The figures and faces and attitudes of
the Greeks, not to speak of the Centaurs, are not all entirely
beautiful and noble. This is illustrated by Fig. 109, a bald-
headed man, rather fat. Here is realism of a very mild type, to be
sure, in comparison with what we are accustomed to nowadays; but
the old men of the Parthenon frieze bear no disfiguring marks of
age. Again, in the face of the young Lapith whose arm is being
bitten by a Centaur (Fig. 112), there is a marked attempt to
express physical pain; the features are more distorted than in any
other fifth century sculpture, except representations of Centaurs
or other inferior creatures. In the other heads of imperiled men
and women in this pediment, e.g., in that of the bride (Fig. 111),
the ideal calm of the features is overspread with only a faint
shadow of distress.
Lest what has been said should suggest that the sculptors of the
Olympia pediment-figures were indifferent to beauty, attention may
be drawn again to the superb head of the Lapith bride.
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