Architects From Greece

"Statue of Zeus in Olympia"

"There are two tendencies [in Greek art], that of generalizing the individual and this was of Myron and his school, and the other of individualizing the divinities even more, and this was from Phidias and his school. (Ettore De Ruggiero)"

"A whole world of , of heroes and men in a cosmic vision of myth and in a divinization of reality had been created [in the Parthenon] by the creative imagination of this demiurge, master of all techniques, in a form that was the highest and perfect implementation of the classical ideal, working almost animated by a divine enthusiasm. (Giovanni Becatti)"

"Something in his character must have made him an enemy of men, since no one loved him. Yet he was not only a great sculptor, but also a great master, who, in addition to having created a style, also made it a school, transmitting its rules to students such as Agoracritus and Alcamene, continuers of the "classical". (Indro Montanelli)"

"There is nothing essential to find in art after Phidias and Raphael, but there is always more to be done, even after them, to maintain the cult of truth and to perpetuate the tradition of beauty. (Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres)"

"The forms, like those of Phidias, also have their development in the static. [...] No one else, after Phidias, has retained this respectful gravity and this conscious enthusiasm towards life which are true religion. (Edgar Faure)"

"The great genius of the Athenian Phidias, who established himself as dominant towards the middle of the [5th century B.C.E.] century, was able [...] to rise into the Olympic sphere to give an art form to the conception of divinity, interpreting the noblest religious ideal of his time, making men and creating the classical style. (Giovanni Becatti)"

"He was the first to establish single-legged figures; he was the first to determine the proportions with a book on symmetry, and with a statue entirely in conformity with his precepts, which he named the Canon or the Regulus. For this work the architects regarded him as a legislator; and therefore it probably follows that the Greek statues, as reflects, appear to have almost all been created with the same fundamental laws, and emerged, so to speak, from the same school. (Luigi Antonio Lanzi)"

"And even if it were possible to establish models and precedents for all the individual details [of the Athena Parthenos], there would still be some novelty: in their union, in the profound religious and patriotic conception }} so the artist recast all those elements in an effigy of the goddess never seen before. What if this were his only work; and if Phidias had done nothing other than gather together in a victorious synthesis all the acquisitions of archaism, he would deserve his highest place in the history of art. (Emanuel Löwy)"

"What would Phidias have done in a small and obscure state? Without great means, without him having been a protector of artists, he would not have had the opportunity to conceive and create great works. The sublime was born in him from the greatness of the concepts and this greatness was also born from the means and the purpose he had. (Ettore De Ruggiero)"

"Statue of Zeus in Olympia"

"Polycletus was a sublime poet in his art, and tried to surpass the beauty of nature itself in his figures: therefore his imagination was mainly concerned with youthful forms, so he will undoubtedly be better able to express the softness of a Bacchus, or the flourishing youth of an Apollo, than the robustness of a Hercules, or the mature age of an Aesculapius. For this reason those who wanted to blame him said that they wanted greater expression in his figures, that is, that the parts were more strongly indicated. (Johann Joachim Winckelmann)"

"Polycletus is, after Phidias, the most respected name in the history of . In the idea of ​​beauty and diligence he is placed before anyone else by Quintilian and Strabo. Measuring his talent with that of Phidias, he did not dare compete with him in the most sublime character: he occupied himself with forming youthful simulacrums. Some among Quintilian believed that under his men grew in beauty; but the Gods diminished. (Luigi Antonio Lanzi)"

"Strabo, Geography, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (C.E.1924). LacusCurtis, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Books 6–14."

"Schiering, Wolfgang, Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia II: Werkstattfunde: Olympische Forschungen XVIII, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (C.E.1991) ISBN 3-11-012468-8"

"McWilliam, Janette; Puttock, Sonia; Stevenson, Tom, eds. (C.E.2011). The Statue of Zeus at Olympia: New Approaches. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-3032-4."

"Mallwitz, Alfred and Wolfgang Schiering, Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia I: Olympische Forschungen V, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (C.E.1964)"

"Macrobius, Saturnalia, Volume II: Books 3-5, edited and translated by Robert A. Kaster, Loeb Classical Library No. 511, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, C.E.2011. ISBN 978-0-674-99649-6. Online version at Harvard University Press."

"Lapatin, Kenneth D. S., Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Oxford University Press (C.E.2001) ISBN 0-19-815311-2"

"[Homer]], The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. C.E.1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library."

"Statue of youth at Olympia"

"Athena statue at Elis"

"Aphrodite Urania statue at Elis"

"Athena Parthenos"

"Lemnian Athena"

"Athena Promachos"

"Famous work of a great contemporary master of Phidias, of Argive Polycletus, is the so-called doryphorus, i.e. the statue of a winning athlete holding a spear in his left hand. In this figure the movement of the trunk is shown as it follows from that of the legs: the body gravitates on the right leg and therefore, precisely as anatomy requires, the side of the right side rises, the shoulder descends, and from this general movement results minor shifts in the intermediate parts of the trunk. No one could describe this attitude as awkward; the figure, although firm, moves freely, articulated, lightly. And with this art can boast of an acquired capital. [...] [Polycletus] was the first to fully satisfy the postulates of anatomical truth. (Emanuel Löwy)"

"He [El Greco] has discovered a realm of new possibilities. Not even he, himself, was able to exhaust them. All the generations that follow after him live in his realm. There is a greater difference between him and Titian, his master, than between him and Renoir or Cézanne. Nevertheless, Renoir and Cézanne are masters of impeccable originality because it is not possible to avail yourself of El Greco's language, if in using it, it is not invented again and again, by the user."

"The accidents of our bodily constitution can always play this revealing role on the condition that they become a means of extending our knowledge by the consciousness which we have of them, instead of being submitted to as pure facts which dominate us. Ultimately, El Greco's supposed visual disorder was conquered by him and so profoundly integrated into his manner of thinking and being that it appears finally as the necessary expression of his being much more than as a peculiarity imposed from the outside. It is no longer a paradox to say that "El Greco was astigmatic because he produced elongated bodies." Everything which was accidental in the individual, that is, everything which revealed partial and independent dialectics without relationship to the total signification of his life, has been assimilated and centered in his deeper life. Bodily events have ceased to constitute autonomous cycles, to follow the abstract patterns of biology and psychology, and have received a new meaning."

"I disagree with those who assert that Titian and El Greco painted on a . ...In contrast to Titian, El Greco very frequently employed glazings ...In El Greco we find a curious combination of tempera school ideas associated with a freedom of the brush stroke surpassing that of his master, Titian. Like the tempera painters, El Greco often underpainted in and glazed upon such a monotone underpainting the fiery hues of madder lake, , azurite blue and yellow (probably ). This... largely accounts for the brilliance and extraordinary luminosity... But El Greco's grisaille... was brushed on roughly and the texture of the superimposed color often does not correspond with that of the grisaille. This... is an entirely unorthodox method. Entirely unconventional also was his use of the madder, which, at times, he applied with an extreme impasto defying the nature of this glazing color."

"In keeping with the traditions of the Venetians, El Greco's canvas ground was often red. However, in contrast to the Italian opaque ground, his red color was thinly laid on the white priming of the canvas, though not... as... . ...I believe that this ground was not made of red bole, but that it was an oil ground. The characteristic... brushstroke and the blending of his colors point to the use of a heat-treated oil rather than raw . ...[P]rincipally one layer of pigment was applied on top of the underpainting. ...The painter evidently did not labor over his paintings. The relative speed with which he advanced his work can be realized from the fact that "The Burial of Count Orgaz," his greatest painting, was delivered [in] fourteen months... Considering that he executed many other commissions during that... period and that his paintings were not the result of teamwork... he must have worked rapidly. ...El Greco's technique must be regarded as... the soundest method of oil painting. ...[T]here are practically no cracks or deteriorations of any kind... on most of his paintings."

"During the course of the execution of a commission for the Hospital de Tavera [in Toledo], El Greco fell seriously ill, and a month later, on 7 April 1614, he died. A few days earlier, on 31 March, he had directed that his son Jorge Manuel should have the power to make his will."

"In any case, only the execution counts. From this point of view, it is correct to say that Cubism has a Spanish origin and that I invented Cubism. We must look for the Spanish influence in Paul Cézanne. Things themselves necessitate it, the influence of El Greco, a Venetian painter, on him. But his structure is Cubist."

"It was a great moment. A pure righteous conscience stood on one tray of the balance, an empire on the other, and it was you, man's conscience, that tipped the scales. This conscience will be able to stand before the Lord at the Last Judgement and not be judged. It will judge, because human dignity, purity and valor fill even God with terror.. .Art is not submission and rules, but a demon which smashes the moulds.. .Greco's inner-archangel's breast had thrust him on savage freedom's single hope, this world's most excellent garret."

"Let's face it, nobody could paint eyes like El Greco, and nobody can paint eyes like Walter Keane."

"As I was climbing the narrow, rain-slicked lane - nearly three hundred years have gone by - I felt myself seized by the hand of a Powerful Friend [El Geco] and indeed I came to see myself lifted on the two enormous wings of Doménicos up to his skies which this time were full of orange trees and water speaking of the homeland."

"The most important experience was seeing the work of el Greco in the flesh. I was sixteen or seventeen, and for the first time I realized what painting really meant."

"Once in Spain, El Greco was able to create a style of his own - one that disavowed most of the descriptive ambitions of painting. Obviously his portraits involved precise observation, but the settings tend to be spectral."

"..using abstraction and avoiding literal illusionism, the artist [= El Greco] diverts the mind to the spiritual essence.. .El Greco made it clear that his heavenly figures are not members of the material world."

"Crete gave him life and Toledo his pencil. / Creta le dio y los pinceles Toledo."

"I hold the imitation of colour to be the greatest difficulty of art."

"..he [[w:Michelangelo|[= Michelangelo] ]] was a good man, but he did not know how to paint."

"Now, in order to claim some knowledge of painting, Vitruvius speaks of the consideration of the perfect human body and about how good sculptors and painters in order to make it give it a height of ten faces, and I say that according to them they have read and they say that this proportion is based on knowledge of measurement and that it happens that without it it is not possible to have proportion or consideration because those who are not cognizant of this do not count."

"If Vasari really knew the nature of the Greek style of which he speaks, he would deal with it differently in what he says. He compares it with Giotto, but what Giotto did is simple in comparison, because the Greek style is full of ingenious difficulties [= translation of Greek art historian Nicos Hadjinicolau] / full of deceptive difficulties. [= translation of Spanish art historians Xavier de Salas and Fernando María]."

"I am neither bound to say why I came to this city nor to answer the other questions put to me."

"..because in this way the form will be perfect and not reduced, which is the worst thing that can happen to a figure."

"Anyway, I would not be happy to see a beautiful, well-proportioned woman, no matter from which point of view, however extravagant, not only lose her beauty in order to, I would say, increase in size according to the law of vision, but no longer appear beautiful, and, in fact, become monstrous."

"It has been necessary to show the Hospital de Tavera as a model, for the building hides the Visagra Gate, and the dome obscures part of the town, and once treated as a model and moved from its place, it seemed better to me to show the main façade.. ..the rest, and its proper relationship to the town can be seen on the plan. Also, in the representation of Our Lady presenting the Chasuble to Saint Ildefonso, in making the figures large, I have applied, in some way, the observation made of celestial bodies that an illuminated body seen at a distance may appear large although it be small."

"[El Greco 'confined to his bed'] ..holding, believing and confessing the Faith of the Holy Church of Rome.. ..in whose Faith I have lived and die, as a faithful and Catholic Christian.. ..because of the gravity of my sickness I was unable to make a will and gives power to Jorge Manuel Teotocopuli my son, and of Doña Jerónima de las Cuevas [his wife he never married], who is a person of honesty and virtue [to make his testament, arrange his burial, and pay his debts, and the] remainder of my possessions to go to Jorge Manuel, as universal heir.."

"..There has arrived in Rome a young man [El Greco] from Candia [Crete], a disciple of Titian, who in my opinion is a painter of rare talent; among other things he has painted a portrait of himself, which causes wonderment to all the painters in Rome. I should like him to be under the patronage of your Illustrious and Reverend Lordship, without any other contribution towards his living than a room in the Farnese Palace for some little time, until he can find other accommodation. I therefore beg and pray you to have the kindness to write to Count Lodovico, your Majordomo, to provide him with some room near the top in the said Palace; your Illustrious Lordship will be doing a virtuous deed worthy of you, and I shall feel very grateful.. .The most humble servant, Julio Clovio."