Post #7 Greek Art

After reading an viewing this weeks lecture I find it very unfortunate what happened to the marble sculptures that once belonged to the Parthenon. Lord Elgin came along and saw the beauty the statues display, but had no regard for their historical or cultural context for which they were created. He then decided to move the marble figures back with him to Great Britain, where they remain today in the British Museum. Though it is not the first time I have heard of countries relocating or claiming another cultures work, but this is classical period Greek art from the Parthenon, both which have been described as perfection. These were not paintings hung on the wall, or vessels found in ruins, he had to actually deconstruct and destroy the work as a whole to get the pieces he wanted. That being said, the YouTube video provided with the lecture shows that the Parthenon had been attacked and partially destroyed a number of times by different groups before Elgin even came around. This clearly is not the worst treatment the Parthenon has seen in its existence and perhaps the figures on display in the British Museum survive today because they had been moved.

The way the pieces have been displayed in the museum has taken on controversy of its own. It is said they are shown out of context and as a result they are viewed differently than they are intended by the creator. The way they are shown is to appreciate the aesthetics and technical beauty of the sculpture. To notice how life like and detailed they are, instead of their historical and cultural aspects. The topic of the display does not really bother me, mostly because of course they are out of context, they were stolen from another country to be where they are. Because of that they are on display in the way that attracted Elgin to them, instead of how he found them. My other thought is that if the Parthenon were still fully intact and I found myself there I would still be blown away by the aesthetics and technical beauty of the sculpture because it is amazing. It would be a whole different experience to see them as part of the building, but there is little the museum could do to try and replicate that anyway.

That then raises a question of should the marbles be returned to the Parthenon? Honestly, I don't know. You could try to take them back and reassemble them but that sounds as risky as it is disrespectful to leave them in the museum. If they were able to be reconstructed as part of the building it loses authenticity to me, knowing that it was a modern rebuild, a best guess as to what it looked like then, rather than seeing the Parthenon the way it stands today. As long as the history is known about how it was chopped up, and the pieces still exist to be seen by people everywhere, and no one but the Greeks get credit for their art, I think the Parthenon is strong enough to survive the way it has all these years.