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The Hall of Sculpture was originally designed
to house the Carnegie Museum of Art's collection of reproduction
Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman sculptures. When the
Hall opened in 1907, a majority of these 69 plaster casts occupied
the ground floor. The design of the Hall was inspired the Parthenon,
the 5th-century b.c.e. Temple of Athena in Athens, Greece. Dedicated
to the virgin goddess Athena, the protectress of Athens, the
Parthenon (from the Greek word parthenos, meaning maiden or virgin)
was built overlooking the city. The imperial scale of the Parthenon,
the beauty of its decorative sculpture, and the visual harmony
among its architectural elements account for its renown ever
since it was built.
The architects of the Hall of Sculpture chose to model their room on the Parthenon's
cella, or inner sanctuary, which was distinguished by a double tier of columns
(the cella of the Parthenon had to accommodate a forty-foot statue of Athena).
The Hall was constructed with brilliant white marble from the same quarries in
Greece that provided the stone for the Parthenon. Because the Hall of Sculpture
was a public museum space, the architects created a balcony with a decorative
iron railing to make viewing from the second floor possible. The balcony of the
Hall of Sculpture is now reserved for decorative arts objects-principally glass,
ceramics, and metalwork-that may range in date from the eighteenth to the twentieth
century.
While much of Andrew Carnegie's cast
collection, including several notable examples from the
Parthenon itself, is currently on view in the museum's Hall
of Architecture, several works from the collection
have been placed on pedestals around the Hall of Sculpture
balcony as reminders of the original purpose of the room.
Still installed directly below the skylight in the position
it has occupied since 1907 is a plaster reproduction of
the carved frieze, or decorative band, that was originally
positioned on the exterior of the Parthenon's cella. This
frieze depicts the procession that inaugurated the annual
festival of Athena in ancient Athens.
Today in the Hall of Sculpture the Carnegie Museum of Art displays works from
its permanent collections and, on occasion, mounts special exhibitions. For the
1988 Carnegie International, the museum's triennial exhibition of contemporary
art, the German artist Lothar Baumgarten (b. 1944) produced The Tongue of the
Cherokee for the Hall's skylight ceiling. This work of art presents the Cherokee
alphabet, which was formulated in the early nineteenth century. Just as the choice
of a Greek-inspired design for the Hall of Sculpture reflects the importance
of that ancient culture to American politics, so the Cherokee alphabet serves
as a reminder of the presence in this country of Native Americans and recognizes
their role in American history.
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