forms with severe outline carved in a very low relief, the surface of which is not rounded but flat. The name of Selinus in Sicily, an early Megarian colony, has long been associated with some of the most curious of early sculptures, the metopes of ancient temples, representing the exploits of Heracles and of Perseus. Even more archaic metopes have in recent years been brought to light, one representing a seated sphinx, one the journey of Europa over the sea on the back of the amorous bull (fig. 26), a pair of dolphins swimming beside her. In simplicity and in rudeness of work these reliefs remind us of the limestone pediments of Athens (fig. 20), but yet they are of another and a severer style; the Ionian laxity is wanting.
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| Fig. 26.—Metope: Europa on Bull: Palermo. |
The recent French excavations at Delphi add a new and important chapter to the history of 6th-century art. Of three treasure-houses, those of Sicyon, Cnidus and Athens, the sculptural adornments have been in great part recovered. These sculptures form a series almost covering the century 570–470 B.C., and include representations of some myths Delphi. of which we have hitherto had no example. We may say here a few words as to the sculpture which has been discovered, leaving to the article Delphi an account of the topography and the buildings of the sacred site. Of the archaic temple of Apollo, built as Herodotus tells us by the Alcmaeonidae of Athens, the only sculptural remains which have come down to us are some fragments of the pedimental figures. Of the treasuries which contained the offerings of the pious at Delphi, the most archaic of which there are remains is that belonging to the people of Sicyon. To it appertain a set of exceedingly primitive metopes. One represents Idas and Dioscuri driving off cattle (Plate IV. fig. 66); another, the ship Argo; another, Europa on the bull, others merely animals, a ram or a boar. The treasury of the people of Cnidus (or perhaps Siphnos) is in style some half a century later (see fig. 17). To it belongs a long frieze representing a variety of curious subjects: a battle, perhaps between Greeks and Trojans, with gods and goddesses looking on; a gigantomachy in which the figures of Poseidon, Athena, Hera, Apollo, Artemis and Cybele can be made out, with their opponents, who are armed like Greek hoplites; Athena and Heracles in a chariot; the carrying off of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux; Aeolus holding the winds in sacks. The Treasury of the Athenians, erected at the time of the Persian Wars, was adorned with metopes of singularly clear-cut and beautiful style, but very fragmentary, representing the deeds of Heracles and Theseus.
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| from Furtwängler's Aegina, by permission of A. Buchholz |
| Fig. 27.—Restoration of West Pediment, Aegina. |
We have yet to speak of the most interesting and important of
all Greek archaic sculptures, the pediments of the temple at
Aegina (q.v.). These groups of nude athletes fighting
over the corpses of their comrades are preserved at
Munich, and are familiar to artists and students. But the very
fruitful excavations of Professor Furtwängler have put them in
Aegina.
quite a new light. Furtwängler (Aegina: Heiligtum der Aphaia)
has entirely rearranged these pediments, in a way which removes
the extreme simplicity and rigour of the composition, and
introduces far greater variety of attitudes and motive. We
repeat here these new arrangements (figs. 27 and 28), the reasons
for which must be sought in Furtwängler’s great publication.
The individual figures are not much altered, as the restorations of
Thorwaldsen, even when incorrect, have now a prescriptive right
of which it is not easy to deprive them. Besides the pediments of
Aegina must be set the remains of the pediments of the temple
of Apollo at Eretria in Euboea, the chief group of which (Plate II.
fig. 58), Theseus carrying off an Amazon, is one of the most
finely executed works of early Greek art.
Period II. 480–400 B.C.—The most marvellous phenomenon in the whole history of art is the rapid progress made by Greece in painting and sculpture during the 5th century B.C. As in literature the 5th century takes us from the rude peasant plays of Thespis to the drama of Sophocles and Euripides; as in philosophy it takes us from Pythagoras to Socrates; so in sculpture it covers the space from the primitive works made for the Peisistratidae to some of the most perfect productions of the chisel.
In architecture the 5th century is ennobled by the Theseum, the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the temples of Zeus at Olympia, of Apollo at Phigalia, and many other central shrines, as well as by the Hall of the Mystae at Eleusis and the Propylaea of the Acropolis. Some of the most important of the Greek temples of Italy and Sicily, such as those Architecture. of Segesta and Selinus, date from the same age. It is, however, only of their sculptural decorations, carried out by the greatest masters in Greece, that we need here treat in any detail.
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| from Furtwängler's Aegina, by permission of A. Buchholz |
| Fig. 28.—Restoration of East Pediment, Aegina. |
It is the rule in the history of art that innovations and technical
progress are shown earlier in the case of painting than in that of
sculpture, a fact easily explained by the greater ease
and rapidity of the brush compared with the chisel.
That this was the order of development in Greek art cannot be
doubted. But our means for judging of the painting of the
Painting.
5th century are very slight. The noble paintings of such masters
as Polygnotus, Micon and Panaenus, which once adorned the
walls of the great porticoes of Athens and Delphi, have disappeared.
There remain only the designs drawn rather than
painted on the beautiful vases of the age, which in some degree
help us to realize, not the colouring or the charm of contemporary
