Parthenon and its sculptures

The Parthenon in Athens is one of the most famous buildings from the ancient world. Its sculptures are greatly admired today. Here we take a closer look at why the building was so famous, and why these iconic works mark a key moment in the global history of art.

The temple’s great size and lavish use of white marble was intended to show off the city’s power and wealth at the height of its empire, under the statesman Pericles. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme centred on the Acropolis. The temple was richly decorated with sculptures, designed by the famous artist Pheidias, which took until 432 BC to complete. The pediments and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek myth, while the frieze represents the people of Athens in a religious procession. Inside the building stood a colossal image of Athena Parthenos, constructed of gold and ivory by Pheidias and probably dedicated in 438 BC.

Sculptures carved in the round filled the pediments (the triangular gables) at either end of the building. The pediment sculptures and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek myth, and include the famous head of a horse of Selene (the moon goddess) and the river god Ilissos. While the pediment sculptures and metopes depicted scenes from Greek myth, as was usual for the sculpture on Greek temples, the frieze breaks with all tradition as it shows the people of Athens in a religious procession. The Athenians on the frieze are not really portraits of ordinary people though. Instead, they are shown as an ideal community. The Athenians of Pericles’ time wanted to be remembered at their best by generations to come.

Pheidias was the most famous sculptor of all antiquity. He is best known as the artistic director of the Athenian building programme, including the Parthenon sculptures and the colossal gold and ivory statue of Athena Parthenos that stood inside the Parthenon. We don’t know much about his life. He trained in the workshop of Ageladas of Argos. He worked mostly in Athens but also transferred his workshop to Olympia, where he constructed in gold and ivory the colossal gold and ivory seated Zeus – one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

The Parthenon has a long and complex history. The building was altered and the sculptures were damaged over the course of the centuries. It began nearly 2,500 years ago as a temple dedicated to Athena.

Around AD 500 it was converted into a Christian church (the church of the Virgin Mary of the Athenians) and remained so for a thousand years. At this time, the whole of the middle section of the east pediment was removed, destroying a dozen statues. Part of the east frieze was taken down, and almost all of the metopes on the east, north and west sides were deliberately defaced.

Mainland Greece was conquered by the Ottoman empire by 1460 and the building became a mosque in the early 1460s. When Athens was under siege by the Venetians in 1687, the Parthenon was used as a gunpowder store. A huge explosion blew the roof off and destroyed a large portion of the remaining sculptures. The building has been a ruin ever since.

By 1800 only about half of the original sculptural decoration remained. From 1801, after obtaining permission from the Ottoman authorities, the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire Lord Elgin removed about half of the remaining sculptures from the fallen ruins and the building.

Elgin was passionate about ancient Greek art and transported the sculptures to Britain at his own expense. Their arrival in London made a profound impression upon European art and taste, at a time when the European Enlightenment was revising its idea of what art should be.

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