks Designed the Parthenon to Impress— And Last.
What side of the world are the metopes?
The metopes on the East side show Gigantomachy, mythical battles between gods and Giants. Most metopes on the South side show Centauromachy, the battle of mythical centaurs with the Lapiths, and the metopes on the North side portray the Trojan War.
What elements did the Parthenon combine?
Art historians talk about how the Parthenon combines Doric elements with Ionic elements. T/F
What is the Parthenon?
The Parthenon is a huge marble temple to the goddess Aphrodite. T/F
What did the Greeks think about mathematics?
The Greeks thought about mathematics as the way that we could understand the divine. T/F
Do right angles exist in a building?
right angles are not used in the building. the columns expand near their center and the columns are not evenly space. the metopes are of differing widths and the stylobate (temple platform) rises near the center. all of the above. a law court.
What is unique about the Parthenon frieze?
The inclusion of a continuous Ionic freeze is not exclusive to the Doric Parthenon. What is unique however is the depiction of mere mortals as the subject in the decoration of a temple in Ancient Greece. If we accept that the frieze depicts the Panathenaic procession we are confronted with the fact that the line between the divine and the human has been deliberately blurred not only through the formal aesthetic conventions as with other sculptures, but via an intentional thematic narrative that places the gods among the mortals or the humans among the divine. Perhaps in the Parthenon frieze we finally glimpse the definitive formulation of Greek thought into concrete iconography: the natural world and the human being as a divine entity worthy of exploration and immortality through the arts.
How long is the Parthenon Frieze?
The Parthenon Frieze. The Parthenon frieze, which runs on a continuous line around the exterior wall of the cella, is 1 meter high and 160 meters long. The sculptures are executed in low relief and depict the people of Athens in two processions that begin at the southwest corner and parade in opposite directions until they converge over ...
What is the frieze over the door?
The frieze over the door places the “peplos scene” at the center, while gods, and heroes, and women flank it on both sides.
Overview
The Parthenon frieze is the high-relief Pentelic marble sculpture created to adorn the upper part of the Parthenon’s naos. It was sculpted between c. 443 and 437 BC, most likely under the direction of Pheidias. Of the 160 meters (524 ft) of the original frieze, 128 meters (420 ft) survives—some 80 percent. The rest is known only from the drawings attributed to French artist Jacques Carrey in 1674, thirteen years before the Venetian bombardment that ruined the temple.
Construction
Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, 13.4–9, informs us “the man who directed all the projects and was overseer [episkopos] for him [Pericles] was Phidias... Almost everything was under his supervision, and, as we have said, he was in charge, owing to his friendship with Perikles, of all the other artists”. The description was not architekton, the term usually given to the creative influence behind a b…
Description
The narrative of the frieze begins at the southwest corner where the procession appears to divide into two separate files. The first third of the west frieze is not part of the procession, but instead, seems to be the preparatory stages for the participants. The first figure here is a marshal dressing, W30, followed by several men preparing the horses W28–23 until figure W22 who, it has been suggeste…
Style
The Parthenon frieze is the defining monument of the High Classical style of Attic sculpture. It stands between the gradual eclipse of the Severe style, as witnessed on the Parthenon metopes, and the evolution of the Late Classical Rich style, exemplified by the Nike balustrade. What sources the designer of the frieze drew upon is difficult to gauge, certainly large scale narrative art was fa…
Interpretation and conjecture
As no description of the frieze survives from antiquity and many religious rituals involved secret symbolism and traditions left unspoken, so the question of the meaning of the sculpture has been a persistent and unresolved one. The first published attempt at interpretation belongs to Cyriacus of Ancona in the 15th century, who referred to it as the “victories of Athens in the time of Pericles”. W…
Influence
The earliest surviving works of art that exhibit traces of the influence of the Parthenon frieze belong to the media of vase painting and grave stelae where we may find some echo not just of motifs, themes, poses, but tenor, as well. Direct imitation, and indeed quotation, of the frieze begins to be pronounced around 430 BC. One example, an explicit copy, is a pelike attributed to the Wedding Pai…
See also
• Metopes of the Parthenon
• Pediments of the Parthenon
Sources
• Ashmole, B. (1972) Architect and Sculptor in Classical Greece.
• Boardman, J. (1985). The Parthenon and its Sculptures, University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-76498-7
• Boardman, J. (1999) The Parthenon Frieze: a closer look, Revue Archeologique, 99:2, p. 305–330.