Phidian

[ fid-ee-uhn ]

adjective

1. of, associated with, or following the style of Phidias, as exemplified in the Parthenon.

Other Words From

• post-Phidi·an adjective
• pre-Phidi·an adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of Phidian¹

First recorded in 1800–10; Phidi(as) + -an

Example Sentences

It was a remark of Winckelmann that “the supreme beauty of Greek art is rather male than female;” and the justice of this remark has been amply corroborated by the greater knowledge we have of late years attained of the works of the Phidian period, in which art achieved its highest perfection, and in which, at the same time, force and freedom, and masculine grandeur, were its pre-eminent characteristics.

From Project Gutenberg

Hear him but speak, and you will feel The shadows of the Portico Over your tranquil spirit steal, To modulate all joy and woe To one subdued, subduing glow; Above our squabbling business-hours, Like Phidian Jove's, his beauty lowers, His nature satirizes ours; A form and front of Attic grace, He shames the higgling market-place, And dwarfs our more mechanic powers.

From Project Gutenberg

To let a Phidian colossus, with a face high-colored like a comic mask, outstrip thee!

From Project Gutenberg

If she be silent, silence let it be; He who would bid her speak might sit and sue The deep-brow'd Phidian Jove to be untrue To his two thousand years' solemnity.

From Project Gutenberg

He laughs a little at Goethe; he fails to see that the Phidian Zeus, at whose confined position he jests, was the greatest liberator of them all; but for the most part his mocking sarcasm is here silent.

From Project Gutenberg