Drew Azbell - First Reflection

When we all arrived to Athens, there were a couple of immediate things I learned about the city that I was unaware of prior to being there. First, I was shocked to see the grand size of the city and hear about its massive population. I had no idea Athens had over 4 million inhabitants (which was nearly half of the entire population of Greece). The second was the size of the most popular (and scholar celebrated) sculptures and the effect they give on the viewer. I had previously taken a professor Schindler Greek art and architecture class, as well as a basic level art history class and of course professor Seaman’s class on Greek civilization. Therefore, I had commonly been shown some of the most famous pieces of Greek artwork in picture form. Specific sculptures that were the most commonly referenced were Blond Boy, Kritios Boy, Peplos Girl, the Bronze Sculpture of Zeus/Poseidon and many others. Nearly every piece of Greek artwork and or sculpture was surprising in that its size in reality stumped my preconceived notion of its dimensions. Before going to the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum, I thought that the Kritios Boy, Blond Boy, the Bronze Sculpture of Zeus/Poseidon and the Peplos Girl were all life size sculptures. I was surprised to find many statues like the Peplos Girl, Kritios Boy, and Blond Boy all be smaller than life size, while other artwork like the Bronze Sculpture of Zeus/ Poseidon exceeded my expectations for its massive size. Another example of this was with my very own presentation on the Inner Ionic Frieze of the Parthenon. Looking at the pictures and taking a distant view of the storyline in its entirety made me assume the frieze was way smaller than it truly was. I didn’t even convert the 160 meters into feet in my mind so I partially blame that as well. When I first saw my Frieze in person, I was shocked at just how big it was. The Frieze and each block was massive! The last couple of Days in Athens has been a lot of that for me. I had continued to learn a lot more about the items I have already seen in my previous courses at DePauw, while also gaining that real life experience of seeing them first hand.