The Parthenon

c.447-432 BC. Athens

The Parthenon is perhaps the most well-known piece of Classical architecture to have survived.

It showed both Doric and Ionic orders. In which the Doric is the masculine order and ionic as the feminine.

The columns are simple and supports a structure which contains alternating metopes and triglphys. However, there is another layer of columns between the Doric ordered columns and the temple. It is here where instead of the frieze being broken into metopes and triglyphs, it is just a single continuous frieze (only seen in the Ionic order).

The columns itself were shaped wider at the bottom than the top to create an optically straight column.

The frieze itself is perhaps the most notable of the Pantheon. Over the years, it has gained international news coverage over its location. 

The artwork carved into the frieze (metopes) was used as a form of propaganda. It formed a sense of identity after the recent Persian invasion. 

The frieze was considered unusual for its day and age as it featured humans as well as deities. It showed a procession of what could be interpreted as the Panathenaia - a procession in which a peplos is handed over to the goddess Athena. The deities were scaled much larger than the humans but it conveyed a sense in which the human world interacted with the divine world. 

The sculptural form that is produced by the architects create a strong sense of movement, momentum and dynamics within such a hard and dense medium, reflecting the skill of the Classical sculptors. All the riders and horses resume similar positions yet all are different, the anatomy of the horses depicted lends itself to the momentum of the frieze. In addition the swooping drapery allows the spectator to understand the flow of the procession.