Identifier: sixgreeksculptor00gard (find matches)
Title: Six Greek sculptors
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Gardner, Ernest Arthur, 1862-1939
Subjects: Sculptors Sculpture, Greek
Publisher: London : Duckworth and Co. New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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onality. But the colossal statues which they made have in no case survived, with the exception of a few fragments; and although we may infer something from the reflection of these great works in all later art, the Elgin marbles still remain the most trustworthy record of the work of Phidias. The date of Phidias' birth can only be inferred from the fact that the figure on the shield of the Athena Parthenos, said to be a portrait of himself, was that of a bald-headed old man, yet of a man still in the full vigour of his strength, since he was taking an active part in the battle of Greeks and Amazons. The statue was dedicated in 438 b.c.; and it seems a reasonable inference that Phidias was born about the end of the sixth century, a date that fits in very well with what we know otherwise as to his artistic career. As a boy, he would remember the victory of Marathon, and the glory it gave to his people of Athens and to their faithful allies the Plataeans, for whom also, in later years, he Plate XIX
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STRANGFORD SHIELD, IN BRITISH MUSEUM To face p. 82 PHIDIAS 83 was to make a statue commemorating their share in thebattle. As a young man, he must have fought atSalamis and at Plataea ; it was perhaps a reminiscenceof his valour on these occasions that led him to place himself as a combatant upon the shield of the Athena Parthenos, for the victories over the Persians were commemorated partly by trophies erected from the spoil ofthe enemy, partly by the more indirect reference which made the battles of the Greeks against Centaurs or Amazons a favourite theme in the art of the fifth century. This personal commemoration reminds us of the epitaph of Aeschylus, who counted his valour against the Persians at Marathon the event of his life most worthy to be recorded on his tomb. The pupilage of Phidias belongs to the time of the Persian wars. He is said to have workedas a painter also in his youth; the knowledge he gained would be most useful to him in designing the ornamentation and accessories of

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