Parthenon Frieze Essay

In this article, Marconi pointed out that the Parthenon frieze was invisible, because the figures on the frieze were small and distorted, the lighting was bad, and people were not able to have a good view of it. Further, he argued that the invisibility of the frieze was not a severe problem due to three reasons. To begin with, the Parthenon was a treasury, so its frieze had a metaphoric value of expressing wealth and power. Also, the Parthenon is a temple with high level of attention. Moreover, it might functioned as a timeless memorial for the offspring and a favorable gift to the gods.

Marconi made a convincing argument about the metaphoric value of the Parthenon frieze. First, he discussed the development of Greek temple decoration and stated

However, his view was not compellingly supported. He first gave an example in Ion to suggest that people would highly notice the Parthenon frieze. Then in his discussion about the modern interpretation of figural decoration, he related the Parthenon frieze to Trajan’s Column. He contradicted the modern explanation that decorations on both of them were considered meaningless by showing that they were gazed by people in public. Yet, the example of Trajan’s Column here was inappropriate because of the tremendous differences in their backgrounds and their degrees of visibility. The Parthenon was constructed in around 400 B.C.E. in Athens to express the wealth of Athens and Athenians, while Trajan’s Column was built in 113 C.E. in Rome to show the king’s personal power. Also, unlike the Parthenon frieze, there are less distortions, better lighting, and good views when people look at Trajan’s Column, because figures were sculpted from bottom to top of Trajan’s Column, and nothing covers it, which makes it more visible to the viewers. Therefore, although both of the Parthenon frieze and Trajan’s Column are decorative, the relationship between them is