Phidias (Pheidias)
sculptor and architect.
Phidias began as a painter. He was one of the three great pupils of Agelaidas. His earliest recorded work was a chryselephantine statue of Athena at Pellene in Achaia, Greene. About 459 he made a statue of Athena Areia for a temple at Platæa in Boeotia. To this early period may be ascribed his Aphrodite Ourania, the Apollo Parnopios, the Hermes Pronaos, and the Amazon at Ephesos. Before the end of the administration of Cimon (d. 469 B.C.) Phidias made the bronze statue of Athena Promachus which stood on the Acropolis. The history of the great chryselephantine statue of Zeus in the temple of that god at Olympia is obscure, but it was probably dedicated about 448 B.C. After this time Phidias was attached to the administration of Pericles at Athens, and Phidias, according to Plutarch, was made superintendent of all the public buildings. The colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena which stood in the Parthenon was consecrated in 438 B.C. (See Elgin Marbles; Greece, Architecture of; Parthenon.)
Column of one of the temples at Paestum, only four diameters high; one of the shortest columns known of the Greek Doric order.
Seroux
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Temple of Poseidon (Paestum: c. 460 BC), cad collection.
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