WEBVTT 00:00:04.066 --> 00:00:06.102 The Parthenon is a Doric temple -- 00:00:06.102 --> 00:00:08.804 that's its architectural style. 00:00:08.804 --> 00:00:11.492 And one of the things that defines a Doric temple 00:00:11.492 --> 00:00:14.180 is that it has triglyphs. 00:00:14.180 --> 00:00:16.792 And in between the triglyphs, are metopes. 00:00:17.682 --> 00:00:20.371 I love those words, triglyphs and metopes. 00:00:20.371 --> 00:00:22.672 So, triglyphs just mean sort of a mark of three 00:00:22.672 --> 00:00:25.245 and it's a little three lines. -- A kind of ridges. 00:00:25.245 --> 00:00:26.899 Mhm, exactly. And in between, 00:00:26.899 --> 00:00:30.408 these squares with really deep relief carving, 00:00:30.408 --> 00:00:32.271 they're about five feet square. 00:00:32.271 --> 00:00:36.344 These would have been in an area right above where the capitals are. 00:00:36.344 --> 00:00:38.141 That's right, and below the pediment. 00:00:38.141 --> 00:00:39.683 And the metopes that we're looking at 00:00:39.683 --> 00:00:44.220 depict a battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. 00:00:44.220 --> 00:00:45.921 And I think we'd better talk about 00:00:45.921 --> 00:00:47.499 who they were and why they were fighting. 00:00:47.499 --> 00:00:51.108 This is a story that would have been a kind of mythic story 00:00:51.108 --> 00:00:54.188 even for the fifth century Greeks, who were depicting them. 00:00:54.188 --> 00:00:58.211 And the story tells of a wedding, a Lapith wedding. 00:00:58.211 --> 00:01:01.038 Now the Lapiths were a tribe of Ancient Greeks 00:01:01.038 --> 00:01:03.762 and they lived near the forest. 00:01:03.762 --> 00:01:06.871 Now, in the forest, were these creatures 00:01:06.871 --> 00:01:08.629 that were only sort of half human-- 00:01:08.629 --> 00:01:11.220 the Centaurs, half human half horse. 00:01:11.220 --> 00:01:14.979 And the Greeks would have looked at them as kind of monstrous creatures. 00:01:14.979 --> 00:01:18.772 You know, for the Greeks, there was a whole hierarchy of kinds of beings. 00:01:18.772 --> 00:01:21.546 The gods at the top, then there were heroes, 00:01:21.546 --> 00:01:25.611 and heroes were the result of a union between a god and a human, 00:01:25.611 --> 00:01:27.791 and then, of course, there were humans themselves. 00:01:27.791 --> 00:01:30.602 And then, below that, there were these sub-humans or monsters, and the centaurs were certainly that. 00:01:32.340 --> 00:01:36.427 So, they were not quite human, still part of the animal world. 00:01:36.427 --> 00:01:38.929 And not entirely to be trusted. 00:01:38.929 --> 00:01:42.254 Nevertheless, the Lapiths were feeling extremely generous 00:01:42.254 --> 00:01:44.199 and really wanted to celebrate this wedding. 00:01:44.199 --> 00:01:47.491 And so, they invited the Centaurs to the wedding. 00:01:47.491 --> 00:01:49.660 That was a big mistake. It was a big mistake. 00:01:49.660 --> 00:01:51.580 They had a little bit too much to drink, didn't they? 00:01:51.580 --> 00:01:53.591 They did, and they (the centaurs) took advantage. 00:01:53.591 --> 00:01:55.900 In fact, what they did is[was], all at once, 00:01:55.900 --> 00:01:58.882 they began to abduct the Lapith women. 00:01:58.882 --> 00:02:02.909 So, what's being depicted is the Lapith women being made off with, 00:02:02.909 --> 00:02:07.239 and the Lapith males fighting with the Centaurs, 00:02:07.239 --> 00:02:09.107 who are really quite formidable -- 00:02:09.107 --> 00:02:11.203 not only do they have six limbs, 00:02:11.203 --> 00:02:14.868 but you know they have all of the brute strength of a wild animal. 00:02:14.868 --> 00:02:20.243 The one we are looking at is of a lapith struggling against a centaur. 00:02:20.243 --> 00:02:23.452 It looks like he's grabbing him by the neck and pulling him. 00:02:23.452 --> 00:02:27.049 You can just see his fingers wrapping around behind that neck, 00:02:27.049 --> 00:02:29.570 even though the neck and the head itself are gone. 00:02:29.570 --> 00:02:30.741 He's pulling him back, though. 00:02:30.741 --> 00:02:33.457 Look at that -- it's almost like a bow, a spring... 00:02:33.457 --> 00:02:36.142 You can feel the tension of that body as it's being pulled back, 00:02:36.142 --> 00:02:37.680 and the strength of the Centaur-- 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:40.062 that's really trying to pull away and free himself. 00:02:40.062 --> 00:02:44.076 It looks, actually, like the Centaur is holding on with his right hand onto something, 00:02:44.076 --> 00:02:47.208 and struggling against being pulled by the Lapith. 00:02:47.208 --> 00:02:50.278 Look at the kind of composition-- it's so complicated. 00:02:50.278 --> 00:02:52.707 You have a couple of opposing arcs: 00:02:52.707 --> 00:02:54.461 the arc of the Lapith's body, 00:02:54.461 --> 00:02:57.215 and then the arc of the Centaur's as well. 00:02:57.215 --> 00:03:00.372 Yeah, so it's almost a circular composition, in a way. 00:03:00.372 --> 00:03:01.973 And look how deep that carving is! 00:03:01.973 --> 00:03:02.946 It's amazing. 00:03:02.946 --> 00:03:04.375 It's really almost freestanding. 00:03:04.375 --> 00:03:08.811 It's actually remarkable to me that more of this did not break off than did, 00:03:08.811 --> 00:03:11.580 because it's in such high relief it's almost freestanding. 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:14.010 And marble is really soft stone. 00:03:14.010 --> 00:03:18.189 I also love the fact that those broad plains of the body 00:03:18.189 --> 00:03:22.854 are played against the more complex sort of backdrop of the cloth. 00:03:22.854 --> 00:03:25.789 I mean this is, in some ways, incredibly naturalistic. 00:03:25.789 --> 00:03:27.784 So naturalistic that we almost believe... 00:03:27.784 --> 00:03:29.220 -You don't notice the artifice. 00:03:29.220 --> 00:03:33.634 Well, not only the artifice of the perfectly draped cloth in the background, 00:03:33.634 --> 00:03:35.990 but, how about, the artifice of the fact 00:03:35.990 --> 00:03:38.182 that we almost believe that a Centaur could exist. 00:03:38.182 --> 00:03:43.281 In other words, it is almost a believable union of a human and a horse's body. 00:03:43.281 --> 00:03:47.029 That's true. What's really striking to me is the way 00:03:47.029 --> 00:03:51.538 our eye is drawn to the anatomical structure of the Lapith's body. 00:03:51.538 --> 00:03:53.446 In the chest, in the ribcage, 00:03:53.446 --> 00:03:56.958 and the abdominal muscles, the pectoral muscles. 00:03:56.958 --> 00:04:02.471 And those same structures in the body of the Centaur, 00:04:02.471 --> 00:04:05.262 you can see its ribcage and veins. 00:04:05.262 --> 00:04:09.116 So, there's a kind of mirroring of these figures. 00:04:09.116 --> 00:04:11.132 There is a kind of mirroring. I think that is exactly right. 00:04:11.132 --> 00:04:13.015 But there's also a kind of subtle distinction, 00:04:13.015 --> 00:04:17.859 which is that the tension that the artist has constructed 00:04:17.859 --> 00:04:20.205 because of the bowing of the Centaur's body 00:04:20.205 --> 00:04:24.850 is not seen in the exertion of the Lapith. 00:04:24.850 --> 00:04:26.342 In other words, look at the Lapith, 00:04:26.342 --> 00:04:30.222 even though he is exerting tremendous power to pull back this horse, 00:04:30.222 --> 00:04:32.363 the Centaur. -- He's in control. 00:04:32.363 --> 00:04:34.519 He is in total control, total balance. 00:04:34.519 --> 00:04:37.047 And in fact, the body is almost relaxed, 00:04:37.047 --> 00:04:41.265 remains almost completely sort of perfectly noble and perfectly balanced, 00:04:41.265 --> 00:04:43.334 even within this battle. 00:04:43.334 --> 00:04:44.956 Look at the difference in the way 00:04:44.956 --> 00:04:48.988 that the Centaur and the Lapith's heads, their faces, are represented. 00:04:48.988 --> 00:04:50.942 First of all, you've got the sense of age. 00:04:50.942 --> 00:04:56.037 You've got the beautiful noble face of the Greek, of the Lapith. 00:04:56.037 --> 00:04:58.927 And even as his neck is being crushed, 00:04:58.927 --> 00:05:00.986 even as he is being choked, 00:05:00.986 --> 00:05:03.617 there is a sense of rest and nobility, 00:05:03.617 --> 00:05:06.340 there is no anguish in that face whatsoever. 00:05:06.340 --> 00:05:12.571 In contrast, we have this gnarled, bearded, long-haired, older figure, 00:05:12.571 --> 00:05:16.908 with a kind of knit brow, a kind of wild open eye, 00:05:16.908 --> 00:05:19.312 and with a kind of broken nose, 00:05:19.312 --> 00:05:21.897 all of which is looking rough and pretty much 00:05:21.897 --> 00:05:26.934 not the kind of noble mien that the Greeks give themselves. 00:05:26.934 --> 00:05:30.756 It's almost as though the human has superhuman strength, 00:05:30.756 --> 00:05:34.050 and doesn't need to draw on the brute physicality 00:05:34.050 --> 00:05:35.113 that the Centaur has to draw on. 00:05:35.113 --> 00:05:37.453 Well, I think that the Greeks were making a real distinction. 00:05:37.453 --> 00:05:41.275 They were noble and they were distinguishing themselves 00:05:41.275 --> 00:05:44.729 from the brutish barbarians beyond their borders. 00:05:44.729 --> 00:05:47.722 In fact, a lot of our historians look at this 00:05:47.722 --> 00:05:51.401 and say that the Lapiths are, in fact, the Greeks. Of course. 00:05:51.401 --> 00:05:54.095 But the Centaurs are those that are not Greek. 00:05:54.095 --> 00:05:56.409 And the Greeks themselves were looking towards 00:05:56.409 --> 00:05:58.706 for instance, the Persians, their great enemy, 00:05:58.706 --> 00:06:00.772 with real fear as barbarians, 00:06:00.772 --> 00:06:03.452 as kind of almost animals, as almost centaurs. 00:06:03.452 --> 00:06:05.543 Representing a kind of chaos. 00:06:05.543 --> 00:06:08.517 And, in fact, this art really represents, through its balance, 00:06:08.517 --> 00:06:10.939 through its perfections, through this kind of idealism, 00:06:10.939 --> 00:06:13.562 that sense of control that was so important to the Greeks. 00:06:13.562 --> 00:06:17.712 It's no wonder that for so many hundreds of years after this, thousands of years, 00:06:17.712 --> 00:06:19.729 we have looked back to this moment as this 00:06:19.729 --> 00:06:23.391 sort of extraordinary, and precious, and rare moment. 00:06:23.391 --> 00:06:26.283 Not only because it was a moment of limited democracy, 00:06:26.283 --> 00:06:27.859 but of the first democracy, 00:06:27.859 --> 00:06:30.939 but it was a moment when the mind and the body 00:06:30.939 --> 00:06:34.042 were both cherished and seen as extraordinary and beautiful.