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Parthenon Metopes 1 and 26
By Tom
• Woodford page 113.
26
26 detail
• In this metope, the man is pictured trying to fight off
the Centaur, using his hands to stop the Centaur from
hitting him with his weapon (not that), whilst
simultaneously attempting to kick the Centaur away.
• The clothing that the man is “wearing” is quite poorly
modelled, as it is just carved into the background. This
doesn’t matter though, as if it had been fully modelled,
it would have taken focus away from the main events.
• The musculature on the Centaur seems relatively
accurate (they are mythical after all) whereas the
human seems slightly too perfect, with the muscles
around the hips being impossible defined.
26 detail cont.
• The human doesn’t seem to be expending a
lot of effort keeping the Centaur away from
him, as shown by his almost vertical right leg
and vertical body which indicates that he isn't
having too much trouble pushing back the
Centaur's entire body weight.
1
• Woodford page 112/113
1 detail
• In this metope, the man has been put in a headlock by
the Centaur, who is about to hit him with something.
• The man does not apparently register the threat of the
situation, as he is showing no emotion at all in his face.
This is a relatively serious fault in these metopes,
although its impact would have been lessened by the
fact that the metopes would have been too far away
for people to be able to scrutinise these details.
• The Centaur is impressively muscly, and the definition
of his body is impressively realised. The position that
the top half of his body (the human part) seems to be
positioned in a fairly realistic pose, and the way that he
is holding the man under his arm seems particularly
strenuous.
1 detail cont.
• It’s hard to see, but at the same time that the
Centaur is preparing to hit the man, the man is
thrusting a weapon (no!) into the Centaur’s flank.
This would have been added as a metal weapon,
which has not survived.
• A different sculptor to the other metope.
• The material on this metope is much better, as it
is fully modelled, and it accurately flows with the
connection to the Centaur’s leg. It also flows
nicely around the mans neck.
Both metopes
• In both of these metopes, the centaurs are shown to
be very angry. Their faces have been compared with
theatrical masks, due to the intense features shown,
making it easier for the viewer, who was at ground
level, to see what was happening in the metope.
• In metope 1, among others, the faces of the men
seems to be very plain and expressionless. We can
probably assume that the face of the man in metope
26 would also have been like this.
• Both metopes, along with all those in this series depict
a single man engaging in single combat with a single
Centaur.
• They are 120cm(h) X 125cm(w).
• They are separated by triglyphs
Story
• The story that precedes the depicted battle is
that the Centaurs were invited to a wedding
dinner by the Lapiths, but were unused to the
wine they were given, and that when the
bride made her speech, a Centaur tried to
rape her. This act caused other centaurs to try
to rape the Lapith women. The battle is
between these Centaurs and the Lapith men
trying to defend their women.
High Relief
• The style of these metopes is high relief, which is when
more than half of the mass of the objects are projected
from the background.
• Unlike in other types of relief, the depth of the objects
remains true to life, meaning that the objects are
basically little statues connected to the background.
• Much of the objects, particularly the lower halves of the
humans is left hanging in the air, with little or no support
from the background.
• The problem with high relief is that it leaves the figures
quite vulnerable to damage, as seen in many of the
Parthenon metopes.
• Themetopes can project up to 25 cm, in a 35cm block of
stone.