Page 28 - Studio International - December 1965

Sculpture returns to AthenSThefirstPanathenreaofWorldSculpture

by Charles S. Spencer 2

PHOTOS: ROLAND ESSEN

What could be more appropriate. and more dangerous! as the guide books say. 'heaped benefactions on the
One can imagine the enthusiasm with which the Athenians.· He was rewarded with a monument on a
conceivers of the first of a new Biennale series planned hill which bears his name. The modern sculptors also
to bring modern sculpture to Athens. The masters of came as foreigners bearing gifts to the Athenians.
the 20th century assembled in the city of Pericles and And at the foot of the Philopappos hill is the so-called
Phidias. their works displayed on the hill of Philopappos Socrates prison; it was Socrates· great disciple Plato
in sight of the golden columns of the Parthenon-it who expounded the earliest philosophical justification
was a dream to excite the most torpid imagination! And for abstract art-'I do not now intend by beauty of
what a suitable title-'Panathenaaa of World shapes what most people would expect. such as that
Sculpture· 1 The Panathenaaa was an annual festival of living creatures or pictures ... but straight lines and
1 in honour of Athena. held in the late summer. which curves and the surfaces or solid forms produced out of
Max Bill
Rhythm of Space 1947 /8 Phidias represented on the frieze of the Parthenon these by lathes and rulers and squares ... These things
Granite (now in the British Museum). are not beautiful relatively, like other things. but always
2 Greece may not have been the actual cradle of and naturally and absolutely.·
Henry Moore So here we have the historic site. the sense of pilgrim­
Knife-Edge (Figure) sculpture-without the example of Egypt. Greek art may
Bronze have been long delayed; but in terms of Western art age and homage, the sentimental return to the source
3 its sculptural glory has been an unfading influence. of European sculpture. and the spiritual justification for
Auguste Renoir 1841-1919 And the site itself could hardly be more romantically
Standing Venus 1914 the experimental work of the 20th century. Why then
72 in. High appropriate. Philopappos was a foreigner, a Roman must I record a sense of disappointment; because a
Bronze
Musee des Collettes prince of Syrian origin. who in the 2nd century A.O .. great opportunity was missed, and in the hope of
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