Week 8

The Parthenon and the Athenian Acropolis;

The Museum, Imperialism, Colonialism, and Classics
480 BCE Persian sack of Athens
477 BCE Delian league set up by Athens
449 BCE peace between Athens and Persia
431-404 BCE Peloponnesian war

At the end of the painting are those who fought at Marathon; the Boeotians of Plataea and
the Attic contingent are coming to blows with the foreigners. In this place neither side has
the better, but the center of the fighting shows the foreigners in flight and pushing one
another into the morass, while at the end of the painting are the Phoenician ships, and the
Greeks killing the foreigners who are scrambling into them. Here is also a portrait of the
hero Marathon, after whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented as coming up from
the under-world, of Athena and of Heracles. The Marathonians, according to their own
account, were the first to regard Heracles as a god. Of the fighters the most conspicuous
figures in the painting are Callimachus, who had been elected commander-in-chief by the
Athenians, Miltiades, one of the generals, and a hero called Echetlus, of whom I shall make Reconstruction of the Stoa Poikile, Athenian
mention later. Agora, 5th century BCE
— Pausanias 1.15.3

Reconstructed depiction of the Battle of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile from Pausanias
Perikles lived c. 490-429 BCE,
Bust with inscription (Pericles,
son of Xanthippus, Athenian)
Roman copy of c. 430 BCE.
Vatican Museums
 Pericles, Funeral Oration 430 BCE

“Our form of government does not enter into rivalry

with the institutions of others. Out government does
not copy our neighbours’, but is an example to them. It
is true that we are called a democracy, for the
administration is in the hands of the many and not of
the few”

“I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens…for in

magnifying the city I have magnified them, and men
like them whose virtues made her glorious”

Key concepts: Democratic government, autochthony, Freedom,

Military prowess, importance of tradition, richness and beauty
The Age of Pericles by Philipp von Flotz, 1853
Civic/Hellenic Pride
Arete= Excellent
Kleos= Glory

From Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.34-46

 Parthenon 447-434 BCE
Historical Background: High classical (c. 450-400), Post Persian war (480), Delian League
Geographical/Urban context: Athenian Acropolis
Religious/Cultural Significance, function: Temple to Athena, Civic/Hellenic pride, Ritual, Treasury, Victory
Monument
Artistic significance:
Architectural: Numerology/refinements
Combined orders [Doric and Ionic]
Sculptural: Overview and reconstruction details
Stylistic formal analysis
Viewing and understanding the program
as a whole
Notion of Artist: Phidias

Phidias Showing the frieze of the Parthenon, Lawrence Alma Tadema, 1868
 Pediment
[sculpture in
the round]

Metope
[high relief
doric frieze]

Ionic frieze
[low relief]
Metopes
Centauromachy: South Metope 27 and 30
South Metope 4 Vase Painting, early Classical 480-470 BCE
 Amazonomachy:
Amazons= Persians?= “notion of the Other”

Metope from western Detail from Attic red-figure volute krater by the
part of Parthenon Painter of the Woolly Satyrs: Greeks versus Persians
c. 450 krater
Pediments

North part of eastern pediment of Parthenon, Jacques Carrey, 1674 South part of eastern pediment of Parthenon, Jacques Carrey, 1674

Western pediment of Parthenon, Jacques Carrey, 1674

 Above: Possible reconstruction of West Pediment, Parthenon, Athens Acropolis Museum

Above: West pediment fragments, British Museum

Drawing of west pediment, Jacques Carrey, 1674

Above: West pediment fragments, Athens Acropolis Museum

 Above: East Pediment possible reconstruction, Acropolis Museum, Athens

Above: East pediment drawing, Jacques Carrey, 1674

Above: East pediment fragments, British Museum Above: East pediment Plaster casts with horse fragments, Acropolis Museum, Athens
 Helios and Chariot
Hestia? Dione Aphrodite

Dionysus/Herakles?
Demeter Persephone Iris/Artemis/Hekate?
Ionic Frieze

Continuous Frieze
Panathenaic Procession (?)
West, south and north frieze: riders
Hera and Zeus Peplos scene Athena and Hephaistos

Hermes Dionysus Demeter Ares Poseidon Apollo Artemis Aphrodite w/ Eros

Myth or Actuality?

Panathenaia? [specific/generic?]

Peplos= techne/ importance of craft

 Above: Reconstruction

Bronze statuette dedicated by

Meleso from the Acropolis ca.
470s-450s BCE
Greek coin with Athena Promachos
Left: Nashville 12.5m
Right: ROM 11.5m 1:10 ratio

Athena Parthenos Chryselephantine statue

Athena Varvakeion, Roman Athena parthenos nashville
2nd century CE reconstruction
Lenormant Athena
statuette, from Pnyx
Athens, 41cm,
unfinished. National
Archaeological
museum Athens.
Strangford shield Pushkin Museum Lenormant Athena shield Reconstruction Nashville Athena shield
Viewing context/Symbolism
and meaning Cult Statue: Athena Parthenos (virgin goddess,
protectress of the city); Amazonomachy/
Gigantomachy (shield); Nike
Cf. Athena Promachos/ Athena Polias

Acroteria: Nike

Pediments: East= Birth of Athena (in cosmic setting)

West= Contest between Athena and
Poseidon
over Athens

Metopes: Amazonomachy, Gigantomachy,

Centauromachy, Sack of Troy

Frieze: Panathenaic procession (celebrates the birth of

Athena), ritual peplos: Mythological? Historical?
Generic?
Temple of Athena Nike 449-420’s BCE

Nike (Victory) adjusting her sandal, from the balustrade

around the precinct of Athena Nike. c. 410-405 BCE. 3ft
6ins. Marble. Acropolis museum athens.
Erechtheion 430’s-406 BCE
Overall message of building program
Humanistic principles of 5 C BCE Greece (Protagoras)
Civic/Hellenic pride (Perikles Funeral Oration)
Positivistic attidue of logic/numerology
(Pythagoras/Polykleitos)
Glory to Goddess, patroness of Athens
Function as a religious temple as well as civic treasury

Some themes in sculptural ensemble

Repetition-message of victory and superiority
Order vs chaos
Victory over the Persians
Historical/Mythical foundation of Athens
Cult and ritual, past present and future
Agon: Competition and excellence
Part II: Museums, Imperialism, Colonialism
and Classics
 Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines
removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes
abhorred!

-Lord Byron

Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin

and 11th Earl of Kincardine, by
Anton Graff, around 1788
Inauguration of the Musée des colonies, 1931, Paris

Colonial and India exhibition 1886

The Great Exhibition: India No.4, Joseph Nash, c. 1851
Temple of Isis, 1788, Francesco Piranesi and Louis Jean Desprez Excavations at Pompeii, Francois-Louis Francais, 1814-1897
Hans Sloane 1660-1753

In the system that made Sloane wealthy, black

women sought out herbs, plant species that he
carefully identified and categorised, and used
them to induce abortions, determined as many were
not to bring into the world children who would be
born items of property and destined to live short,
brutalised lives.

--David Olusoga

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/30/it-is-not-hans-sloane-who-has-been-erased-from-history-but-his-slaves
The Townley Collection in the dining room at Park Street, Charles Towneley and his friends in the
Westminster. W. Chambers (c.1794-5) Towneley Museum. Johann Zoffany (1833).

Bust of Charles Townley

(1735-1805) by Christopher
Heweston, British Museum
1922 plan of BM
 At its heart, the APESHIT music video embodies a big fear of right-wing western imperialists – that people
of colour should have the ability to see themselves in a white cultural space. Beyoncé and Jay Z were not
simply spectators at the Louvre, they owned the whole damn place. For the first time in its history, it was
owned by Black people…These places are beacons of white supremacy, they were made by white people
for white people and represent imperial power in an aggressive, expansionist way. For that ideology to
work, I and others like me have to be structurally excluded from it.

--Hardeep Dhindsa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMqWXnpXcA&ab_channel=Beyonc%C3%A9VEVO
 Ashmolean Museum, Plaster Cast reserve

Victoria and Albert Museum

Removal of marbles from the Parthenon 1801, by Edward Dodwell.

Archibald Archer (1791-1848), The Trustees of the

British Museum, as well as the painter (right,
sitting), are depicted pondering the artistic and
humanistic value of the Parthenon sculptures
(1819), on display in “The Temporary Elgin Room” of
the museum as of 1817. Date 1819, The British
Museum.