COMPARISON WITH ONE OF THE NORTH METOPES 61

a girl, expresses some alarm in the customary Greek manner by seizing one end of her himation, or mantle, with the left hand, while with the right she clutches the other end of it, and drags it round her back to her right side. She wears a thick chiton, open a little on the right side and girt round the waist. Her right foot is thrown back with the ungainly but true result that the heavy material of the chiton falls straight down from the knee instead of following the bend of the leg. The same effect appears in the seated figure. We are calling attention to these details of drapery because their very heaviness, not to say ungainliness in parts, must, as we think, have been intended as artistic repose and contrast to the display of flesh, human and equine, in the other metopes. Observe also that the relief is very high. The figures are almost in the round, quite as much so as the Centaurs and Lapiths. Carrey's drawings of the missing women of the south metopes do not in the least convey this impression. We must translate them, so to speak, into high relief of this kind, with its deeply cut, strongly rendered, and heavy masses of folds.

Assuming that the central metopes of the south side had been sculptured for the most part in this massive manner, displaying a prevalence of heavy vertical lines, we can appreciate the purpose of the sculptor in seeking to produce by these means a general effect of repose in the centre in contrast to the varied and often violent action on the two flanks. And this element of contrast is the more obvious when we remark that while the groups on the flanks are all in profile, those of the centre, or most of them, are turned to the front, either fully, as in 19 and 21, or nearly so, as in 20,

two women turning away from each other; 17, a woman turning her back to a man who stands to front; 13, a woman standing to front and a youth turning away a little; 14, a woman to the front and a youth rushing away in fear, not of her, obviously, but of something which is happening outside. In short, we have in these central metopes a peaceful scene which is beginning to be broken into by a disturbance from without.

The disturbance has, in fact, begun very seriously. Already five of the Lapith maidens have been seized by Centaurs and carried outside, two on the left of the central group, 10 and 12, and three on the right, 22, 25, and 29. The danger is close at hand. In one instance, 22, the Lapith maiden is being seized hold of at the very side of her two sisters, who approach the sacred image for protection, 21. Of these two, possibly the one on the right with her breast bare has just escaped. The earliest victim was doubtless the one farthest from the centre on the right, 29, which metope we possess in the Museum. The Centaur has had time to throw her up in his arms and make off. In the instances nearer the centre the action is less complete, and in the metope nearest the centre the scene is almost sentimental. Thus a certain gradation of effect seems to have been intended.

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In preparing a series of detached groups of sculpture such ! as the metopes of a Doric temple, it was a difficult task for a sculptor to find some common bond of union for them all. In the temple of Zeus at Olympia there were only twelve metopes. In that case, the twelve labours of Heracles supplied a satisfactory bond of union, and were

appropriate to a national temple. On the Theseum, as it is called, at Athens, the labours of Theseus suggested themselves naturally for the metopes, but as these labours could not be multiplied so as to extend round the whole building, the side metopes were left blank. The archaic metopes which have survived from the Doric temples of Selinus in Sicily appear to have little connection with each other. But there is a wide difference between archaic times, when legends of doughty deeds were so much in favour as to need little coherency one with the other, and the comparatively later times of the Parthenon, when the Greek mind had become more critical, demanding at every turn cause, origin, or association of ideas. On the short ends of the Parthenon, each with only fourteen metopes, we see how one subject could be divided up into the required number of detached groups with no artistic bond uniting them. On the west end was the Amazonomachia, and on the east the Gigantomachia. In these instances the continuity of the subject must have been easily recognisable from the well-known types and attributes of the deities as compared with the giants. The Amazons wearing their peculiar dress and mounted on horseback could be equally well distinguished from the Greeks fighting on foot. But when it came to the long sides of the Parthenon, each with its thirty-two metopes, the problem assumed proportions which it had never reached before. For the first time in art a magnificent effort was made to introduce an artistic centre to the whole series, which should serve obviously as at once cause and effect. The archaic idea of any number of separate legendary groups collected together without any

association except as legends was brought to an end by Pheidias when he applied to it the rationalising spirit of his day on the Parthenon, giving to the whole series of south metopes an artistic unity which was dependent on the central group. No wonder that thereafter we see little of metopes on Greek temples.

We may now examine in detail the Centaur metopes which have survived from the south side of the Parthenon. One would almost have expected that the Centaurs on the left would have rushed uniformly to the left, those on the right to the right. But the sculptor's conception of the scene appears rather to have been that of a general scrimmage. Accordingly, when we look at the series as a whole, they seem to throw themselves into pairs set back to back (1, 2), or face to face (2, 3), while again two groups may be regarded as following one after the other (3, 4). Nos. 4, 5 again present the scheme of back to back. The result is a sense of balance and harmony in the composition, which is greatly aided by the several groups being kept in profile as far as possible, while at the same time the general idea of a scrimmage is kept in view by the irregularity with which the confronting and opposing groups follow each other.

In the Centaur groups in the British Museum the figures are sculptured in very high relief. In some parts they are entirely severed from the background. There are certain marked differences. For instance, most of the metopes keep the forms of the Centaur and Lapith, though they are in close conflict, as separate as possible, the contours of each figure showing against deep shadow. In some

instances the effect seems spotty and unpleasant in the diffused light of the Elgin Room. In the open air, for which the metopes were intended, there would doubtless have been no such effect. But the light which was probably good for these particular metopes could not have been equally so for others on the same wall, where only the outer contours of the group show against deep shadow, as in 2. Here the mass of the group is as high in relief as in the other metopes, yet within the general outline of the group there is a marked avoidance of strongly rounded forms. The Lapith is pressed close to the Centaur in such a manner that the two together convey the impression of a low relief, detachable from the background and brought forward in a mass, as if the intention of the sculptor had been to get rid of those strong inner shadows which characterise the other metopes we have referred to. The comparative flatness of this group is the more noticeable because the body of the Centaur is actually kept flatter than the others to allow the legs of the Lapith to come in front of it; while again the head of the Centaur, instead of being set against deep shadow, is set against the mantle of the Lapith, the folds of which occupy to a large extent the place of the shadow. But as a whole it is like a Greek bronze relief, in which the figures have been embossed in a separate piece and then soldered on to a flat background. In such bronze reliefs it was necessary to keep the figures as close and compact as possible; in the marble it was not so. In any case, we must allow that a sculptor who had to produce no less than twenty-three metopes-each with exactly the same subject of

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