Phidias

Sculptor

Born: c. 490 b. c.e.; Athens, Greece Died: c. 430 b. c.e.; Elis, Greece Also known as: Pheidias Category: Art and architecture

Life Ancient writers regarded the Athenian artist Phidias (FIHD-ee-uhs) as the greatest sculptor of Greece. They applauded his colossal seated statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which was fashioned of gold and ivory over a wooden core. When Pericles—the leading Athenian politician of the fifth century b. c.e.—initiated an ambitious building project on the Acropolis, Phidias was chosen to design most of the sculptural ornamentation for the Parthenon. The interior of the temple housed his universally acclaimed gold and ivory statue of Athena Parthenos, the virgin, standing some 40 feet (12 meters) high and portrayed as a warrior deity in the full panoply of battle. A novel feature of the Parthenon was its 525-foot-long (160-meter-long) continuous frieze adorning the top of the exterior wall. Carved in low relief, the superb frieze portrayed the Panathenaic procession honoring Athena, when the people wound their way up from the city to the Acropolis to bring the goddess a great embroidered robe.

Influence The frieze gives a clear impression of the influential Phidian style of sculpture, which idealized human figures and successfully created the illusion of space and rounded form. Most of the sculptures of the frieze and pediments of the temple remain, controversially, in the British Museum in London, where they are popularly known as the Elgin Marbles.

Further Reading

Brommer, Frank. The Sculpture of the Parthenon. Translated by Mary Whittall. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979.

The statue of Athena by Phidias, in the Parthenon. (F. R. Niglutsch)

Cook, B. F. The Elgin Marbles. London: British Museum Press, 1984. Cosmopoulos, Michael B., ed. The Parthenon and Its Sculptures. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Jenkins, Ian. The Parthenon Frieze. London: British Museum Press, 1994. Neils, Jenifer. The Parthenon Frieze. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Palagia, Olga. The Pediments of the Parthenon. Boston: Brill, 1998.

William E. Dunstan

See also: Art and Architecture; Parthenon; Pericles. 644