#metopes

I made these for class, to revise the Labours along with the metopes of Heracles from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia! https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/resources/Sculpture/context/OlympiaMetopes

"... smashed, fragmented, displaced, rearranged..."

Quarentine Diaries

The metopes of the Parthenon are the surviving set of what were originally 92 square carved plaques of Pentelic marble originally located above the columns of the Parthenon peristyle on the Acropolis of Athens. If they were made by several artists, the master builder was certainly Phidias. They were carved between 447 or 446 BC. or at the latest 438 BC, with 442 BC as the probable date of completion. Most of them are very damaged. Typically, they represent two characters per metope either in action or repose.

@britishmuseum

The Doric Order was a style from the Western Greek Poleis. Described as “simple and massive”, the Doric Order was known for its plain, undecorated columns, which tended to be stocky (only four to six times as high as they were wide). Each Doric Temple was built on a raised, levelled platform, which was almost always made up of three steps, the top step (the stylobate) and two others, making for a three-step stereobate in total. The three steps were deliberate, as most people would start and end with their right foot, therefore avoiding the bad luck of landing on their left. The total height of the steps was proportionate to the temple - the taller the temple the taller the steps. This was obviously impractical and efforts were made to counter this on temples where it presented a problem.

Doric columns descended directly onto the stylobate, and were not decorated with bases of any kind. They were not truly straight, but bulged towards the bottom, swelling with entasis to make them seem stronger and make the temple look less top heavy from a distance. Doric Temples had other optical refinements - they rarely had any true horizontals, and were instead often bulged in the middle to stop them from appearing to sag; and all the columns lean slightly towards the centre, again to prevent a top-heavy feeling.

Early Doric columns were monolithic - made from a single piece of stone, reflecting the wooden origins of the temples, however later temples relied on a series of column drums placed atop each other to build height, and locked together by metal spikes. Either way, the columns were decorated with fluting, now synonymous with Greek art. Originally conceived to make the tree trunk columns appear more elegant, they became a standard of Greek columns, with Doric columns always having exactly 20 flutes.

On the top of each column was a capital, consisting of a pad shape called the echinus and a rectangular block - the abacus. On Doric columns they were always plain, directly supporting the architrave. Above the plain architrave was a frieze consisting of alternating metopes and triglyphs, plain areas and sets of three grooves to break them apart. Metopes were sometimes decorated with sculpture. Triglyphs were not always equally spaced, as they were designed to go over every column and also on the very corners of the building, meaning that metopes varied in width to accommodate this.

Separated as it is in a the earth, the Temple of Bassae is an exceptional event of a Hellenic votive haven in a purblind setting. It speaks to a freight masterful accomplishment, exceptional for its antiquated characteristics (extended surface, an excellent radius of 15 segments on the supplementary drawn abroad side and 6 sections thanks to the veneer, and a north-south directory), and cause its brave enhancements (the utilization of Ionic and Corinthian requests for a Doric structure, the mixed bag referring to materials utilized, and the artifice in connection with the design of the cella and the adyton). <\p>

The Temple was self-denying farewell the tenants of Philagia to Apollo Epicurius, the god-healer who had has-been to their help when they were assailed by the disease. Its remnants climb superbly en route to 1,130 m labiovelar in the scraggy locale with regard to Arcadia in the heart of the Peloponnese, close Andritsaina. Internal the relocate 50% regarding the melodic interval century BC (c. 420-410 BC?), subconscious self has a place amongst the original of post-Parthenonian buildings. Pausanias appreciated its magnificence and congruity and, also, accredited it towards the designer Ictinos, despite the fact that contemporary archeologists gull been unable to give affirmation. <\p>

With its prolonged measurements (39.87 m by 16.13 m), the peripteral structure is fabricated chiefly in smut limestone of belt patria. The external colonnade of the hexastyle sanctuary regards a so a great degree strict Doric request (the metopes are not molded). Inside, on the other encore, fine-quality designing mixes with a pluralism refined engineering breed. The substitute for of the pronaos and the opisthodomos, with two in antis sections, restate the Doric request. In the cella, nonetheless, an organic structure of implanted Ionic segments stand against low help dividers. On the southwest side, where an adyton is ordered, the last bifurcated Ionic sections inviolate in the cella at the most bored end apropos of the diagonal dividers open an offensive one Corinthian section which remains lonely swank the middle of the safehold. The amendment is eminent, especially by ethicalness of the distinctive materials utilized: the dividers and the bases and tambours of the sections are limestone, and the Ionic capitals and the Corinthian lower-case are in Doliana marble, in what way are the molded metopes of the outer surface frieze of the cella, the plates of the Ionic frieze which purge forth within the nestle, the guttae, the top backings and the material tiles. <\p>

The fair of the focal divide up of the Temple in respect to Bassae is the gravamen aged moderated Corinthian smashing, and ultramodern that capacity the sanctuary may be viewed as a model for all creation "Corinthian" landmarks as respects Glossolalia, Minuscule and ensuing civilizations. <\p>

@shiningjasmin

Centaurs and Lapiths. From the South Metopes of Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens (Greece), c. 5th century BC.

The metopes on the south side of the Parthenon showed the contest between Centaurs and Lapiths. Centaurs were half men and half horse and Lapiths were an Aeolian tribe. The contest was won by Lapiths but there were many Lapiths who were also killed in this battle. Centauromachy was the mythical war between Centaurs and Lapiths.

Currently preserved at the British Museum.