portrait of Alexander, in the character of Jupiter the Thunderer,
which was hung in the temple of Diana of Ephesus, and cost no less
than twenty talents of gold, according to Pliny. This picture is
praised as much for grandeur and majesty as the Venus for loveliness.
Nor was it the only portrait of Alexander he painted, for we are told
that he represented him in every action and character, and that the
pictures of King Philip, by Apelles, were almost equally numerous. The
portrait of Clytus he painted in armour, and that of Megabyzus, the
priest of Diana, in his priestly robes, performing a sacrifice. Of
other remarkable portraits by him, we have the names of Antiochus, the
king, whom he painted in profile to conceal the want of an eye, which
disfigured him; of Menander, king of the Rhodians; of Gorgosthenes, the
tragedian; and of one Ancæus, a Samian.
At Rome there was an allegorical picture painted by him, in which
Castor and Pollux, Alexander, and a winged victory were introduced; and
also that picture of war in chains, which was afterwards so cruelly
defaced by Claudius, who, as I have already mentioned, had the head of
Alexander scraped out, and that of Augustus substituted for it[131].
Other subjects on which he employed his pencil have been named by
various authors: for instance, a Hercules nearly turned from the
spectator; a Hero and Leander; Archelaus with his wife and daughter;
and a most beautiful picture of Diana, with her attendant virgins
preparing a sacrifice. This last was esteemed by the connoisseurs
of Greece as one of his very finest works, though a few preferred a
picture of Antigonus on horseback. He had painted the same king in
armour, on foot, with his horse led by a soldier, but this work was
not esteemed nearly so much as the other. He seems to have been fond
of painting horses, and carried away the prize from several rivals in
subjects where they were treated, either alone, or along with their
riders. I am not clear whether it were a solitary horse, or one on
which he had mounted Neoptolemus armed, and charging some Persian
soldiers, that, according to Pliny, procured him the compliment of a
greeting from a real horse that was passing by[132].
It is evident, I think, from what the ancients have related concerning
his works, that he never painted in fresco, nor do I find any mention
made of drawings on parchment, like those of Zeuxis and Parrhasius. He
must then have painted upon pannel with the usual preparation of chalk
or carbonate of lime, with size. Of the peculiar glaze or varnish,
which he is said to have first used, I shall have occasion to speak in
a future Essay.
Protogenes, the friend and rival of Apelles, was born at Caunus, in
Cilicia; but Rhodes was his adopted country. His poverty was such, that
he was a ship painter during the early part of his life. Now the ships
of the ancients, though coloured generally red or black, laid on with
pitch, wax, and oil, at the bottoms and the seams, had always a figure
painted at the prow, representing the tutelary deity, or hero of the
vessel, much after the manner of our figure-heads. On the stern it was
customary to paint marine subjects, such as Neptune and Amphitrite,
the Tritons, the birth of Venus, and so on[133]. In the course of this
practice Protogenes acquired great knowledge and skill in shipping, and
became a considerable marine painter.
Perhaps the sight of some of the ships painted by him might have
induced the Athenians to invite him to paint some of their favourite
ships of war, in the Portico near Minerva’s temple. The great praises
bestowed on his pictures by Apelles, was another temptation to a
people so eager after every kind of elegance, to engage him in the
service of the city. Accordingly, about the fiftieth year of his age,
he accepted an invitation to work for the Republic, and having painted
the Thesmothetæ of the time[134] in the chamber of the council of five
hundred, he painted the two galleys, Paralus and Hemionis, in the
portico near Minerva’s Temple. The Greek painters were occasionally
in the habit of surrounding their pictures with a border of subjects,
executed on a smaller scale than the main action of the picture; this
they called Parerga[135]. The parerga to the Paralus and Hemionis
consisted of small vessels, of various kinds and dimensions. Pliny says
that the painter intended thereby to show from what small beginnings,
he, a painter of ships and boats, had arisen to eminence. But I think
it more likely that he only made his border to suit his subject, which
was dedicated to the service of the state and commerce of Athens[136].
It is said that while Protogenes remained in Athens, Aristotle urged
him, without success, to paint the triumphs of Alexander. But he
painted some portraits which were highly esteemed, particularly one of
Aristotle’s mother. He also painted Antigonus and some other men of
note in his time. None of his pictures, however, were so much admired
as his Ialysus; though the Anapomenes or Satyrs at rest, the Cydippe,
the Tlepolemus, and the Pan, were greatly esteemed. Protogenes acquired
as great a reputation for his bronze statues as his pictures.
Aristides of Thebes is the next great name in the third era of Greek
painting. He was remarkable for the intense expression he threw into
his figures. His battle pieces, his hunting scenes, and his chariot
races, painted for foreign kings and public halls, though highly
prized, were far below the pathetic groups of his smaller pictures, in
general esteem. There was a suppliant sueing so earnestly for grace
that his very voice seemed to be heard; there was Byblis expiring
for love; also a tragic actor, with his attendant on the scene, and
some other pictures, which were carried to Rome, and hung in the most
honourable places[137]. His great merit seems to have been a close
attention to nature, not only in form but in action and expression;
else, whence arose the strong attraction of his Dying Man? But the most
touching of all his works was that picture of the storming of a town,
in which the foremost group consisted of a dying mother and her infant.
The child was creeping towards the breast, she anxiously watching its
weak movements, and endeavouring to guide it aright. None could look on
this painting without a tender horror; few without shedding tears. It
was found in Thebes, when the place was sacked by Alexander. He took it
for his own, and sent it to Pella. The following lines, by Emilianus
Nicœus, convey the sentiments of the painter.
Suck, little wretch, while yet thy mother lives!
Suck the last drop her fainting bosom gives!
She dies--her tenderness survives her breath,
And her fond love is provident in death[138].
Nichomachus was a painter, formed in the same school with Aristides.
But his mind had a freer and more cheerful turn; and we find in Pliny’s
list of his pictures some of even a playful cast. For instance, one
of a procession of the priestesses of Bacchus, in their habits, which
having attracted the notice of the sylvan deities, they are peeping
from the woods, and creeping as near as they dare. The rape of
Proserpine was another of his subjects. The sea monster Scylla another.
He is also known to have painted Ulysses on his raft; several pictures
of the gods, an Apotheosis, and other works, which were carried to Rome.
He had the reputation of painting with greater celerity than any other
man of his time, in proof of which, we have the following anecdote. He
had undertaken to paint, for a certain sum of money, the tomb which
Anstrœtus, tyrant of Sicyon, had built in memory of Telestes the poet.
The work was to be finished by a certain day; but four days before the
time appointed, the painter had not even arrived at Sicyon to begin.
Upon learning this, Anstrœtus threatened him with exemplary punishment.
But, to the tyrant’s surprise, when the day came round, instead of
punishment, he had to bestow both the promised reward and the highest
praise, for the excellency of the work.
I come now to the last great painters of Greece, Pausias and Euphranor,
who were a little after the time of Apelles and Aristides.
Timomachus, of Byzantium; Nicias, of Athens; and Theon of Samos,
indeed, attained to considerable fame; and there were some painters of
familiar life and other subjects, that appear to deserve notice for
their reputation, even were it less curious to observe how ancient and
modern art have followed the same paths.
Pausias was the son and pupil of Brietes, of Sicyon, and appears to
have been dexterous in the use of every kind of material and tool then
known. He was particularly celebrated for his pictures in encaustic,
of the origin of which method of painting Pliny himself was in doubt.
His skill in the more ancient methods of painting was such, that he
was chosen to repair the pictures of Polygnotus, at Thespiæ, which
had suffered greatly from time and damp. It is true that his work
was considered greatly inferior to that of the original picture;
not, indeed, as Fuseli says, because he used a different method and
different tools, but because he wrought in a manner to which he
was unaccustomed. May we not also say, because his gay, cheerful
disposition, delighting in painting children and flowers, did not and
could not enter into the high and solemn feelings which seem to have
constantly guided the pencil of Polygnotus?
The exceeding beauty of colour which is said to have distinguished
the pictures of Pausias, he owed to love. There lived in Sicyon an
exceedingly beautiful girl, called Glycera, a garland maker, celebrated
for the taste and elegance with which she wove the coronals, then worn
universally at religious festivals and banquets, public and private.
At first, Pausias resorted to her for the sake of painting the fresh
flowers, and catching their combinations of colour and form; but he
soon began to love Glycera more than her flowers; and the picture that
he painted of her, while wreathing a garland, was the finest work that
ever came from his hand[139].
Akin to this, was his Hemerosis, a small picture of a child, reported
to have been painted in a single day, though executed with the greatest
care and nicety, to prove how falsely those accused him of idleness
who said his love of painting children arose from the little necessity
there was for care and diligence in such subjects.
A very remarkable picture of his is mentioned, representing a
sacrifice, in which a number of oxen are introduced. The foreshortening
of one of these is said to have been imitated, though without success,
by many rivals; the manner of casting the shadows also, upon the more
distant groups, was a distinguishing excellence of Pausias.
This sacrifice, and other works of this most eminent man, were carried
to Rome, when all the pictures at Sycyon were seized during the
Edileship of Scaurus, as I have already mentioned.
Euphranor, the Isthmean, was the most accomplished of all the ancient
painters after the time of Pausias. He was equally celebrated as a
sculptor in marble and bronze, and the bowls and vases of his embossing
always fetched a high price.
The great public work of Euphranor was a portico, in that part of
Athens called the Ceramicus. One of the subjects was an allegorical
picture of the early political state of Athens.
The Athenian people, Theseus, and the personage of Democracy, were
introduced; but Pausanias, who mentions the subject, gives no account
of its treatment, though he says it signified that Theseus first
established equal rights of citizenship among the Athenians. In the
same portico, Euphranor also painted the battle of Mantinea, in which
the most remarkable group was an encounter of cavalry. Epaminondas was
at the head of the Bœotians, and Gryllus, the son of Xenophon, led the
Athenian horse.
One end of the portico Euphranor sanctified by paintings of the twelve
superior gods. Perhaps some slight judgment of the tone of these
pictures may be formed from the expression of Euphranor himself--that,
while the Theseus of Parrhasius looked as if he had fed upon roses, his
own showed that he lived upon flesh.
The other principal pictures of Euphranor appear to have belonged to
the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the most remarkable of which was the
feigned madness of Ulysses, who was harnessing a horse and an ox to the
same yoke.
Before I proceed to the painters of less note, I will use the words of
Quintillian to sum up the general character of some of the greatest men
who distinguished the third period of Greek art.
“Protogenes distinguished himself by his accuracy: Pamphilus and
Melanthus by beauty of design: Antiphilus by the easy and natural
strokes of his pencil: Theon of Samos by his lively imagination: and
Apelles by his ingenuity, and the graces which he boasted he had
excelled in: Euphranor made himself admirable by being possessed of
these different qualities in as eminent a degree as the best masters.”
The great encouragement of art about the time of Philip, and in the
reign of Alexander and his immediate successors, called out abundance
of talent of various kinds and degrees; from that of the Egyptian, or
rather Alexandrian Antiphilus, whose attention to nature must have been
of singular use to him in those scenes for the theatre on which he
loved to employ himself, to that pupil of Apelles to whom his master
said sarcastically, “As you have not been able to paint your Venus
beautiful, you have made her fine;” in allusion to a profusion of gold
chain and other ornaments with which he had loaded her. The serious
pictures of Antiphilus which were carried to Rome, were the death of
Hippolytus; several votive pictures of Greek divinities, and some
few heroes. He painted grotesques so perfectly, that from one of his
figures, a fool named Gryllus, with a cap and bells, such subjects got
the name of Grylli.
Antiphilus is, besides, the first painter, whose name has come down
to us, who painted fire-light effects. His most famous work of this
kind was a boy blowing a fire with his mouth, in which the natural
character of the boy, and the effect of the light throughout the room,
were greatly admired. Another favourite picture represented a number of
women spinning and gossiping, highly valued for its truth.
Pliny seems doubtful whether it be not beneath the dignity of painting
to praise Pyreicus, who loved to paint interiors, especially the shops
of tailors, shoemakers, and sempstresses; giving every thing its true
nature and character, to a degree that attracted much admiration and
many purchasers; and as he delighted in making pictures of the houses
of the humble classes of men, he loved also to paint the animals that
especially belong to them. The nickname of _Rhyparographus_, was given
him, on account of his skill in painting asses bringing vegetables and
fruit to market. These pictures were of small size, and very highly
finished, and were sold for large prices. Serapion, the contemporary of
Pyreicus, on the contrary, painted nothing but play-house scenes, mock
architecture, and other things of enormous size, but was incapable of
drawing either men or animals.
Heraclides the Macedonian was celebrated as a marine painter. His
friend Metrodorus, I conjecture to have been a scene painter, and as he
combined considerable knowledge of the arts, with the science requisite
for a tutor to young men, he was employed by Lucius Paulus both to
bring up his sons, and to paint his triumphs.
But I will close my account of the painters of Greece with two names
of greater eminence, Nicias and Timomachus, who lived in the time of
Julius Cæsar. Nicias was an Athenian of considerable private fortune,
so that having painted a picture of the descent of Ulysses to the
infernal regions, he refused to sell it at a very high price to a
foreign prince, and presented it to his native city. He was famous
above all for the beauty of his women, and the bold relief of his
figures, which are said to have appeared ready to leave the ground they
were painted upon, and to walk out of their frames. I have mentioned
in the last Essay the subjects of some of his principal pictures which
were carried to Rome, and highly prized by Augustus Cæsar. There seems
to have been another painter of the same name[140], who was also a
sculptor and pupil of Praxiteles, who esteemed him highly on account of
the exquisite finish of his works.
Timomachus of Byzantium seems to have delighted most in tragic
subjects, though a picture of his, containing excellent portraits of
several generations of one and the same family, is mentioned. His
most successful work is said to have been a Gorgon’s head. He painted
Iphigenia in Aulis, Orestes and Clytæmnestra; and, for Julius Cæsar, an
Ajax and a Medea. The treatment of the latter we may gather from the
following lines, by Antiphilus, preserved in the Greek anthology.
ON THE MEDEA OF TIMOMACHUS.
When bold Timomachus essayed to trace
The soul’s emotions in the varying face,
With patient thought, and faithful hand, he strove
To blend with jealous rage maternal love.
Behold Medea! Envy must confess
In both the passions his complete success;
Tears in each threat--a threat in every tear;
The mind with pity warm, or chill with fear.
The dread suspense I praise, the critic cries,
Here all the judgment, all the pathos lies;
To stain with filial blood the guilty scene
Had marr’d the artist, but became the queen[141].
I think it best to close my account of ancient Greek painting here,
while it was still practised by great masters in their own land, not
yet quite enslaved. From the time of Augustus, Italy attracted the best
artists of all kinds, but, as I have already shown, it was not under
the Cæsars that the liberal arts flourished most.
I have now given a sketch of the history of painting and painters in
Greece--very imperfect, I acknowledge, but such as I can collect from
the authors who either treat on the subject of pictures and artists, or
who have left incidental remarks on them, in such works as have come
down to us.
The first efforts of painting in Greece appear to have been as rude as
we found them among the savages of Polynesia. The earliest steps of
art in Egypt and Etruria elude our observation, but the nature of the
improvements attributed to Eumanus of Athens, teach us what they were
in Greece.
The art once exercised, however, neither halted nor tarried. It
was sublime in its simplicity in the hands of Polygnotus and his
cotemporaries. It served their gods and their country. Much improved in
beauty, but still grave and dignified, it grew popular in the time of
Parrhasius and Zeuxis. Under Apelles and his followers it was devoted
to the graces, revelled in beauty, and ministered to the refined
pleasures of taste, rather than as at first, to the gratification of
higher moral feelings.
Brought down thus to the commoner tone of general society, more
various subjects were thought worthy of it. Pyreicus anticipated
the subjects of the modern Dutch painters, and it should seem with
kindred success. The natural desire for novelty, and the anxiety for
individual distinction, produced fire-light scenes, pictures of still
life and other varieties. Fashion, rather than taste, became the guide
of purchasers, and it may truly be said, that the decline of painting
began with the Macedonian conquests, which altered the character of the
Greeks, and, consequently, of their arts.
FOOTNOTES:
[118] Herodotus, Terpsichore, c. 22.
[119] The judges of the Games.
[120] Pausanias does not mention the name of the sculptors who executed
either of the three statues of Alexander which were at Olympia. One was
raised to him as conqueror in that race called _Hemerodromos_, because
a great space is run through in one day; another, dedicated to him by
a certain Corinthian, represented him in the character of the son of
Jupiter; and the third was an Equestrian statue, a votive offering of
the Eleans.--_See the Lists of Votive Statues in the V. and VI. Books._
Lysippus of Sicyon was originally a coppersmith; afterwards a pupil of
Eupompus. He cast many statues of Alexander, one of which Nero caused
to be gilt, but afterwards washed off the gold. A large composition,
representing Alexander hunting with his horses and dogs, was dedicated
in the temple of Apollo at Delphi; and Lysippus executed many other
statues of Alexander, and of his friends, especially Hephæstion, which
were placed in various temples as compliments to the conqueror.
Pyrgoteles was of all the Greeks the most renowned engraver of gems.
[121] It was unlawful to teach a slave painting, engraving, or
embossing.--(Pliny, b. xxxv. 10.)
[122] Box tablets, properly prepared, were used for these
_diagraphice_. In a future essay I propose to compare these with the
tablets used by the school of Giotto, of which we have a minute account
in Cennino Cennini’s curious work.
[123] It appears that Pamphilus would not undertake to instruct a pupil
for a less term of years.
[124] If the talent be rightly computed at 193_l._ 15_s._, the pay, in
the first case, is enormous; in the last very small.
[125] Dr. Franklin, the translator of Lucian, without citing any
authority, says, there was a second Apelles, and that the Apelles of
Alexander and the Apelles of Ptolemy were different persons. It is
evident that Lucian himself meant _the_ great Apelles. And the picture
of Calumny has always been ascribed to him; I cannot find any mention
elsewhere of a second.
[126] In Lilly’s pleasing play of Alexander and Campaspe there is so
pretty a song put into the mouth of Apelles that I cannot help copying
it.
“Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses, Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows;
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on ’s cheek (but none knows how),
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O, Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?”
[127] Lucian’s description of the Calumny is as follows: “On the right
hand side sits a man with ears almost as long as Midas’s, stretching
forth his hand towards the figure of Calumny, who appears at a distance
coming up to him; he is attended by two women, who, I imagine,
represent Ignorance and Suspicion. From the other side approaches
Calumny, in the form of a woman, to the last degree beautiful, but
seeming warmed and inflamed, as full of anger and resentment; bearing
a lighted torch in her left hand, and with her right dragging by the
hair of his head a young man, who lifts up his eyes to Heaven, as
calling the gods to witness his innocence. Before her stands a pale
ugly figure, with sharp eyes, and emaciated, like one worn down with
disease, which we easily perceive is meant for Envy; and behind are two
women, who seem to be employed in dressing, adorning, and assisting
her, one of whom, as my interpreter informed me, was Treachery, and the
other Deceit; at some distance, in the back part of the picture, stands
a woman in a mourning habit, all torn and ragged, which we were told
represented Penitence; as she turned her eyes back she blushed and wept
at the sight of Truth, who was approaching towards her.” It is evident
that Botticelli first, and afterwards Raffaelle, followed this account
of Lucian. Albert Durer also, in his decorative picture, on the walls
of the town hall at Neurembourg, drew from the same source.
Lucian says that Apelles had been held in esteem by Ptolemy, until the
rivals of Apelles made the king believe that he had conspired at Tyre,
with one Theodotus, against him, and that the defection of Tyre and
the loss of Pelusium were owing to the advice of Apelles. Now nothing
could be more false, Apelles never was at Tyre. But Ptolemy, without
considering this, was about to order him to be beheaded. Afterwards,
when convinced of his innocence, he is said to have given him a hundred
talents, and likewise his accuser for a slave.