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Description: | Signed: yes Description: Alma-Tadema first saw the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon at the British Museum in 1862. The picture depicts the sculptor Pheidias (about 490-430 BC) showing his work to important Athenians, inlcuding the Athenian leader Pericles (d. 429 b.c.) and his mistress, Aspasia. Alma-Tadema depicts this pinnacle of Greek artistic achievement as a strongly coloured sculpture. It had been assumed since the Renaissance that classical sculpture was unpainted, expressing the purity and intellectual appeal of classical art. However, recent discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum had revealed the classical taste for sensual, vibrant colour, forcing scholars to reassess their interpretation of classical art and culture. Alma-Tadema's painting attempts to strip away false notions and recreate the Parthenon sculptures as they would have been appreciated by their very first audience, an image that would have appeared strange and rather alien to his own Victorian audience, familiar with the traditional view of classical art. Despite his iconoclasm, Alma-Tadema has absorbed Winckelmann's idea that the Greeks of the classical period were more beautiful and graceful than modern man. In their appearance and attitudes, these 'real' Greeks resemble classical statuary. Alma-Tadema has created an image of the classical past which would have seemed both familiar (in its equation between Pheidias' time and contemporary art exhibitions) and shockingly alien. | Subjects: | history (Parthenon frieze Pericles); figure Pheidias | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Alma-Tadema, Lawrence (Dutch and British painter, 1836-1912) Æ | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=9175... | Go to resource |
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