Athena Nike Temple - on the Acropolis of Athens, Greece - Essay Example

The temple of the goddess Athena Nike is one of the most historically significant works or Greek architecture in existence today. Despite numerous attempts to destroy it, it was repeatedly reconstructed and restored as a statement to its value to the inhabitants of Athens (Mattingly 2000, p.604). Today, the temple is largely a reproduction of the original with many of the structural elements and components having been altered in the many reconstructions it has undergone. In the 1998, when it was lastly rebuilt, some of the composite art works such as the frieze were moved to the acropolis museum, it was dedicated to the Athenian patron goddess Athena who was also referred to as the God of victory. It is adorned with a historically and mythological symbolic frieze as well as a series of Relief sculptures which add to it artistic prominence. It was designed by Callicraets one of Greek’s leading architects of the 5th BC and apart from this temple he was also responsible for designing many other structures. The most popular of his work was the Parthenon which was built two years after Greek vs. Persian war, this was commissioned by the Greek authorities and championed by perikles as a symbol of the unity of Greece and the dominance of Athens over other Greek states. Callicraets the Nike temple architect Little is on record concerning his personal life and background; nevertheless, Callicrates also written as Kallikrates is one of the most influential Greek architects of his time, his great works were instrumental in shaping many of the great edifices of Greek architectural history (James, 2000). He was appointed to build the temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian acropolis in 449 BC as a tribute of the ratification of peace between Greece and Persia. He designed the temple to be made from small pieces of pentalic marble and in Ionic order on the bastion of the southwest corner of the Acropolis work on the project begun in 427 BC and the temple was completed in 424 BC. Nevertheless, the Nike temple was not the greatest work accredited to Callicraets, alongside with another artist and designer by the name Ictinus, he designed the Parthenon, which is easily one of Greeks, most famous and recognizable architectural masterpiece. He spent most of his life and career working in Athens during the extensive construction program inspired by Perikles. Perikles was a prominent political leader who reigned in the 5th BC and he instituted an extensive beautifying campaign all over Athens, he believed that through majestic architecture and beautiful art, he could make the glory and splendour of Athens visible to the entire world. Although he was mostly concerned with formal design, it is also speculated that Callicrates may have assisted Iktinos, the main builder, with some of the construction and supervision work; nevertheless, the aesthetic designs for which it is so well known are not his work. Based on the similarity in the architectural design another small lonic temple not unlike the Nike temple is popularly attributed to the Callicrates other works include a Doric temple built in Delos. There has also been conjecture that he was responsible for the design of the Hephaestum temple of Poseidon. History and significance The Temple of Athena Nike is dedicated to the goddess Athena Nike and it was built from 427 to 425 BC, however it was later demolished and rebuilt several times with the course of history; it is a simply built prostyle ionic temple with almost nonexistence pronaos and opsithodomos. The Nike temple of Athena is located at the southwest of the Acropolis plateau, which is situated next to the Propylaia, is an important sanctuary with significant historical meaning predating the Mycenaean era. It built on a massive protrusion of rock that is strategically placed to protect the southern flank from attack that is the most vulnerable access point of the citadel. Retrospectively, it was a place of worship of deities and it was closely associated with ancient wars the bronze age “Nike” gods and goddess who were often fused with the cult of Athena Nike which emerged in later centuries. Among other related discoveries in the area, archaeological work has revealed evidence of the existence of a huge open pit in which the Greeks would pour libations to the ancient deities that made up their polysynthetic religion. The wars that characterized the period resulted in the destruction and pillaging of many cities and temples and one of the buildings that was destroyed during the Persian war in 480 BCE was the acropolis. However, the temple as it stands today is radically different from the original stricture designed by kallikrates, over time the temple has undergone significant renovations, much of it was a result of the plunder and destruction of war. However, in later times when the temple historical significance became more apparent to both the Greeks and the world it was dismantled and redone to strengthen and preserve it for posterity. The Nike temple was destroyed along with the acropolis, it was only rebuilt 60 years later, from ancient accounts, and historical records by the Pausinsian, the temple had in its cellar a wooden statue of Athena Nike. Traditionally, Greek temples often had a cult statue of the patron god or goddess, in the Nike temple, Athena’s statue was housed in a 5 by 5 foot cellar; it illustrated her grasping a pomegrate in one hand, which was a representation of fecundity and a helmet in the other, which embodied victory at war. Unlike other such statues, this one did not have wings and legend has it that she was deprived of her wing so she could forever dwell in the city and never fly away giving credence to the name title wingless victory. This classical temple is marginally smaller than majority of the other temples that were constructed in the acropolis, however, most striking future about it is the fact that it is the first building that visitor to the acropolis. The temple faces eastwards, the entrance is lined with a set of four monolithic columns that uphold a shallow porch, and this pattern is repeated on the west end. Hundreds of years later, during the Ottoman occupation of Europe in 1687, the temple of Athena Nike was dismantled during the siege between the “Venetians” and the Turks at the Acropolis, after 8 days of nonstop fighting and bombardment, the Turks finally surrendered (Evans 2001, p.216). However the temple bore the brunt of the fighting as the Turks had used stones from it to build a defensive Bastion, until the liberation of Greek in 1834, the stones remained a part of the bastion, after the emancipation Turks built a bastion using the temple stones. The “Venetians” finally fought the Turks to submission after eight days of concentrated shelling, the stones comprising the temple stones stayed as part of the citadel until when Greece was freed. Subsequent excavation of the site resulted in the dismantling of the bastion and the stones were used to reconstruct the temple and the work was finally completed in 1838 in 1834; during subsequent excavations and rebuilding of the Acropolis by Ross and Hansen, the bastion was dismantled and the temple was reconstructed during the next four years. However, in the 1930, further reconstruction was carried out as the entire Bastion along with the temple was demolished owing to structural problems that threatened to collapse the temple. It was the reconstructed in 1940, 60 years later, the temple was once again dismantled in a new reconstruction cycle. The frieze was removed to the Acropolis museum and the temple taken apart entirely this time to replace the concrete floor and iron beams, which had been used in the 1940 reconstruction with more durable materials (Temple Frieze). These changes would make the temple more suitable for its primary purpose as historical and cultural edifice, monument and a tourist attraction. That was because in its previous state, the structure was weak and the temple would not have survived the human assault by the thousands of tourist who visited the monument each year. The Structural Design The Temple of Athena Nike is made in a tetrastyle design which means it is a four column ionic structure consisting of Colonnaded porticos in both eastern and western ends. It is modest in size with dimensions measuring 27 feet long and width of 18 ? feet, it is 27 feet high with a 7:1 ration of height to diameter of the columns. Despite its comparatively diminutive size juxtaposed to the other mammoth temples, the slight proportions give it an uncommon elegance, which makes it stand out from the rest as an edifice of architectural beauty and refinement. The Nike temple was an open structure and unlike the Acropolis proper, it was accessible through the propylea at the southwest wing or a narrow staircase in the north. The bastion had precipitous walls sheltered by a ramparts form the north to the west named thus because of the mural of Nike, the Greek word for triumph and devoted, like the rest of the sanctuary to Athena Nike the temple’s patroness. One of its most remarkable features is the continuous frieze inscribed on its walls depicting battle scenes, contrary to other Greek temples, which are sculptured with scenes of mythical battles, and scenes the Temple of Athena Nike is mostly concerned with real historical events as opposed to mythology. Some of the depictions on the frieze include the Persian and pelonnesian wars, one of the most notable illustrations is a Calvary scene inspired by the battle of marathon the and lonic scene in which the Greeks triumphed over Persia in the battle of Plataea. The temple is however not entirely devoid of mythological art, the east frieze exhibited an assemblage of the gods Athena, Zeus and Poseidon, a representation Athenian spiritual faith and veneration for the gods(Lagerlof 2004, p.116) which as inevitably a part of the social-political environment of 5th Epoch Athens and Greece at large. However, despite the minimal depiction of mythological allusion, the battle scenes in the frieze are not unlike those in the Parthenon as all have the common future of depicting victory over non-Greek armies. The primary function of the art, apart from aesthetic appeal was to represent of Greek dominance over the rest of the world this was a true embodiment of the spirit of Athenian military prowess during that period in history. This frieze was moved to the acropolis museum where it can be viewed today and its original place in the temple, are only copies. After the temple was complete, a parapet was constructed to prevent visitors from falling off into the deep bastion; this was decorated with several relief structures that were best visible to victors to the temple as they ascended the ramp towards the Propylaia. Unlike the frieze, which told a continuous story, the Nike relief sculptures depicted the Goddess Athena in various stages of activities. In one scene, Nike is depicted as standing with one leg raised above the other as she leans to adjust her sandal, notably the sculpture are done in the classical style. This particular technique is unique in that unlike the archaic Greek- Roman and preceding periods, sculptures that often showed nude bodies, her muscles and body are clearly distinguishable from underneath her clothing. The sculptor had used a technique called wet drapery; it achieves the binary artistic result of depicting the curves and dimensions of a woman’s body while at the same time preserving modesty. In these sculptures, the woman remains fully clothed and yet the contours body can be seen. This style has been widely used in the acropolis more so in the sculpture of Caryatids and the women depicted in the pediment of the Parthenon. The Parthenon The construction of the Parthenon in 447 BC commenced at the height of Athenian power, it took fourteen years to complete and when it was finished, it represented the visible efflorescence of Athenian power as envisioned by Perikle who had campaigned it construction. Historians believe that the Parthenon was constructed to commemorate peace treaty between the Greeks and the Persians which had come to effect a year before constructions begun, if this is true, it would symbolize that the Delian,Legue continued to exist even after the danger posed by the Persians, which had been it reason for existing had been eliminated. The fact that the temple was built with funds from the league connotative of the fact that Athens had taken charge of the Greek states and was in essence the centre of Greek political and military power. The Parthenon is designed as a Doric temple peripheral temple, this implies that its floor plan is rectangular surrounded with a sequence of low stairs on every side, it also has a colonnade of Doric columns that extend around the structure periphery. At each entrance, there are six columns and in the larger of the two interior rooms, there was a cult statue as was customary in Greek temples, conversely, the treasury was located in the smaller room. Besides the political motivation, the Parthenon was constructed to replace two temples of Athena on the acropolis that had been destroyed in the war. Among the outstanding futures of the Parthenon were the metopes; these are marble panels outside the walls forming the Doric frieze (Hartswick 2002, p.80). They were originally 92 but the number has reduced as some were removed and others destroyed in war they are and allegorical depiction of the battle between good and justice versus chaos and evil. On the west side is a recreation of the battle between the Amazon, the Lapith and Centaurs on the east and the Gods and Giants on the north as well as the Greeks vs. the Trojans (Stamatopoulou 2012, p.72). Also embellishing the Parthenon walls were the pedimenatal structures which were relief sculptures albeit marginally bigger than the metopes and occupied the space the between the triglyphs and the metopes (Keesling 2006, p.390). They also depicted a series of historical and mythological events like the sculptures in the Nike temple and applied the wet drape technique, thereby the bodies of the subjects in could be seen and but the nakedness hidden. At the west end, they showed the contest between Poseidon and Athena each striving to win the right to be the patron deity of the city, the pediment group on the east side was a sculptural illustration of Athena’s birth as she emerged from the head of Zues. Today this sculpture is hardly comprehensible after it was badly damaged during the Venetian war. The Parthenon frieze circumscribes the upper edge of the temples wall, unlike other temples, it is comparatively small with modest dimensions measuring 3 feet width and five inches tall which makes it quite difficult to see from the ground. It is dedicated to as single subject on all sides depicting processions of horsemen musician, animal sacrifices and other ritual functions, the most prominent legend is on the east side depicting a scene in which a child is handing a folded cloth to an old man with and they are flanked by gods and goddess. There have been heated debate among historians and art critics on the interpretation of the scene; some claim it is representative of a panathenaic procession by others oppose this and insist it is a mythical procession. The art and architecture of the Parthenon is one of the main historical and cultural landmarks in Greek history and it has continues to inspire awe and draw thousands of tourist each year who come to experience the majesty and historical richness and aesthetic appeal of the architectural edifice. Conclusion The contributions of the Athenian artists to modern art and architectural scene cannot be overstated, despite the fact that the ancient architects and artist designed their work in a period very historically removed from today, certain elements remain pertinent to date. As it was evidenced herein, the Athena Nike temple was destroyed and rebuilt severally and even when there were no more wars. This bespeaks the timeless nature of not only the architectural phenomenal but also the artistic genius that produces the metopes and friezes that thousands of tourist travel from all over the world to see. The same case applies to the Parthenon and many of the other classical masterpieces; they provided the inspiration and laid the foundations on which latter artist as Michelangelo came to build their works. References Evans, J.A. 2001, The Parthenon marbles--past and future, Contemporary Review Company Ltd, Cheam. Hartswick, K.J. 2002, "The Parthenon Frieze", Classical Bulletin, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 77-82. James, S, . "Kallikrates." A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 2000. [Online] Available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O1-Kallikrates.html [Accessed 20 Oct. 2013] Keesling, C.M. 2006, "THE PARTHENON AND ITS SCULPTURES", Phoenix, vol. 60, no. 3, pp. 389-391. Lagerlof, M.R. 2004, "The Parthenon", Classical Bulletin, vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 115-117. Mattingly, H.B. 2000, "The Athena Nike dossier: IG 1(3) 35/36 and 64 A-B", Classical Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 604-606. Stamatopoulou, Z. 2012, "Weaving Titans For Athena: Euripides And The Panathenaic Peplos (HEC. 466-74 AND IT 218-24)", Classical Quarterly, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 72-80. Temple Frieze Being Removed in Athens 1998. Los Angeles: Calif. Read More