The Parthenon

This week in class we spent quite awhile talking about Frederich Edwin Church's "The Parthenon." At first, this just looks like a picture of ruins, but really, there is so much more to it if you break it down. Obviously the Parthenon was very significant to whoever paid to have it painted, which I find unusual because it was an American by the name of Morris Jesups who lived long after the Parthenon was built. We know this as a fact, not only because we can research that it was painted in 1871, but also because of the clues in the painting itself. First of all, the fact that the Parthenon is in ruins is a big clue that it wasn't painted in ancient times. Also, we know that it was definitely painted after oil paint was invented as this is the medium used. But yet, for some reason Jesups still had some reason to have church make the Parthenon such a glorious-like element of the painting, due to the fact that it is almost dead center, placed on a hill, and illuminated by the light source of the painting.

The painting also reveals a lot about the Church himself. Obviously he was not an amateur artist. This is evident not only because of the obvious skill being that it almost looks as realistic as a photograph, but because of the learned artistic elements embedded in this painting. Church knew how to create a foreground, middle ground, and background, and also knew how to balance out the centered Parthenon with the column on the right of the foreground. Whether the sun was really shining like this or Church just chose to do it this way, he still had a great sense of light, especially when trying to make the Parthenon look as great as he could.