ART & CULTURE
ARCHITECTURE
The most noteworthy result of Pericles’ public-works campaign was the magnificent Parthenon, a temple in honor of the city’s patron goddess Athena. The architects Iktinos and Kallikrates and the sculptor Pheidias began work on the temple in the middle of the 5th century B.C. The Parthenon was built atop the Acropolis, a natural pedestal made of rock that was the site of the earliest settlements in Athens, and Pericles invited other people to build there as well: In 437 B.C., for example, the architect Mnesikles started to build a grand gateway known as the Propylaia at its western end, and at the end of the century, artisans added a smaller temple for Athena—this one in honor of her role as the goddess of victory, Athena Nike—along with one for Athena and Erechtheus, an Athenian king. Still, the Parthenon remained the site’s main attraction.
TEMPLES
With its rectangular stone platform, front and back porches (the pronaos and the opisthodomos) and rows of columns, the Parthenon was a commanding example of Greek temple architecture. Typically, the people of ancient Greece did not worship inside their temples as we do today. Instead, the interior room (the naos or the cella) was relatively small, housing just a statue of the deity the temple was built to honor. Worshippers gathered outside, entering only to bring offerings to the statue.
SCULTURE
Not many classical statues or sculptures survive today. (Stone statues broke easily, and metal ones were often melted for re-use.) However, we know that sculptors such as Pheidias and Polykleitos in the 5th century and Praxiteles, Skopas and Lysippos in the 4th century had figured out how to apply the rules of anatomy and perspective to the human form just as their counterparts applied them to buildings. Earlier statues of people had looked awkward and fake, but by the classical period they looked natural, almost at ease. They even had realistic-looking facial expressions.
POTTERY
Classical Greek pottery was perhaps the most utilitarian of the era’s art forms. People offered small terra cotta figurines as gifts to gods and goddesses, buried them with the dead and gave them to their children as toys. They also used clay pots, jars and vases for almost everything. These were painted with religious or mythological scenes that, like the era’s statues, grew more sophisticated and realistic over time.