PHIDIAS, by common consent the greatest sculptor of antiquity, was an Athenian, the son of Charmides, of a family of artists, and exactly a contemporary of Pericles and Sophocles. The date of his birth is unknown, but it was sometime before the battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. His death nearly coincided with the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war in 431. His boyhood and youth were passed in the midst of the great struggle with the Persians and during the splendid career of Cimon in founding an Athenian empire. Beginning life as a painter, he studied the art of sculpture under Ageladas, a teacher of the Argive school, and was employed on the immense series of works undertaken by Cimon to rebuild and adorn Athens after its destruction by Xerxes.

He first comes into notice as a sculptor about 470 B.C., a little before the time when Pericles rose into prominence as a statesman. It was probably about 460 B.C. that his reputation was fully established by the colossal Athene Promachos, a statue of bronze which rose to a height of 70 feet from the top of the Acropolis. In 444 B.C. Pericles became the sole administrator at Athens, and so continued until his death, 429 B.C. "In name," says Thucydides, "it was a democracy, but in reality a government by the first man." An intimate alliance was formed between the greatest statesman and the greatest artist of Athens. Phidias became the close friend of Pericles, and was appointed director-in-chief of all the public works. The chief of these was the Parthenon, erected between 448-438 B.C. (see Ictinus). On the immense series of sculptures with which it was filled, and especially on the stateu of Athene, the chief glory of Athens, Phidias was employed for some ten years, in the full maturity of his genius. The enormous number of the figures in the Parthenon, probably exceeding 500, of which 50 were colossal, and the size and complexity of the Athene, which was of gold, ivory, wood, and precious stones, standing 40 feet in height, make it impossible that these vast works could have been executed within ten years by the hand of a single artist. But Phidias is universally spoken of as the designer and presiding genius of the entire decoration; and, although some of the metopes are probably of an earlier school, the colossal groups of the pediments and the whole of the frieze have the stamp of one master mind.

The enemies of Pericles, not venturing on a direct attack, sought to ruin him through his beloved Aspasia, and his friend Phidias. The great sculptor was accused of peculation in having appropriated part of the gold intrusted to him for the statue of Athene in the Parthenon. He was able to prove that he had used the full quantity (44 talents weight of gold); for the plates on the statue had been made movable. He was subsequently charged with impiety, for having introduced his own portrait and that of Pericles into the statue of the goddess. There is some evidence that this was a fact. Research detects in a late and rude copy of the shield of Athene the portrait of Phidias himself, in a head unquestionably taken from life, and wholly unlike any possible ideal type. He is "a bald-headed old man," as described by Plutarch, apparently of about 60, with an unsymmetrical head of the Socratic cast. This may represent a traditional portrait of the sculptor.

Under or in fear of condemnation, he fled from Athens. He was received with great honour by the Eleans, and seems to have transferred to Elis his school and his pupils. He worked at Elis apparently from 437 to 433 B.C. on the great temple of Zeus at Olympia, where he made the gold and ivory colossal statue of Zeus, the wonder of antiquity, and an even greater and more imposing work than the Athene of the Parthenon. He seems to have died in 432 B.C., in prison, on the second charge of impiety, though by some accounts he was condemned and executed by the people of Elis.

The principle works of Phidias, besides the sculptures of the Parthenon, were the three colossal figures: the bronze Athene Promachos of the Acropolis, the outline of which is preserved to us on coins, and the two chryselephantine statues, that of Athene inside the Parthenon, and that of Zeus at Olympia. Of the former we have the general outline in existing statuettes, and of the latter we have indications on coins, and busts supposed to be imitated. Of the effect of this extraordinary form of art, which Phidias is said to have invented, one which could arise only out of an almost idolatrous mythology, we can have but a vague conception. In those chryselephantine statues the figure was made of a framework of hard wood, cypress or ebony. On this were superimposed plates of ivory and gold -- the whole of the uncovered parts of the figures being of ivory, and the robes of gold; precious stones, chasing, and various metals being also employed. The Olympian Zeus was regarded as one of the wonders of the world; it survived for some seven or eight centuries, well into the Christian period; and it was uniformly spoken of with enthusiasm by the ancients who saw it. However much so complex and artificial a mass differs from our conception of plastic art, we cannot doubt the unerring genius of Phidias, and the unanimous verdict of antiquity; and we are forced to believe that these stupendous figures were the most imposing and beautiful ever produced by man.

The other principal works of Phidias were the statues of the Parthenon, of which the ruined fragments, known as the Elgin Marbles, present us with a basis of conception. Although we are unable to say that any single work is from the hand of the sculptor himself, it has never been doubted that the colossal figures of the two pediments, and the fragments of the frieze, spring directly from the brain of the master. The world is agreed that they exhibit every quality of the sculptor's art in absolute perfection. Technical execution, sublimity of conception, beauty, truth, dignity, fitness, unerring judgment, fertility of invention, and mastery of composition are all displayed in equal power, and in the highest conceivable perfection. If there be one quality which impresses the beholder first as well as last, it is ideal beauty and grandeur. Phidias is said to have declared that he drew his ideal of the gods from the description of Homer. And it is in the Homeric quality of serene majesty and simple beauty that his art excels.

His work is as free as that of Homer himself from any taint of exaggeration, affectation, false emphasis, or sensuousness. It is always at once sublime and perfect. It was a saying of the ancients that "the hand of Phidias alone of men could make the image of the gods." With this power of ideal majesty, he combined a full technical mastery over every form of plastic art. He himself claimed no other superiority except that of "accuracy of work." We are told that his skill was equally surpassing in representing the grasshopper and the bee as the gods of Olympus. He was a consummate master in marble, bronze, ivory, gold, or ebony; in sculpture, in relief, in engraving, in chasing, in enamelling; in colossal statues, and in the most delicate ornamentation of a moulding or a fringe. He had working under him, we are told, architects, sculptors, masons, bronze-founders, goldsmiths, ivory carvers, chasers, enamellers, and dyers. His genius was able to bring the work of all into perfect harmony.

His influence over all subsequent art was almost equal to that of Homer in poetry. Whilst all subsequent masters and schools had the defects of their qualities, the ancient and the modern worlds have never suggested a shortcoming in Phidias, or a single quality in which he was weak. Consummate judgment and unerring taste control the most sublime and lovely visions of beauty. It is significant that, whilst his representations of the nude surpass in knowledge and technical mastery any other known, we have no single extant example in which he presented the female form, even partially undraped. His Venus on the frieze, like all his other goddesses, is completely draped. Nor must it be forgotten that we have no single statue by Phidias, in the true sense of the word. The Elgin Marbles are all, without exception, architectural decorations. Even the so-called Theseus and the River God, sublime as they are, are the ornaments of a group placed in a pediment, 50 feet above the spectator; and, consequently, like the figures in the metopes or the frieze, they are entirely subordinated to the conditions of the architect.

Nor are we able to judge whether the great artist was equal to present human expression and emotion with the same power that he has presented the human form. No single head has survived to us uninjured of any of the larger figures that we can certainly ascribe to Phidias. But in the extant busts of Jupiter we may recognize faint copies of the majesty which he could give to the King of the Gods. We cannot assume that even Michelangelo or Raphael surpassed Phidias in power of expression; and they assuredly did not surpass him in invention, in knowledge, or in sublime and serene beauty. There is every reason to believe that Phidias was the most perfect and complete genius who ever appeared in the arts of form: the one artist in whom we find nothing wanting, and of whom we know no failure.

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