THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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the athletic games, which invariably accompanied the national festivals, promoted physical strength and beauty, and thus became a potent factor in the new sculpture.
We are familiar with the story of the Persian wars. We know of the gathering of spoils from the Barbarians, which spoils permitted and enabled victorious Greece to lay the foundations of the fair culture of Europe. At the close there was a quickening of activities in every department of art. Sculpture felt the new impulse, and manifested new powers of achievement.
In Boeotia there was an independent development of naturalness in the male form. (See Col. Nos. 7377, 7379, 7400.) In Magna Graecia, Pythagoras of Rhegium recognized the result of the athletic games, and gave to the forms of his athletes a rare combination of strength, symmetry and rhythm, and more than this, they seemed to will, to act, to contend. Dr. Waldstern thinks that many statues that have been called Apollo statues represent athletes, notably Nos. 7380 and 7381.
Peloponnesan sculpture was under Dorian restraint, but it presented varying phases in Corinth, Sparta, Argos, Megara and Epidaurus. See Nos. 7427 to 7441.
In Attica sculpture was hastening on toward perfection. See Nos. 7461-62, 7467, 7501, 2, 3, 7533, 4, 7541-2 and 7559.
First Epoch, 460-400 B. C.
ARGOLIS.
On Dorian Argos Polycletus wrought such masterpieces that his “ Canon ” gave to sculpture its “ law of proportion ” for the human figure. So sublime was his temple statue of Hera, the revered goddess of Argos, that the world never produced but one artist that could surpass it. It has been thought that some of the noblest features of the works of Polycletus are preserved in Nos. 7433-4, 7358-9.
ATTICA.
The period of the highest art in Attica is the period of her supremacy in wealth, in political influence, in philosophy, in literature and in worship. In this golden time she placed upon the Athenian Acropolis the jewels of her supremacy in art. In this marvelous art was displayed a unique eclecticism in selection of materials and in choice of relative locations, and in it was manifested an hitherto unknown genius for harmonizing excellences and perfections, so it gave to the world’s admiration the Attic Doric and the Attic Ionic architectures. In this golden time the sculpture was worthy of its noble placing, for the artists had held to their high purpose of rendering only what they saw, what they knew and what they believed, and their reward had come. Again we must note the potent spell that the art of mythology had on the Acropolis, which had been created in honor of the tutelar goddess, Pallas Athena. Entering the leveled top of the Acropolis through the magnificent Propylea, one saw on the north the Plrechtheum, enshrining the most sacred object in all Attica, the olive wood statue of Athena Polias, believed to have fallen from Heaven. See No. 7481. To the southwest towered the bronze statue of Athena Proma, the Athenian goddess of war. Here and there were shrines and votive offerings to the deities associated with Athena. But there arose the Parthenon, a temple erected to Athena Parthenon. It can not be described; it can not be pictured; it can not be seen by the eye alone. One should seek it and lift the eyes toward it only after much preparation. The sculpture of the Parthenon was worthy of the temple—one can say no more. The frieze that represented the Panathenaic procession was.one of the marvels of all sculpture. One never ceases to be touched by the solemn sweetness of the maidens that take part in the ceremony, or to be thrilled at the spirit and movement of the mounted horsemen, or to be stilled into awe in the presence of the seated deities that are at rest in the eternal verities , the eternal blessedness. Nos. 7577, 7577b, 7506, 7513.
The sculpture in the west pediment commemorates the contest between Athena and Posideon for tutelar possession of Attica. Of Posideon only a mutilated chest