(piano music)
- [Steven] High atop the natural fortification
that is the Acropolis in Athens
is the sacred center of the city
and some of the most celebrated buildings
in all of western history.
The most famous is the Parthenon
dedicated to the Virgin Goddess Athena.
- [Beth] We're talking about the 5th century B.C.E.
in ancient Athens.
This is a period we refer to
as the classical period,
the high point of Greek culture,
and all of this comes
right after an important Greek victory
over the Persian Empire.
- [Steven] The Persians controlled
an enormous area.
Athens and in fact all of Greece,
which was then divided into a series
of distinct city states, was tiny in comparison.
But miraculously Athens was able
to decisively defeat the Persians in 479 B.C.E.
- [Beth] For many art historians
the classical period of ancient Greece
is a result of the incredible optimism
and confidence, some would say overconfidence,
of the Athenians in this period
after the defeat of the Persians.
- [Steven] And the Parthenon is often seen
as the physical embodiment of that confidence,
and while the building was constructed
the sculptures, which are every bit
as important as the building itself,
took a few more years to finish.
- [Beth] So we're here in the British Museum,
which houses together with the Acropolis Museum
in Athens and a few sculptures in the Louvre,
the vast majority of sculpture
that was made for the Parthenon.
These were overseen by the famous sculptor Phidias
and sometimes we refer to the style
of the sculpture that we see here as Phidian.
There are three primary locations
where we find sculpture on the Parthenon.
Most obviously in the pediment,
the triangular area at the very top of the temple,
on both the east and west sides.
Below that, there're spaces called metopes,
in-between triglyphs.
And lastly, in the frieze.
That is a band of continuous sculpture.
The Parthenon is an interesting building
because it combines both Doric and Ionic elements.
The triglyphs and metopes
are typical Doric elements,
while the frieze is considered
a typical element of Ionic temples.
- [Steven] What we see here in London
or the examples in Athens or in Paris
are marbles that have lost all their color.
And it's important to remember
that all of these sculptures
would have been very high up
but were originally brightly colored
and this would have helped their visibility.
And that's especially true for the frieze,
which would have been atop the interior colonnade
and so would have been seen in shadow.
- [Beth] When the Athenians approached
the Parthenon on top of the Acropolis,
they approached the west side
and walked around either the north or south sides
to the east where the entrance was.
- [Steven] And that means that they would have seen
the west pediment first,
and then the east pediment.
This building is 2500 years old
and it has suffered terribly
and so has the sculpture.
And so what we're seeing is the result
of the terrible abuse that this building
has suffered over many centuries.
- [Beth] In many ways we're lucky
that anything survives for us to look at.
So let's start with the rest pediment.
The subject there is the competition
between Poseidon and Athena
to be the patron deity of the city of Athens.
- [Steven] But we know who wins
because the city is named after Athena
and, sadly, almost nothing survives
from the west pediment.
- [Beth] On the east pediment
the story of the birth of Athena.
- [Steven] And so right in the center
of the pediment, at its point,
would have been the God Zeus
giving birth to his daughter Athena,
who was born full-grown from his head.
- [Beth] Sadly those central figures are lost.
What we have on either side are the figures
who were present, some of whom are reacting
to the birth of Athena.
- [Steven] The pediment is traditionally read
from left to right and it begins with the dawn,
the god Helios at his chariot
representing the rising sun.
- [Beth] Athena was born at sunrise
so this makes sense.
- [Steven] The baseline of the pediment
functions as a horizon line.
It's a brilliant interpretation of the space
and it allows us to imagine the figures rising up.
- [Beth] And then we have the gods
and goddesses on Mount Olympus
present for the birth of Athena.
- [Steven] One of the figures
that is in the best condition
is the nude figure that we think is likely
the God Dionysos, the God of Wine.
And if it is, he looks like
he is appropriately lounging
perhaps with a cup of wine in his hand.
- [Beth] That Greek love of the human body,
particularly the male nude,
and the articulation of the anatomy
and the muscles of the body.
- [Steven] And while we see this figure at rest,
the artist has been careful to represent
his body in such a way that we know his strength.
- [Beth] As we approach the middle
of the pediment where we would have seen
the birth of Athena, it appears
as though there's some acknowledgement
of the action that's taking place
in the center of the pediment.
We have a standing figure
who seems to be moving away
as though in surprise
at the event that's taking place.
- [Steven] And the figure to her left,
even though the head has been lost
seems taken aback.
She seems to be directly reacting.
Her body seems to be jerking away.
And so there is this sense of the momentary.
- [Beth] Dionysos and the other seated figure
perhaps haven't yet noticed
the momentous event of the birth of Athena.
- [Steven] On the right side,
we have the famous group, the three goddesses.
And here we see the Greeks' extraordinary ability
to render not only the human body
but the forms of clothing that both
obscure and reveal the body below it.
For example, in the figure at the right,
who is reclining, if you look at the way
that the cloth wraps around her upper thigh
it is bunched up and so we know the thigh
is far below that cloth.
At the same time, the torsion of that cloth
reveals the musculature underneath.
- [Beth] But this isn't the way
that drapery really looks.
This is the Phidian style
that we associate with this classical moment
in ancient Greece where the drapery acts
almost like water flowing around the body.
- [Steven] Some of it is carved very deeply
so that you get these black rich shadows.
There's a nobility and a sense of luxury.
These are beings without care.
And then finally, at the extreme right corner,
we have this brilliant form of a horse's head.
- [Beth] And so on one side we have the rising
of the day with Helios and his chariot.
Here we have the end of the day
with the Goddess of the Moon.
- [Steven] And whereas the horses
at dawn are full of energy
and here the horse looks exhausted.
Its mouth, its nostrils seem almost
to be resting on the edge of the building.
- [Beth] Just below the pediment we find
a band occupied by triglyphs and metopes,
and on each of the four sides
we find four mythic battles.
- [Steven] So each side of the building
represents its own story,
and here at the British Museum,
the Lapiths against the Centaurs.
And all four of these stories
are really stand-ins for the way
that the Greeks saw themselves
in relationship to their enemy, the Persians.
That is, that the Greeks stood for civilization,
for order, and the Persians to the east
represented a kind of disorder,
a kind of chaos and barbarism.
- [Beth] The story between the Lapiths
and the Centaurs begins at a wedding,
where the Centaurs have had too much to drink.
- [Steven] They weren't used to drinking at all
and they decided to make off
with the Lapith women.
What we're seeing is the battle that resulted.
In several of the metopes,
the Centaurs are victorious.
In one extraordinary metope,
we see a Lapith who has been killed
by a Centaur.
The Centaur rises up on his hind legs
in victory, and the Lapith, whose body
is so beautifully rendered, lies below.
The body even in its damaged state
shows the nobility of the Greeks
and the Greeks' love for the human body.
- [Beth] In another metope we see
the victorious Lapith, who has got a Centaur
by the neck pulling him back,
while the Centaur himself seems
to be reaching to his back,
perhaps to a wound inflicted by the Lapith.
And what I'm struck by in both of these metopes
is the way that the figures
almost break the bound of the metope
creating diagonal forms that have
an incredible amount of energy.
- [Steven] Look at how the beauty
of that torso is highlighted against
the rhythmic folds of the drape behind.
This is clearly fiction.
In the middle of battle, you don't have
a perfectly splay drape.
But for the sculptor the subject
was clearly the beauty of the body.
Look at the way the Lapith's left leg
pushes out at a diagonal
as he tries to get a foothold
to help support him as he pulls back
the Centaur's body almost like it was a bow.
You get a sense of the enormous energy
that's being expanded here.
- [Beth] The center of this composition
is empty and the figures frame that center
creating these arcs that pull against one another.
- [Steven] This particular Lapith
is virtually a freestanding sculpture
but the Parthenon is also rightly known
for a shallower relief sculpture.
It would have been seen
not on the outside of the temple
but just inside the exterior columns.
- [Beth] So let's go have a look
at the justly famous frieze
from the Parthenon.
We should say that no one is entirely certain
what the frieze represents
but there is a general consensus
that the frieze represents
the Panathenaic procession.
That is an important yearly procession
that went up the sacred way to the Acropolis
in honor of the Goddess Athena.
- [Steven] And the procession would make its way
to one of the most sacred objects
in all of Athens,
an ancient all of wood statue
of the Goddess Athena.
This is extraordinarily rare.
In almost every other
ancient Greek temple context
we see images from Greek mythology,
we don't see representations
of Greeks of their own day.
- [Beth] What we're seeing
is an idealized image of the Athenians
as though they projected themselves
into the realm of the gods.
And we know that the Athenians
were incredibly self-confident.
They had defeated the Persians
against all odds and so this surely
must have something to do with the way
they imagined themselves on the frieze.
- [Steven] Close to the beginning
of the frieze on the west front,
you see preparations for the procession.
Look at the two figures on horseback.
Look how easily they ride on those horses
that seem full of energy.
The figure on the right pulls his horse back
and leans back himself.
The figure on the left turns back
to look at him as his horse scallops forward.
The naturalism in the movement here
is an amazing artistic achievement.
- [Steven] This would have been brightly painted
and in fact, the background
would have been a brilliant blue.
- [Beth] And there were also
metal attachments where appropriate.
- [Steven] And in fact you can see three holes
across the head of the horse on the right,
which would have originally held the bridal.
- [Beth] Look at the figures.
Their bodies are ideal and athletic.
They move easily.
- [Steven] There's also great attention
to the structures of the body itself.
The people who carve this stone
understood the musculature,
understood the bone structure of the human body.
There're 60 horses on both the north
and the south side.
There's incredible variety and rhythm
as these horses overlap
and move across this ribbon of stone.
- [Steven] Look at the overlapping legs
of the horses, you can almost
hear them galloping.
But as animated as the horses are,
the men themselves seem calm and noble.
- [Steven] We're seeing almost all of their faces
in perfect profile, which the Greeks believed
was the most noble way of representing a face.
Their mouths were closed as a representation
of their sense of calm and control.
And these were attributes
that the Greeks revered.
And here, like on the metopes,
we're seeing an expression of the Greeks' ability
to control nature, to control these powerful animals.
- [Beth] The next group that we see
are charioteers and actually
there was a chariot competition
as part of the Panathenaic procession.
- [Steven] In addition to the chariots,
there're animals
that have been brought for sacrifice.
Now, as we wrap around the building
towards the east end,
the energy that had existed
with the horsemen calms and slows,
and then here the series of women
who walk solemnly forward.
We see large seated figures.
These are the gods and goddesses
of Mount Olympus but interspersed
with smaller representations of standing humans.
- [Beth] And so we can differentiate
the gods and goddesses from mortal humans
by their size.
- [Steven] But it's extraordinary
that the Athenians are placing themselves
in the immediate company of the gods.
- [Beth] We see two figures,
an older male figure
and a younger smaller figure,
the gender of which has been debated,
and they seem to be folding a garment.
We understand this as the peplos,
which was regularly woven to clothe
the sacred olivewood sculpture of Athena.
- [Steven] And the figure immediately
to the right is Athena
but she has got her back to the peplos.
And look how beautifully she is rendered,
even here in this badly damaged relief sculpture.
You can see her easy stance on that chair.
- [Beth] We again see that very stylized drapery
that clings her right calf and her thighs
and outlines her breasts
and cascades and bunches up at her hips.
- [Steven] I love the way Hephaistos turns around
and looks back over his right shoulder
to address her.
- [Beth] We should say that
although there's general agreement
that this is the Panathenaic procession,
there are many anomalies.
For example, the fact that the Athenians
are putting themselves together with the gods,
and this has led art historians
to look for alternative readings.
- [Steven] These sculptures are 2500 years old.
It's no wonder that there are persistent questions.
No matter what is being represented here,
there is consensus that these are
some of the finest sculptures
from classical antiquity.
- [Beth] And so it's no wonder
that the government of Greece
and the Acropolis Museum are demanding
the return of these beautiful marbles.
- [Steven] But it's such a complicated issue.
When in the early 19th century
Lord Elgin removed these marbles
and transported them to London,
he had permission from the adamant authorities.
- [Beth] But that permission was limited
and interpreted very liberally by Lord Elgin.
- [Steven] What do we do with museums
like the British Museum,
like the Louvre in Paris,
which are fundamentally
the result of imperialism.
- [Beth] When the countries in Europe
were imperial powers and the objects
were often taken forcefully
or not entirely legally.
- [Steven] The question is, what do we do now?
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