Main entry:

Boardman, John, 1927-

Title & Author:

The Parthenon and its sculptures / John Boardman ; photographs by David Finn.

Publication:

London : Thames and Hudson, ©1985.

Description:

256 pages : illustrations (some color), 1 map ; 32 cm

Notes:
Ill on lining papers.
"In this book the most powerful and the most moving scenes and fragments from this monumental body of work are displayed in photographs..." --Front dust jacket.
Includes bibliographical references (p253-254) and index.
Preface -- The narrative: Celebration ; Destruction ; Conception ; Creation ; Completion. -- The plates: The pediments ; The frieze ; The metropes ; Captions to the plates. -- The evidence: The nature of our sources ; The later history of the Parthenon ; Athens and history ; The Great Panathenaic Festival ; The architecture ; The sculptures and cult statue ; The interpretation of the sculpture ; The Parthenon's role and significance, then and now -- Further reading.

Summary:

The Elgin Marbles and other sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens - the frieze more than 500 feet long showing hundreds of figures of men, horses and chariots in procession, the 92 metopes and the pediments which once contained some so statues, all larger than life-size - exemplify the high point in the development of the most influential tradition of Western sculpture. Created in the mid-fifth century BC to adorn the new temple on the Acropolis, built at Pericles' instigation after the expulsion of the Persians from Greece, they are testimony to that moment when the demands of pattern and the demands of realism were caught in equilibrium, the product of a humanist society in which man and the image of man were dominant, serving both civic pride and religious awe. In this book the most powerful and the most moving scenes and fragments from this monumental body of work are displayed in photographs newly taken by David Finn, a photographer whose capacity to render sculpture in a way which alerts even the most jaded eye has been admired and praised by scholars, art historians and present-day sculptors alike. Full-page photographs in colour and duotone reveal a wealth of detail and show the extent to which the Greek artists in fifth-century Athens mastered the subtlety of space and movement. The spirit of the time in which these works were produced, their meaning for the citizens of Athens, the methods by which they were made, the fine points of technique and illusion they conceal, the historical background, and the message contained in the myths they portray, are some of the topics covered in the narrative introduction to the plates and commentary on the surviving evidence provided by John Boardman Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the University of Oxford - whose accounts of Greek art and civilization are with little doubt the most accomplished and lucid being produced today. With 249 illustrations, 15 in colour.

ISBN:

0500013721
9780500013724

Subject:

Parthenon (Athens, Greece)
Parthenon (Athens, Greece) Frieze.
Sculpture, Greek.
Sculpture grecque.
Bauplastik
Sculpture, Greek Greece Athens.
Parthenon (Athènes ; Grèce)
Parthenon
Acropolis (Athens, Greece) Antiquities.
Athènes (Grèce) Acropole.
Athen Parthenon.
Greece Athens Acropolis Ancient Greek temples: Parthenon Sculptures - Illustrations

Added entries:

Finn, David, 1921-2021.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 75370
Call No.: ID:86-B132
Status: Available