NOVEMBER/DECEMBER, 2022
The Bassae Frieze, one of the least appreciated major works in the British Museum, is from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae, a place which in Greek means ‘ravine’ – surrounded by them it is well named. In its spectacular location at 3,700 feet up in the Arcadian mountains and visible from 30 miles away, it is on a par for majesty with the headland Temple of Poseidon at Sounion on the southern tip of Attica. According to Pausanias (writing 600 years later) the architect of this Doric temple was Ictinus, joint author of the Parthenon. As with so many important sites in Greece its impressiveness is impaired by having been covered since 1987; more recently it has been wrapped in a shiny white circus big top. It takes hours of anticipation to reach this remote and special place with the impact on arrival one of massive disappointment. Inside the tent a potentially moving encounter is blunted further by meagre light on the dark local limestone and the further annoyance of tinny pop music blaring from the restorers’ radio. One rarely forms any impression of urgency or industry in Greek restoration projects – the Parthenon, for example, has been at least partially covered all my lifetime. And at the current rate of progress Man will have landed and grown tulips on Mars before Bassae is kissed once again by sunlight. If the Greeks care as much as they protest they do about their monuments why do their restorations take forever?
The sculptures, which originally ran 20 feet up around the inside of the cella, and which weren’t carved to be seen from below, were excavated in 1815 and bought by our government soon afterwards for £19,000. The Greeks have recently suggested we return them. They may have a point: on my last two visits the lights weren’t working properly obscuring two corners of the bespoke gallery.
The frieze is two feet high and the relief three inches, although the cleverness of the illusion is that the space created appears much deeper. The ordering of the 23 panels is tricky to establish because scenes rarely overlap between sections and no record was made by original excavators as to where precisely each was found in relation to the others. There appears to be no narrative drive. Two stories are told, both of them familiar from other classical friezes: there is the drunken riot over kidnapped women between Centaurs and Lapiths and, second, the hand-to-hand combat between Herakles’ Greeks and the Amazons.
Considering the travails of earthquakes and neglect blighting this vulnerable location, the sculptures are in surprisingly good nick with many details as fresh as the day they were carved. I can’t find a single unconvincing passage of form. Although subjects are mythical, the exertions of fighting figures are all too human and real. One detail of a single clenched fist thrust out by a dying warrior speaks volumes while being little bigger than a match box – indeed, all throughout, the impact of these figures belies their small size. Recently on the television a foolish critic wrongly compared these works unfavourably with the Parthenon sculptures, some of which are themselves far from first rank. Of course, it is entirely possible, indeed more than likely, that some of the same sculptors were contracted to both schemes.
At least two theories are current as to their authorship. One scholar identifies three separate hands, which seems reasonable given the division of labour employed in large decorative programmes like this one. Another suggestion is that Paionios of Mende, author of the stunning Nike which stood outside the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (now in the local museum), as the designer in overall charge. Olympia is 40 miles from Bassae and the Nike was made just after 421 BC and is therefore close in date to the project at Bassae.
The sculptures were made some time after completion (in 430BC) of the Parthenon sculptures, between 420 and 400BC; that is, at the height of the 30-year Peloponnesian Wars between Sparta and Athens so exhaustively documented by Thucydides. War was being waged close to Bassae with hoplites marching in the area. These astonishing sculptures must have been carved on site while all the time travel was dangerous, city alliances fluid, treaties worthless, and murder summary and often committed for sport. Hardly auspicious days for itinerant sculptors to be giving of their best.
I invite you to visit the British Museum … and then the open-air Frieze sculpture extravaganza in Regent’s Park to see if you agree with me that somewhere along the way those qualities exemplified by the Bassae carvings – skill, seriousness, purpose, belief and a desire to touch people profoundly across time – have been lost only to be replaced by trivia and whim.
Enjoy the Bassae Frieze while you can. It will remind you how masterful, painstaking, concentrated and moving sculpture at its best can be.