wrote the names of the principal figures near them.
I have now repeated the account Pausanius has left us of the pictures
of Polygnotus. It remains to consider what has been said, particularly
by Pliny, of the change he effected in the art.
Before his time the faces had all one grave set expression; something,
as we may presume, like that of the marbles and bronzes of the Eginetic
and Etruscan schools.
Polygnotus first parted the lips, varied the appearance and expression
of the eyes, dimpled the cheeks with smiles, or deformed the brow and
nostrils with the expression of passion, however imperfectly rendered.
He also it was who introduced the use of veils and other light and
becoming ornaments in his female figures, and adorned their heads
with fillets and coronals, thus adding delicacy and grace to his high
poetical conceptions. In the brides of Castor and Pollux, in the
captive Trojan princesses, and in the shades of celebrated and unhappy
women in the descent of Ulysses, these qualities were particularly
admired. Polygnotus, then, must be looked upon as the painter, who,
leaving the practice of making mere coloured bas-reliefs, rendered
painting a separate art, and established the difference between statues
and groups in marble or bronze, and true pictures.
The name of Polygnotus is the greatest that adorns what we may consider
as the first great epocha of Greek art. When, having nearly attained
perfection, sculpture in the hands of Phidias produced the perfectly
sublime in his Jupiter Olympias and his Minerva of the Parthenon, and
formed a model which has never been safely departed from, for the
composition of basso-relievo in the Panathenaic procession. But in
painting, Polygnotus, though he had attained to great grandeur and
majesty, had still left much to his successors to add in correctness,
in expression, and in grace.
Contemporary with Polygnotus was Evenor, the master as well as father
of Parrhasius[106]. But before Parrhasius began to distinguish himself,
Apollodorus of Athens had made a great and rapid stride in art, and
had painted at least two pictures that for six centuries commanded the
admiration of all men of taste and understanding. He therefore may be
considered as the first of the second epocha of Greek painting.
It was Apollodorus who first gave the niceties of character and
expression to his figures; strength and force without exaggeration,
and tenderness without insipidity. He added also to the mechanical
powers of the painter, by breaking the colours, and showing the value
of light and shade, of harmony and contrast. Pliny says, “I may well
and truly say, that none before him brought the pencil into a glorious
name and especial credit[107].” The only two pictures of which we know
the subjects, were preserved at Pergamos, at least until the end of
the first century of the Christian era. In one the chief figure was
a kneeling priest in fervent adoration. The other represented Ajax
Oileus on a rock, stricken by the thunderbolt after escaping from his
perishing fleet.
It is evident that the effects of such subjects must have depended in
great measure on light, and shadow, and colour. Accordingly, the school
of Apollodorus produced the painter of most note among the ancients
for those qualities. I mean the Heracleot Zeuxis; but Zeuxis had also
the advantage of being a contemporary of the Ephesian Parrhasius, and
was thus able to avail himself of the improvements introduced by that
extraordinary man.
Parrhasius no doubt made use of the studies of the Macedonian Pamphilus
who painted at Sicyon, and greatly improved that famous school, whence,
half a century after the time of Apollodorus, proceeded Apelles and
other painters of note. This Pamphilus taught his pupils arithmetic and
geometry, without which he maintained that it was impossible to paint.
Linear perspective was thus improved, and some general rules, acted
upon intuitively before, were now fixed; but the delicacy of eye, which
demanded a finer perspective, belonged to Parrhasius. He introduced
the magic of aërial perspective; and the description by Pliny, of the
manner in which the objects in his pictures seemed to shadow somewhat
behind, and yet showed what they seemed to hide, may lead us to imagine
that he was not ignorant of the effect of reflected lights.
He is praised for the beauty of his features, and peculiarly the
sweetness and “lovely grace about the mouth and lips;”[108] the
softness and fulness of the hair; the blended tints that melted away
the outline, in some instances perhaps too much, as we gather from the
painter Euphranor’s observation, that the Theseus of Parrhasius looked
as if he fed on roses, while his own had evidently fed on flesh.
Two ancient writers on painting, Antigonus and Xenocrates, now lost,
praised Parrhasius especially for the delicacy with which he finished
the extremities of his figures. They quoted many pictures on pannel,
and drawings on parchment, which served as examples for other painters,
and as proofs of his wonderful skill in this part of his art.
It is to these authors that Pliny ascribes the criticism that the
interior drawings were not quite equal to the outlines of his figures:
not that they were inferior to those of other men, but only as one part
of Parrhasius’ work might be inferior to another: Parrhasius, compared
with Parrhasius[109], who, as Horace says,
---- bade the breathing colours flow,
To imitate in every line
The forms, or human, or divine[110].
We have a pretty considerable list of the works of this great painter
which were in existence when Pliny wrote; one of these indeed, which
was at Rhodes, was held in great reverence, because, although the
pannel on which it was painted had been thrice struck with lightning,
yet the painting remained uninjured; the subject was a story of
Meleager, Perseus, and Hercules. There is scarcely any class of
subjects which Parrhasius does not appear to have chosen occasionally.
One of the most celebrated of his pictures was a personification of the
Demos, or people of Athens, in which he is said to have embodied the
virtues, talents, humours, and inconstancy of that witty, capricious
democracy.
He is praised for the majesty of his demi-gods and heroes, the beauty
and expression of his women and young men, and the grace and simplicity
of his children. In short, to use the words of Quintilian, “Parrhasius
was so exact in every particular, that he is looked upon even to this
day as the lawgiver of painters; because the paintings of gods and
heroes, such as he has left behind him, are held as so many models,
which they make it a rule to follow invariably[111].”
Of the life of Parrhasius we know nothing, but of his manners we have
a curious picture preserved by Pliny. His vanity appears to have been
almost insufferable. He clothed himself in a purple robe, and wore a
chaplet of golden flowers; his staff was entwined with tendrils of
gold, and his sandals were clasped at the instep and ankle with golden
latchets. He affected the name of Abrodrœtus, or the delicate[112],
assumed the title of Prince of Painters, and pretended to have had
Apollo himself for his forefather. There was something like insanity
in the assertion that Hercules appeared to him in the visions of the
night, that he might delineate his form with exactness[113]; and,
perhaps, his insolent demeanour to other painters might spring from an
unsound mind.
Two anecdotes concerning him are well known. His contest with Zeuxis,
in which, though the grapes on the head of the boy of Zeuxis had
deceived the birds, the curtain painted by Parrhasius deceived Zeuxis
himself[114]. The second story is, that having lost the prize in a
contest with Timanthes of Samos, for a picture of the contest between
Ajax and Ulysses for the armour of Achilles, he affected to pity Ajax
for being thus a second time foiled by a worthless rival.
The most celebrated of the contemporaries of Parrhasius was Zeuxis of
Heraclea, who began to attract public notice soon after Parrhasius
himself had established his reputation. He was the pupil either of
Demophiles the Nemerian, or Niceas the Thracian, perhaps of both.
Quintilian says[115], that “he painted bodies with greater than real
proportions, thinking such a form to be more august; and in this it is
thought he followed Homer’s manner, who took pleasure in representing
all his characters, even his women, of large and strong size.”
Apollodorus, of whose extraordinary powers I have already spoken, paid
the same generous tribute to the rising merit of Zeuxis, as Michael
Angelo did to that of Raffaelle; and even wrote some verses, which have
been lost, in praise of his works.
Zeuxis’ works were so eagerly sought after, that he very soon made
a fortune equal to his wishes, after which he refused to work for
money, but gave away his pictures; for instance, to the people of
Agrigentum he presented his great picture of Alcmena; and to Archelaus,
King of Macedon, a large painting of Pan. We are obliged to Pliny
for preserving the subjects of several of his best works. Jupiter,
surrounded by the other gods, is praised for its majesty; and the
picture of the infant Hercules strangling the serpents in his cradle,
for the expression of the bystanders, especially of Amphitryon and
Alcmena. Of his Penelope it is said that he had not only painted the
outward charms and features of her person, but the inward qualities and
affections of her mind.
Of his famous Helen, and of the story of his choosing her several
perfections from several beautiful women sent to him by the
Agrigentines for the purpose, when they entreated him to paint their
votive picture for the temple of Juno, it is unnecessary to remind
the reader, as the story, true or false, is in every collection of
anecdotes. We know not Zeuxis’ own estimation of that picture, but
with another of his works he was so satisfied, that he is said to
have written under it, “It will be easier to envy than to imitate
me.” The subject was a wrestler. Some writers, however, say that
the inscription, which was a Greek Iambic verse, was written by
Apollodorus, his master and friend. And this is most natural; for what
man of genius was ever entirely satisfied with his own work?
I have already mentioned the contest of Zeuxis with Parrhasius, for the
nicest power of imitation in painting. The picture of the Muses, which
was carried to Rome, demanded qualities of a different kind; so did the
Marsyas, which Pliny likewise saw in Italy. His drawings in a single
colour, relieved with white, appear to have been numerous and greatly
valued[116]. Like Raffaelle, Zeuxis is said to have painted sometimes
on earthen ware, and that vases and cups adorned by him were much
prized. Possibly he only furnished the designs for these.
Zeuxis was not quite free from the same love of show which
distinguished his great rival, Parrhasius. He is reported to have shown
himself, magnificently attired, at the Olympic games, and to have
caused his name to be embroidered in gold upon his upper garments, of
which he displayed an unusual number of changes during the games.
Another of the great men who flourished in this second period, was
Timanthes. His celebrated picture of Iphigenia, in Aulis, has been
the subject of much criticism. The ancient writers, with one accord,
praise the feeling which led the painter to conceal the father’s
face; and though it is probable that most of them either mistook, or
were ignorant of, the principle on which Timanthes, as an artist,
proceeded, they were still right as to human nature. Reynolds and some
other modern critics, especially Falconet, have reprobated the idea of
Timanthes; but Fuseli has, in my opinion, set the matter at rest in a
very beautiful piece of criticism[117], which I shall give below.
The picture itself was painted in competition with Colotes of Teos,
whom I have already mentioned as the sculptor of the table of the
Coronets at Delphi. The work of Timanthes gained the prize, as his Ajax
had done, when exhibited in competition with that of Parrhasius.
There was a celebrated portrait of a prince by him, of which Pliny
says, “It was thought to be most absolute: the majesty is such that
all the art of painting a man seemeth comprised in that one portrait.”
Timanthes did not always confine himself, however, to the grand and the
pathetic. There is an account of a little picture where he represented
a Cyclops asleep, and a number of little satyrs peeping out of the
woods; some of whom, astonished at his size, are measuring the thumb of
the unconscious giant with wands.
At the same time with the four great painters, Apollodorus, Parrhasius,
Zeuxis, and Timanthes, lived Euxenidas, Eupompus, Echion, Therimachus,
and some others not unworthy of their fellowship. They were remarkable
also as having formed the men who flourished in the third and most
brilliant epoch of painting in Greece.
As this essay is already longer than I intended, I will close it
here; and endeavour, in another, to sketch the history of the highest
prosperity and gradual decline of art in Greece. The consideration
of the causes of that decline belongs to the philosophy of general
history. I will only remark, that painting in Greece rose to its
highest excellence by individual exertions, exciting the sympathy, and
therefore the patronage, of the public generally; that it flourished
under the encouragement of Alexander; but that the unnatural fostering
of power appears to have weakened the spirit of art, which faded
after his time, as those delicate plants which are cherished into
extraordinary beauty by the heat of the stove, after a season languish
and die, even of the effort that seemed to contribute to their
luxuriance.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] I have heard it objected that the Americans of the United States,
though they built towns and established civil governments and so on,
thought little of the fine arts for 200 years. That is true. But it
should be remembered that the fine arts formed part of the religion of
the Egyptian emigrants. The British emigrants, on the contrary, had
just quitted a most gorgeous communion, which had employed all the arts
in its service, and thus rendered them an abomination to the severe
puritans who were in fact flying from the persecutions of the great
patrons of art in their days.
[72] Lecture 1.
[73] Pausanias, to whom we owe the largest catalogue of antique works
of art, travelled about the year 170 of our era; and the objects he
describes could not have been suddenly dispersed even after his time.
[74] Contemporary with Homer was Jeroboam, who set up the two calves or
heifers in two cities of Palestine.
[75] 1 Kings, ch. vii., v. 13. In 2 Chron. ch. ii., v. 14, he is not
named, and his mother is said to have been of the daughters of Dan;
his qualifications were, that he was “skilful to work in gold and in
silver, in brass, in iron, in stone and in timber, in purple, in blue,
in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving,
and to find out every device which shall be put to him.” Scripture
tell us likewise, that Solomon built or repaired many cities. Balbec
and Palmyra are both named. Now, the columns and lighter parts of the
temples at Balbec look very like architecture of the Roman time; while
the massy substructures resemble works that are always said to be of
Pelasgic origin. Again, the temples of Palmyra are of Roman taste; but
the tombs and watercourses, like the works in Palestine ascribed to
Solomon, are massy and durable.
[76] The Dutch traveller, Cornelis de Bruyn, in his 1st folio vol.,
published in 1698, was among the first to publish a figure of the tomb
of Absalom; Pocock has given a very faithful representation of it;
Meyer, who travelled with Sir Robert Ainsley, also gave a faithful
likeness of it and the tombs of the kings. The most agreeable points
of view of these subjects are however to be found in the Landscape
Illustrations of the Bible, published by Mr. Murray, with descriptions
by the Rev. Hartwell Horne. For the excavations and buildings of Petra,
see M. Leon de Laborde’s works. If quite authentic, they, like Palmyra,
show _very_ ancient excavations and buildings, overlaid with Roman
additions.
[77] Unless that of Arimnus, a Tyrrhene king, preceded it, which is
doubtful.
[78] This is that Cypselus, from whose tyranny Demaratus is reported
to have fled and taken refuge at Tarquinii, and to have settled in
Etruria, and carried on his former occupation of a potter. His son,
under the name of Tarquin, became king of Rome.
[79] The description of the fabulous horse of brass, which makes so
conspicuous a figure in the tale of Gyges, supposes the maker to have
been an ingenious mechanic, as well as an artist of talent.
[80] Pliny, besides extolling the statues this Theodorus cast in
bronze, praises some exquisitely minute works of his. Contemporary with
the gifts of Crœsus to the Delphic Apollo, was the golden image set up
by Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon; and, within fifty years, Perillus made
the brazen bull for Phalaris, tyrant of Syracuse, who with a cruel
justice consumed the artist himself in it.
[81] Ezra, ch. vi., v. 14. The vessels returned by Cyrus were 5400 in
number. Ezra, ch. i., v. 11.
[82] By the time of Cyrus, Athens had for ever shaken off the kingly
government: and a polished Greek city, Marseilles, had been founded in
barbarous Gaul.
[83] See M. Tausch on the Circassians, in the first Number of the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
[84] _Damasking_, evidently from Damascus. As silks and linen, with
rich varied surfaces, often of different colours, are also called
damask.
[85] Pausanias, b. v. ch. 17. The chest is said to be that in which
the tyrant was concealed by his mother when the Bacchidæ would have
slain him: some say it was in the family meal chest that he was hidden.
I have seen in very old English houses, and some Italian ones, meal
chests curiously adorned.
[86] Pausanias, in the beginning of the eighteenth chapter of the
Laconics, names the statues of Sleep and Death, believed to be
brothers; and farther on, in the same chapter, the throne of Amyclæs,
made by Bathycles, the ornaments of which were as various and chosen
with as much apparent caprice as those on the chest of Cypselus.
[87] Fuseli.
[88] An improvement almost equivalent to that made by Dædalus in
sculpture. He, it is said, first detached the arms from the sides,
varied the positions of the limbs, and gave true relief to the
features. Hence the fable that he endowed his figures with motion.
There are some curious Mexican figures in the possession of Capt.
Veitch, they are in high relief upon slabs; holes are drilled for the
arm-pits, the fore arms are crossed upon the stomach, the legs only
indicated, and to give the appearance of relief to the nose, the cheeks
are hollowed on each side.
[89] “On the walls of the temple is painted, by ancient artists, the
whole history as engraved on the pillar. There you see Orestes sailing
with his friend, his ship split on the rock, himself taken, and
Iphigenia preparing to sacrifice him: in another part he is represented
freed from his chains, slaying Thoas and several other Scythians;
they are setting sail with Iphigenia and the goddess; the Scythians
attempting to board the ship, and hanging on the rudder; some wounded
and repulsed, others frightened and swimming back to the shore. On the
opposite side of the wall is pourtrayed the mutual affection of the
two friends in their battle with the Scythians; the painter has drawn
one of them driving away the enemies who attacked the other, without
regarding those who fell on himself, as if careless of his own life, if
he could but preserve that of his friend, covering him on every side,
and receiving the strokes that were aimed at him.”
FRANKLIN’S LUCIAN.
[90] Pliny, b. xxxv. ch. 8, says “it is for certain reported that
Phidias himself was a painter at the beginning.”
[91] Before Christ, 465. _Leake’s Topography of Athens._
[92] The architect of the Parthenon was Ictinus, who wrote a treatise,
now lost, upon its construction.
[93] There are casts in the British Museum.
[94] I am not aware that any _pictures_ adorned this temple, though the
statues were painted. The Egina marbles, which might have been, but
which, alas! are not in England, form an interesting link between the
free finished works of Phidias, and the stiffer and more conventional
figures of early Corinth and Etruria. _See Mr. Cockerell’s interesting
Essay, with the etchings, in the 6th Vol. of the Quarterly Journal of
Science and Art._
[95] Topography of Athens.
[96] The approach to common life in the German compositions, renders
their colour less offensive perhaps to our feelings, than colour
applied to the ideal forms of Greek sculpture would be.
[97] _And painted Stœa next._--MILTON. It was from this portico that
the stoics derived their name.
Colonel Leake quotes Synesius to show that the pictures of Polygnotus,
in the Pæcile, were painted on pannels, and that they were not removed
till the 4th century.
[98] In the 15th chapter of Pausanias’ Attics, I know that he does not
name Æschylus as one of the persons introduced in the picture; but in
chapter 21, after speaking of some other tragic poets, he says, “with
respect to the image of Æschylus and the _picture_ in which his valour
at Marathon is represented, I am of opinion that these were produced a
long time after his death.” What picture, if not that of the battle of
Marathon?
[99] Polygnotus neglected nothing that could flatter the Athenians.
Into this great epic picture he introduced a dog, which having followed
a soldier to Marathon, returned unhurt after the battle, and became a
pet with the people. Dogs seem to have been in favour at Athens. There
is a story of a white dog which trotted through the temple of Minerva
Polias down into that of Pandrosus, and placed himself in comfort on
the altar, that stood under Minerva’s own olive tree. Another white dog
acquired fame by tasting of the meat offered in sacrifice to Apollo.
There is also a white dog referred to in the catalogue of monuments of
Hercules. The numerous statues of dogs, in bronze and marble, attest
the gratitude of the ancients to those friends and guardians of man.
[100] Castor and Pollux, as the preservers of seamen, were very early
worshipped by the Athenians.
[101] It was near this building that the Graces in marble by Socrates
stood: they were veiled as became the Graces, fashioned by the hand of
wisdom. The veil on the work of Socrates was a real veil; but a friend
has observed, that “the veil was a remarkable part of the mythology of
the Graces, but it is described as invisible, and having only the moral
effect of a veil.”
[102] I think that as Epeus is said to have invented the wooden horse,
an allegory was intended in this part of the picture. Indeed, I have
somewhere seen it remarked, I think in Pausanias, that to suppose that
the horse of Epeus was anything but a warlike machine, is to suppose
the Trojans very stupid indeed.
[103] There are in this part of the picture some verses, by Simonides,
to the following effect:--
The artist Polygnotus, for his sire
Who claims Aglaiophon, in Thasos born,
painted the captured tower of Troy.
_Taylor’s Translation_ (of 1794)
[104] I cannot help considering the figure of Ocnus, who was
represented as twisting a rope of rushes for a she ass to devour, as an
emblem of the inactivity--the doing of nothing in the grave. We have a
single picture, by another painter of the same subject, as an emblem
of idleness, mentioned by Pliny. Pausanias, however, calls the ass of
Ocnus the emblem of a thriftless wife.