CARYATID, AN ELEGANT LADY OF ATHENS

Is there a religious ceremony about to take place?

My sister Caryatids and I are thought to be libation-bearers or attendants for Athens’ mythical king Cecrops. That’s probably why we adorn the Erechtheion’s South Porch – his tomb was located just below. We used to carry phialai (shallow libation bowls) in our hands; the tips of our knees pressing against our gowns indicate that we’re moving, perhaps rhythmically in a procession.

You’re also columns; is that unusual?

No, caryatids had already appeared in the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi about 530-525 BC. We were installed on the Acropolis a century later. The Erechtheion may have been started as part of Pericles’ great building program on the Sacred Rock… or at least by 421 BC. It was mostly complete by 406 BC, but – as you can see, if you examine the molding just below our feet – some decorative details were left unfinished. Those final years of the Peloponnesian War were difficult.

Mnesikles, the architect of the Propylaia, may have designed the Erechtheion, but who was your particular sculptor?

That’s still a mystery. Some say we came from the workshop of Alkamenes, a student and collaborator of the great Pheidias. We are enchanting, with our thick braided hair, clinging garments and unique, crown-like capitals resting on our heads. The vertical folds of our peploi recall the flutes of an actual column. We do carry a lot of weight on our heads.

Where does your name come from?

One local myth claimed we represent girls from Karyai, in the Peloponnesian region of Laconia. Vitruvius, the Roman architect, wrote that we are Carian women from Asia Minor, who sided with the Persians and now bear the weight of our guilt on our heads… But these are apocryphal tales. We are Korai, elegant ladies of Athens!

But one of you is missing. Where is she?

You are speaking of our sister, who is now in London. The people of Athens used to say they could hear us mourning for her at night, after she was taken by Lord Elgin.

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THE CALF-BEARER, A DEDICANT COMES TO WORSHIP

You must be The Calf-Bearer…? One of the eldest members of the statue community here in the Acropolis Museum?

Yes, I was one of the first statues produced when the Attic sculpture workshops got started in the early 7th century BC. My creator is still unknown, but the experts think I was carved about 570 BC.

How do they know you’re such an early sculpture?

For one thing, I’m made of white marble from Mount Hymettus, just outside Athens. In later years, Athenian sculptors largely switched to using finer-quality marble from the island of Paros. But I don’t feel old-fashioned; I’m an original… an icon! I’m in all the guidebooks and school texts!

You sound a little… supercilious.

Who are you exactly?

From my inscribed base, you’ll see I’m a dedication offered by Rhombos, son of Palos, who was probably a top Athenian aristocrat – a member of the 500-Measure social class, with the necessary means to make expensive gifts, such as me. Some say I’m Rhombos himself, bringing a calf to Athena as a sacrificial offering.

How else can we identify you as an early Archaic sculpture?

Well, look at my features – the distinctive “Archaic Smile,” almond-shaped eyes and stylized hair and anatomy. And check out these impressive “abs,” just above my button-like navel. I used to go to the gymnasium every day!

If you’re so old, how come you’re still in such great shape?

It was those rascally Persians. When they ransacked the Acropolis in 480 BC, they knocked me down, along with some of my other colleagues here in this gallery. Later, the Athenians buried us, when they were tidying up. So, here we are!

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PENSIVE ATHENA, INSIDE THE MIND OF A GODDESS

If we may intrude on your quiet reflection, aren’t you Athena, the divine patroness of ancient Athens?

I initially had to compete for that role against the sea god Poseidon, but I prevailed… aided by a persuasive gift: the olive tree. That pivotal contest was commemorated in a sculptural scene in the Parthenon’s west pediment. My birth is featured in the opposite east pediment.

Would visitors have seen many tributes to you on the Acropolis?

This prominent hill was the seat of my cult – the foremost religious sanctuary in a city named after me. The Athenians were always finding new ways to express their respect, and to remind other city-states what a powerful goddess I am!

…You often appeared on steles such as this one?

My image regularly accompanied official steles. This relief (ca. 460 BC) may have been a boundary marker; or part of a treasury archive or solemn list of war dead. With my expression and heavy drapery folds, I represent the Severe Style, prior to the more idealized, fluid, lightly clad figures of the ensuing High Classical era.

Where might we have seen larger images of you?

The most visible was the colossal Bronze Athena, between the Erechtheion and the Propylaia. I was Athena Promachos, dressed in armor, holding a spear. This statue towered impressively over visitors as they emerged onto the Acropolis. It was so tall (at least 9m.) that sailors reputedly could see the tops of my helmet and spear as they approached from Sounion! With the sun flashing off my polished bronze, it must have been a glorious sight! Of course, the pièce de résistance was my gold and ivory cult statue, 10 meters tall, inside the cella of the Parthenon, created by the sculptor Pheidias!

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0063 Marble relief sculpture stele of Greek goddess Athena as pensive warrior

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KRITIOS BOY, A COMPOSED ATHENIAN TEENAGER

You’re a handsome fellow. You look quite distinct from the earlier statues around here.

I’m what the art historians call a transitional figure. I represent an Athenian youth (ephebos), in the era after the Persian invasion of 480 BC. I was also preserved by the city’s clean-up/burial operation that followed the wartime destruction of the Acropolis. You’ll notice I have a very naturalistic appearance. No more stylized Archaic facial features. Instead, I’m portrayed as physically relaxed, mentally composed; still standing erect, but with my body weight predominantly on my left leg.

Is there still uncertainty concerning who carved you?

Yes, but whoever he was he has masterfully demonstrated an artistic canon later embraced by famous sculptors including Polykleitos, Praxiteles and Lysippos. Through me, he shows that although the body has many different parts, it can be unified symmetrically, by applying a system of ideal mathematical proportions and balance. You could say that I’m the first “digital” statue!

Your hips are narrower, with one side slightly higher than the other…

That’s the “contrapposto” effect, where my back is beginning to curve like an “S”… one hip down and the opposite shoulder up. I’m named after my creator Kritios, the same sculptor who depicted those tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristogeiton.

Your humor is a little surprising, given that you appear so serious.

My austere expression is characteristic. I’m perhaps the best known example of the “Severe Style,” a forerunner to the artistic sensibilities of Classical Athens’ Golden Age. My contribution to Greek art has been partly described as a newfound attitude of calm, post-war confidence; a harbinger of the Athenians’ blossoming ideological and visual emphasis on individualism, within their increasingly democratic society.

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16 Kritios Boy,

Kritios Boy, c. 480 B.C.E., Kritian/Kritios Boy_arthistory assignment, Efebo di Kritios, Ο παις του Κριτίου (1988),

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NIKE, EVEN GODDESSES REMOVE THEIR SANDALS

May we ask, where you are going?

Into a temple; but first I’m removing my sandals as a sign of respect. I represent victory, a familiar theme on the Acropolis, heralded by Pericles’ artists through their various decorative programs – as visual reminders of Athenian military might and success. The recurring association between Athena, patroness of Athens, and Nike, goddess of victory, was symbolic and propagandistic…

Where were Athena and Nike seen together?

In the Parthenon, a Nike nearly 2 meters high stood in the open, upturned hand of Pheidias’ statue of Athena Parthenos – dwarfed by the enormous figure, which (with its base) was more than five times taller! Other Nike figures appeared in the temple’s pediments, on its metopes and even on its roof, adorning the building’s four corners. Affluent worshipers would have dedicated marble, bronze or gold Nike figures to Athena as votive offerings.

Where were you?

The Sandalizomene relief was one of the marble slabs that formed a balustrade around the Athena Nike temple, built in the 430s and 420s BC. The balustrade itself was carved by at least six sculptors during the last decade or so of the Classical 5th century BC. There were about 50 Nikai depicted, moving gracefully, clad in near-transparent drapery. We are offering sacrifices to Athena and erecting trophies before and after battles.

Did Nikai appear on the temple itself?

Ten gilded bronze Nikai adorned the roof. The temple’s overall decorative theme was the victory of Greeks, specifically Athenians, in battles against Persians or other Greeks. Pedimental sculptures portrayed the Gigantomachy and Amazonomachy; the frieze illustrated Marathon and other historical or mythical battles. This little sanctuary may itself have been a votive offering by the Athenians, in the last years of the Peloponnesian War.

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Nike Adjusting Her Sandal, c. 410 B.C.E.

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THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM

At the Acropolis Museum, the small details hold the key…from the soaring modern architectural features of the building itself and the ruins of an ancient, once-crowded neighborhood visible outside, to the scenes of women’s rituals and ancient everyday life found on Classical vases inside in the Acropolis Slopes Gallery. One also has to look beyond polished marble surfaces and stunning sculptural forms, however, remembering what is now missing, before one can fully appreciate the soul of ancient Greece.

Traces of once-bright paint still cling to Archaic Kore (maiden) statues; striding Caryatid ladies and graceful Nike goddesses attend to their sacred rituals; intricately carved original panels from the Parthenon’s metopes and frieze stand ready for inspection beside casts of their brethren now in foreign museums; while the view to the Acropolis and surrounding city, framed within the top-floor gallery’s all-glass walls, provides an inspiring bonus display to the museum’s already superb exhibits. Take a moment also to appreciate the friendly staff, the well-stocked book/souvenir shops and the excellent roof-top restaurant and café, offering delicious, freshly innovative fare.

The “face” of the Acropolis Museum usually seen by its visitors is that of a uniquely impressive sculptural collection and innovative archaeological display, viewed through an upward experiential ascent from the exposed sub-floor excavations and canted Slopes Gallery to the masterpieces of the Parthenon Hall. Recently, however, “Greece Is” had the opportunity to take abehind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the Acropolis Museum – a face normally veiled from public view, but which on close inspection clearly bespeaks the fresh, highly principled, progressive approach of the Acropolis Museum to the ancient materials in its care and to its mission as a leading museological and cultural institution. As Museum Director Dimitrios Pandermalis led us through serpentine back corridors, he explained that what we were about to see represents something unusual in a museum: a specialized, state-of-the-art laboratory for the meticulous study and extremely accurate reproduction of ancient sculptural fragments and entire artifacts.

In approaching its sculptures and other antiquities, the Acropolis Museum strives to achieve a full understanding of the ancient materials used, how theancient artists rendered these materials and how the objects have been affected or altered by the passage of time. Under the museum’s scientific andtechnological scrutiny, Pandermalis notes, the ancient artifacts themselves reveal the extraordinary passion with which ancient Greek artists once worked in order to “capture” the desired details. “This sense of passion, so remarkable today, is what the Acropolis Museum hopes to transfer to its visitors: It is about recognizing the details in the items exhibited and thus appreciating their quality.”

To explore, record and reproduce the Acropolis Museum’s treasured objects and the ways of ancient artists, Pandermalis has assembled a dedicated team of specialists, trained in disciplines ranging from archaeology, archaeological conservation and materials science to fine arts. They rely not only on previously established methods and cutting-edge approachessimilarly adopted by the world’s other major museums, but also on newly developed techniques and procedures created right here in the Acropolis Museum’s own laboratory. The absolute principle guiding their efforts is the need to achieve the highest degree of accuracy possible, a goal in which the museum is also assisted and advised through collaboration with thePolytechnic School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The methods employed at the Acropolis Museum, according to members of Pandermalis’ team, are constantly being evaluated, refined and improved through in-house experimentation and research.

The actual procedures behind reproducing an ancient fragment or artifact are a far cry from the ancient process of the Greeks and Romans, who employed a mechanical pointing device to transfer the surface topography of an object to a newly created work. This age-old technique involved a certain degree of artistic freedom which today is incompatible with the Acropolis Museum’s highly exacting standards.

To begin with, an exact working prototype must first be created, which will be used as a guide in the subsequent steps of mold-making, casting and painting. Prototypes of existing objects are rendered either by working with the ancient object directly or by scanning it using 3D computer graphics technology. In the former technique, a membrane-thin sheet of zinc foil is first tamped onto the surface of the ancient artifact using water and a fine brush. This protects the original object when it is placed into a container of silicone rubber to form a mold. Once the mold is ready, gypsum plaster is poured in to create a cast. For larger, heavier fragments or artifacts, a two-part mold is used, into which casting material is injected and centrifugally spun to allow a hollow, thin-walled final product.

For plaster, acrylic resin or bronze reproductions of small artifacts, initial prototypes are created through 3D printing of the scanned original objects. These “printed” prototypes are then used as previously described for the mold-making and casting procedures. (To make their copies more like the originals, the museum hopes to be able in the future to begin using marble similar to an object’s original material, rather than plaster.) The last major production step is painting – both of an artifact’s base color and of all its intricate visible surface details. Even existing signs of weathering, wear, tool marks and holes for original bronze attachments are reproduced to create an exact replica of the ancient artifact in its current state of preservation. Perhaps most intriguing are the minute details of decoration and especially texture, which the ancient artists included so as to depict more realistically the actual cloth type and fabrication details of a figure’s peplos (robe) or other attire. To reproduce texture, cloth thickness, stitching and polychromatic border decorations, the Acropolis Museum’s painters must employ “micro-sculpting” techniques and a program of experimentation with a range of colors and paint types until the exact ancient hues are discovered. The science, precision and disciplined artistic skills required for all of these procedures pay appropriate tribute to the inspiring original artistry of the ancient Greeks.

INFO

Opening hours: Mon-Thu 9:00-17:00, Fri 9:00-22:00, Sat-Sun 9:00-20:00 (winter)

Tickets: General admission: €5

• 15 Dionysiou Areopagitou

• Tel. (+30) 210.900.0900

• www.theacropolismuseum.gr