Phidias

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File:Varvakeion Athena.jpg, a Roman-era statue of Athena Parthenos considered to be the most faithful reproduction of the chryselephantine statue made by Phidias and his assistants, as displayed in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens]]

Of Phidias's life, little is known apart from his works. Although no original works exist that can be attributed to him with certainty, numerous Roman copies of varying degrees of fidelity are known to exist.

The earliest of Phidias's works were dedications in memory of Marathon, celebrating the Greek victory. His first commission was a group of national heroes with Miltiades as a central figure. At Delphi he created a great group in bronze including the figures of Greek gods Apollo and Athena, several Attic heroes, and General Miltiades the Younger. On the Acropolis of Athens, Phidias constructed a colossal bronze statue of Athena, the Athena Promachos, which was visible far out at sea. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and warriors and the protector of Athens. At Pellene in Achaea, and at Plataea, Phidias made two other statues of Athena, as well as a statue of the goddess Aphrodite in ivory and gold for the people of Elis.

In antiquity, Phidias was celebrated for his statues in bronze and his chryselephantine works (statues made of gold and ivory). In the Hippias Major, Plato claims that Phidias seldom, if ever, executed works in marble unlike many sculptors of his time. Plutarch writes that he superintended the great works ordered by Greek statesman Pericles on the Acropolis.{{Cite book|title=Understanding Greek sculpture : ancient meanings, modern readings|url=https://archive.org/details/understandinggre00spiv_292|url-access=limited|last=Spivey|first=Nigel|date=1996|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=0500278768|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/understandinggre00spiv_292/page/n153 154]|oclc=36645523}} Ancient critics take a very high view of the merits of Phidias. They especially praise the ethos or permanent moral level of his works as compared with those of the later so called "pathetic" school. Both Pausanias and Plutarch mention works of his depicting the warlike Athena Areia. Demetrius calls his statues sublime, and at the same time precise.{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}

In 447 BC, Pericles commissioned several sculptures for Athens from Phidias to celebrate the Greek victory against the Persians at the Battle of Marathon during the Greco-Persian Wars (490 BC). Pericles used some of the money from the maritime League of Delos,The Delian team was an association of approximately 150 Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire. to rebuild and decorate Athens to celebrate this victory. Inscriptions prove that the marble blocks intended for the pedimental statues of the Parthenon were not brought to Athens until 433–434{{nbsp}}BC.{{Cite book |last=Neils |first=Jenifer |title=The Parthenon: from antiquity to the present |date=2005 |publisher=Cambridge university press |isbn=978-0-521-82093-6 |location=Cambridge (GB)}} It is therefore possible that most of sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was the work of Phidias's workshop including pupils of Phidias, such as Alcamenes and Agoracritus.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

According to Pausanias (1.28.2), the original bronze Athena Lemnia was created by Phidias ({{circa}} 450–440{{nbsp}}BC) for Athenians living on Lemnos. He described it as "the best of all Pheidias's works to see". Adolf Furtwängler suggested that he found a copy of the Athena Lemnia in a statue of which the head is located in Bologna and the body is at Dresden. Some 5th-century{{nbsp}}BC torsos of Athena have been found at Athens. The torso of Athena in the École des Beaux-Arts at Paris, which has lost its head, gives some idea of what the original statue may have looked like.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

Image:Statue of Zeus.jpg in an engraving made by Philippe Galle in 1572, from a drawing by Maarten van Heemskerck]]

For the ancient Greeks, two works of Phidias far outshone all others: the colossal chryselephantine Statue of Zeus ({{circa}} 432{{nbsp}}BC), which was erected in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Athena Parthenos ({{lit|Athena the Virgin}}), a sculpture of the virgin goddess Athena, which was housed in the Parthenon in Athens. Both sculptures belong to about the middle of the 5th century BC. A number of replicas and works inspired by it, both ancient and modern, have been made. Upon completing the Athena Parthenos, Phidias was accused of embezzlement.Plutarch. Life of Pericles, p. 31. Specifically, he was charged with shortchanging the amount of gold that was supposed to be used for the statue and keeping the extra for himself. It seems that the charge was politically motivated{{snd}} a result of his friendship with Pericles, who had many enemies in Athens.{{cite book|last1=Clayton|first1=Peter A|last2=Price|first2=Martin |title=The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IQSBAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA62|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-74810-3|pages=62–63}}

Phidias supposedly weighed the gold robe of the Athena Parthenos to prove his innocence, but was then accused of impiously portraying himself and Pericles on the shield of the statue, which was apparently true.{{cite book|last=Salomon|first=Marilyn J.|title=Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens|publisher=The Symphonette Press|year=1974|page=105}}

Plutarch records that Phidias was imprisoned and died in jail.{{Cite book|title=Understanding Greek sculpture : ancient meanings, modern readings|url=https://archive.org/details/understandinggre00spiv_292|url-access=limited|last=Spivey|first=Nigel|date=1996|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=0500278768|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/understandinggre00spiv_292/page/n153 153–54]|oclc=36645523}}{{efn|According to Plutarch, Phidias was made an object of attack by the political enemies of Pericles. His workman Menon is said to have been at least partially responsible for his downfall: Plutarch states that Menon sat in the marketplace begging for protection in exchange for bringing charges against Phidias. He was subsequently provided with safety by the state and exempted from public duties. Accordingly, Phidias was imprisoned and died in prison at Athens.Plutarch, [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Pericles*.html The Life of Pericles], 31.}}

Aristophanes's play Peace ({{nowrap|{{Circa|421 BC}}}}) mentions an unfortunate incident involving Phidias, but little context is provided.{{Cite journal|last=Filonik|first=Jakub|date=2013|title=Athenian impiety trials: a reappraisal|url=https://zenodo.org/record/896899|journal=Dike|volume=16 |issue=16|pages=26–33|doi=10.13130/1128-8221/4290}}

According to Philochorus, as quoted by a scholiast on Aristophanes, Phidias was put to death by the Eleans after he completed the Statue of Zeus at Olympia for them.{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Pheidias}}{{Cite book|title=Understanding Greek sculpture: ancient meanings, modern readings|url=https://archive.org/details/understandinggre00spiv_292|url-access=limited|last=Spivey|first=Nigel|date=1996|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=0500278768|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/understandinggre00spiv_292/page/n157 158]|oclc=36645523}}

From the late 5th century BC, small copies of the statue of Zeus were found on coins from Elis, which give a general notion of the pose and the character of the head. The god was seated on a throne, every part of which was used for sculptural decoration. His body was of ivory, his robe of gold. His head was of a somewhat archaic type; the bust of Zeus found at Otricoli, which used to be regarded as a copy of the head of the Olympian statue, is certainly more than a century later in style.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

File:Workshop of Phidias.jpg

A significant advancement in the knowledge of Phidias's working methodology came during 1954–58 with the excavation of the workshop at Olympia where he created the Statue of Zeus. Tools, terracotta molds and a cup inscribed on the bottom "Φειδίου εἰμί" (Pheidíou eimí) – "I belong to Phidias"; literally: "of Phidias I am", were found here, just where Pausanias said the statue was constructed.[http://www.enotes.com/oxford-art-encyclopedia/phidias "Phidias", Oxford Dictionary of Art, e-Notes.com]K. Kris Hirst, "[http://archaeology.about.com/od/ancientgreece/ss/olympia_tour_6.htm A Walking Tour of Olympia, Greece]," about.com"[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0039&query=Olympia%2C%20Workshop%20of%20Pheidias Olympia, Workshop of Pheidias]," Perseus Building Catalog, about.com The discovery has enabled archaeologists to re-create the techniques used to make the statue and confirm its date.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

By 1910, mathematician Mark Barr began using the Greek letter Phi (φ) as a symbol for the golden ratio after Phidias.{{Cite book|last1=Posamentier|first1=Alfred S.|author-link1=Alfred S. Posamentier|last2=Lehmann |first2=Ingmar|title=The Glorious Golden Ratio|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gw-lqvE6fNgC&pg=PT285|year=2011|publisher=Prometheus Books|isbn=9-781-61614-424-1|page=285}}{{Cite book|last=Cook|first=Theodore Andrea|author-link=Theodore Andrea Cook|title=The Curves of Life|year=1914|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924028937179/page/n455 420]|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028937179|publisher=Constable and Company Ltd|location=London}} However, Barr later wrote that he thought it unlikely that Phidias actually used the golden ratio.{{cite magazine|first=Mark|last=Barr|title=Parameters of beauty|magazine=Architecture (NY)|volume=60|page=325|year=1929}} Reprinted: {{cite magazine|title=Parameters of beauty|magazine=Think|volume= 10–11|publisher=International Business Machines Corporation|year=1944}}

• Phidias (crater)
• 4753 Phidias, a main-belt asteroid named after Phidias.

File:Aphrodite Sappho Chiaramonti Inv1459.jpg|Head of Aphrodite. Phidian style

File:Zeus.in.Olympia.representation.on.coin.drawing.jpg|Zeus in Olympia, representation on coin

File:Head Pnyx Athena NAMAthens 3718.jpg|A copy of a work by Phidias or one of his pupils: head of Athena, found around Pnyx, now in the National Archeological Museum of Athens

File:Lemnia torso04 pushkin.jpg|Reconstruction of Athena Lemnia, Dresden

File:Testa di Minerva S.Giulia Brescia.JPG|Head of Athena, Roman copy

File:Apollo ivory mask.jpg|Ivory head of Apollo, perhaps carved by Phidias, looted in 1995 by Pietro Casasanta and repatriated to Italy in 2003

• Ancient Greek sculpture
• Pediments of the Parthenon

Footnotes

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Citations

{{reflist|2}}

• {{EB1911|wstitle = Pheidias|volume=21}}
• Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works, Part III of Stewart's Greek Sculpture, (Yale University Press).

• {{commons category-inline|Phidias}}
• [http://www.pokemyname.com/firstname_35958_phidias.htm Phidias as a first name in the US]

{{Phidias}}

{{Acropolis of Athens}}

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Category:5th-century BC Athenians

Category:5th-century BC Greek sculptors

Category:Ancient Greek architects

Category:Acropolis of Athens

Category:Ancient Athenian sculptors