The ancient Greek sculptor, Phidias, was widely considered the finest of all of ancient Greece. He created the sculptures that reside at the Parthenon, which is considered the most important structure in Ancient Greece and his sculptures the most important of all Greek art. The Parthenon was a temple to the Greek goddess Athena; it’s massive construction a testament to the religion of the Greeks. The Greeks sought not to consume their lives with religion, only to honor it and use it as a way to further their understanding of that which could not be understood. Phidias sculptures were not just the work of a master craftsman; these sculptures employed what is now known as the golden ratio, that is an irrational mathematical constant which has been found to occur in the natural world. These sculptures were the pinnacle of art as aesthetic, but this was also due in part to the golden ratio, which is universally recognized now as the height of aesthetic. Phidias combination of mathematics and his own fantastic understanding of aesthetic to create this incredible works which stand up today as not only excellent works of the time but excellent works in general. In the creation of these sculptures Phidias had assimilated the ideal of Greek culture into a stunning, almost perfect display of form. By combining the mathematical, the spiritual, and the artistic, Phidias had created something more valuable than could be achieved through only one of these mediums. This is what the ancient Greeks sought to do. Through the integration of these three subjects into their culture, the Greeks sought to understand the almost intangible forms that make up our world. These sculptures and their ideals not only defined an era, but also allowed for progress towards a new one.
The information provided on Phidias is very intriguing. However, this group believes that the Parthenon was not only built for spiritual or aesthetic purposes, but for scientific purposes as well. The Athenians were one of the first peoples to institute a direct democracy and the Parthenon was a piece of architecture that stood to glorify this achievement. At this time, democracy constituted a sort of science because it was constructed to gain purposeful results. The Parthenon served as the treasury to the Delian League, which was a coalition of powerful Greek city-states. Furthermore, the stated take on the Golden ratio focuses too much on its aesthetic use and not its scientific use. The golden ratio serves to create the structures of plant stems and is used with the Fibonacci spiral, a spiral that determines the sequence of flower petals.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the group does agree with the focus on the aesthetic structure and religion. The temple was obviously built to please the eye and serve the gods. This suggests that the gods themselves were expected to be aesthetically pleasing. The statue of Athena Parthenos, definitely exhibits the value the Greeks placed on good-looking humans. This statue even goes on to imply that better-looking humans are more god-like.
Finally, the group believes that the Greeks were not seeking to understand the supernatural, but to cope with it. The Greeks understood that they could not understand fate, as displayed by Oedipus. They simply hoped to keep their faith and stay positive, while dealing with the various tragedies that occur during life.
Cody Dunn, Carlton Lew, Stephen Hwang, Tyler Wong
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