IN the present undertaking, two methods of arrangement are obviously
presented: either to treat the arts simultaneously; or, considering
each in succession, to commence with that one which seemed best adapted
to illustrate the history and common principles of all. With this view
we have, in the commencement, followed the fortunes of Sculpture at
some length, because here we find an uninterrupted series of monuments;
here the elements of imitative art are discoverable in their purest and
least compounded character; and also because in Sculpture the labours,
being enduring, of greater magnitude, and more generally employed
for national purposes than those of Painting, seem more clearly to
illustrate the connexion which will ever be found to subsist between
the refinement of taste and the progress of moral and political
intelligence, as affects nations, or the human race universally. This
is the truly dignified object in the history of the fine arts. In this
respect our inquiries have been most satisfactorily resolved. We
have found the state of sculpture an index of the moral and political
condition of the people; owing its best cultivation to national and
popular causes. We have seen it languish or revive according to the
energy and the freedom of national institutions. The epochs of painting
were nearly or altogether the same, as were also those of architecture.
The conclusions, then, are universal. Little, therefore, remains to be
explained in painting, save its own peculiarities as an individual art.
Painting, which depends upon illusion for some of its most striking
effects, and employs principles abstractly unreal, is, in the
application of these principles, and in the full accomplishment of
their effects, an art of greater difficulty than Sculpture. Hence, _a
priori_, it might be inferred, that the former would more slowly attain
to the perfection which it reached among the nations of the ancient
world. But perhaps it would hardly have been predicted, that, in the
age of Phidias, when sculpture had already been raised to an elevation
yet unapproached, the sister art should still be little advanced. At
the same time, there can be no doubt that the elements of both arts
have in all countries sprung up together. Nature has sown the seed, but
circumstances nourish the plants.
Among the ancient inhabitants of Asia, painting and writing appear to
have been the same art, or rather, the former supplied the place of the
latter. From the same source the art arose in Egypt, where are still to
be found its oldest remains. In this branch the mental and political
despotism already explained, bound down every aspiration. Whether we
regard the art as picture writing, or in its more determinate and
independent efforts at representation, we discover no change--no
progressive improvement, and no superiority which has not evidently
arisen from a greater or less degree of care and personal skill in the
performer. Egyptian painting seldom, if ever, attempts more than an
outline of the object, as seen in profile, such as would be obtained
by its shadow. To this rude but always well-proportioned draught,
colors are applied, simply and without mixture or blending, or the
slightest indication of light and shade. The process appears to have
been, first, the preparation of the ground in white; next, the outline
was firmly traced in black; and, lastly, the flat colors were applied.
The Egyptian artists employed six pigments, mixed up with a gummy
liquid, namely, white, black, red, blue, yellow, and green: the three
first always earthy, the remaining vegetable, or at least frequently
transparent. The specimens from which we derive these facts, are the
painted shrouds and cases of the mummies, and the still more perfect
examples on the walls of the tombs. It can furnish no evidence of
extraordinary experience or practice, that these paintings still retain
their hues clear and fresh. The circumstance merely shows the aridity
of the climate, and that the coloring matters were prepared and applied
pure and without admixture.
Over no part of ancient intellectual history hangs there so great
uncertainty, respecting at least the means and progressive steps, as
in the instance of Painting in Greece. We can judge here only from
inference, while the facts upon which our conclusions must rest, are
in some degree contradictory. No production of the Grecian pencil
remains to us, as in sculpture, whence to form our own judgment apart
from the opinions of ancient critics; while there is internal evidence,
that the historical annals handed down to us, imperfect as these now
are, have been compiled, not from authentic materials early collected,
but from recollection of names to whom discoveries are by the later
historian casually attributed. The whole account of early painting
is too regular, too systematic, the progressive advances follow
each other in an order too artificial to represent faithfully the
alternate failure and success, the devious course, the rapid and almost
inexplicable advance of genius. The young eagle tempts not the liquid
way in steady flight, commensurate only with his strength--he flutters
and falls--wavers in broken and ungraceful curves, before he can launch
into full career, or circle slowly and majestically in his pride of
place.
We do not doubt, then, that the names of the earliest painters handed
down to us in the Greek and Roman writers, are correct; but the
system of gradual and regular advance which they have connected with
these names, seems inconsistent with the nature of human things. In
this case, the only safe method that can be adopted, consistently
with the intention of giving every useful information, is to select
a few leading and well ascertained dates, between which it is proved
that certain discoveries did take place; the interval will thus be
sufficiently filled up without entering into minute discussion.
Anticipating this arrangement, we have been full in our account of the
early schools of sculpture, whence the deficiency here may be supplied;
for in both arts, the locality is always, and the masters frequently,
the same.
The first painting on record is the battle of Magnete, by Bularchus,
and purchased by Candaules, king of Lydia, for its weight in gold,
or as some say, a quantity of gold coins equal to the extent of
its surface. This establishes the first era, 718 B. C. During five
centuries, however, the art had previously flourished in the cities
and islands, and especially at Corinth, whose situation, commanding
the two seas that wash the shores, and connecting by land the grand
divisions, of Greece, early rendered that city, with the commercial
states already noticed, the seat of wealth and refinement. Practised by
numerous masters,--as Eucherus, Hygenon, Dymas, Charamides, Philocles,
Cleanthes, Cleophantes,--painting, in this interval, is reported to
have passed through various gradations; as, simple skiagraphy, or
shadow painting; the monographic style, consisting of a simple outline;
monochromatic compositions, in which one color only was employed; and
polychromatic, where a variety of hue, but without shading, was used.
During the same time, there appear accounts of minor improvements, with
their authors assigned, all of which we reject, as already stated. In
what manner the work of Bularchus was executed, does not appear; but
there is every reason to believe that it was merely a monogram, and,
from the contemporaneous state of sculpture, very highly finished, in
a style hard, dry, and ineffective. The price paid is by no means the
criterion of absolute excellence;--the work might be fully prized as
the master-piece of its own remote age, while the laborious minuteness
of its details might render the sum not more than a compensation for
the time bestowed.
To select a second era sufficiently marked by addition or revolution
of principle, is difficult. To the age of Phidias, the art continued
certainly to improve, but very slowly, being left far in the rear
by Sculpture. The genius of this consummate master, who indeed had
originally commenced his career as a painter, extended to all the
arts; and, under such an instructer, his brother Penænus, very highly
distinguished himself, though vanquished in a contest for the public
prize, then instituted at Delphos and Corinth. From the middle of the
fifth century, then, a decided movement commences in the history of
painting,--a preparation for something still greater. The influence
extended among the able contemporaries of the great sculptor.
Polygnotus of Thasos then first succeeded, to borrow a phrase, 'in the
expression of undescribed being,' and whose pictures Pliny admired six
hundred years afterwards. Improvement was carried forward for half a
century by Mycon, famous in horses; Pauson, his rival; Dionysius of
Colophon, praised by Ælian for minute accuracy; Aglaophon, bold and
energetic; Colotes, sculptor and painter; Evenor, father of Parrhasius;
and finally, greatest of all, Apollodorus the Athenian, who invented
or perfected the knowledge of light and shade. With this artist, the
precursor and contemporary of Zeuxis, and whose discovery may be placed
about the commencement of the fourth century B. C., may be terminated
the second era. The propriety of this division will more obviously
appear, when it is considered that to this period, not only was the
art deficient in the most powerful of its means, the magic of chiar'
oscura, but also in its instruments. The ancient paintings, as late
as the age of Phidias, were executed with the _cestrum_, a species
of pliant _stylus_, similar to that used in writing. This is the
diagraphic, or linear method, and seems to have resembled our chalk
and crayon, or perhaps more closely our pen and reed drawing. The
process, however, can be explained only by conjecture. The tablet,
primed in white, was laid over with a varnish of resin mixed with wax,
and usually incorporated with a dark-reddish coloring matter. Upon this
the subject was traced, and the lights worked in with the cestrum of
various fineness. At what precise period this imperfect instrument was
superseded by the pencil, or if the effects of the two were combined,
is unknown. But the invention must have been made after the death of
Polygnotus, and prior to the ninetythird Olympiad, a period of twenty
or thirty years, when Apollodorus is known to have handled the pencil
with great effect. It is not unlikely, therefore, that this artist
either was the inventor or the improver of this tool, whose mastery so
decidedly ministered to his reputation.
The third period commences with Zeuxis, marking an era distinct at once
in principle and in excellence. Preceding masters had crowded their
tablets with numerous figures. He introduced simplicity of composition,
and relied upon the perfection frequently of a single figure to
concentrate interest. He was equally simple in his coloring, never
using more than four, often only two pigments. Parrhasius equalled the
former in expression, and seems to have surpassed him in coloring.
Euphranor was equally celebrated in painting as in statuary. Both were
surpassed by Timanthes, who, in veiling the head of a father compelled
to attend the sacrifice of his daughter, appealed to the heart not in
vain, when the powers of genius had failed. Eupompus, by the splendour
of his style, gave rise to a new distinction of schools into the
Athenian and Sicyonian, in addition to the Asiatic, the Rhodian, and
the Corinthian. Theon of Samos obtained high praise for the eager haste
of his young warrior to join the fight. Aristides of Thebes, in his
picture of the wounded mother, solicitous, in the pangs of death, lest
her child should suck blood, appears to have reached the utmost range
of expression in art. And lastly, Pamphilus the Macedonian, eminent for
the natural feeling and truth of his style, was the master of Apelles.
This era, embracing about the first half of the fourth century,
coincides with the commencement of the Phidian age in painting.
Whatever might have been the merits of preceding masters, Zeuxis was
certainly the first from whose works we derive explicit statements
of the ideal in Grecian painting. This ideal, as in their sculpture,
was immediately derived from reality; it was no farther the creation
of fancy, than as taste and imagination were employed in selecting
and combining what was good in particular, towards an approach to the
best, in general nature. 'Behold,' said Eupompus to Lysippus, when
consulted by the young sculptor on the subject of imitation, pointing
to the passing multitude, 'Behold my models: from nature, not from art,
must he study, who aspires to the true excellence of art.' Zeuxis,
then, first discovered or practised the grand principle in the heroic
style of painting,--to render each figure the perfect representative
of the class to which it belongs. There is reason to believe, also,
that he taught the true method of grouping; at least, from the manner
of description adopted by Pausanias, it would evidently seem that
in all pictures anterior to this age, the figures were ranged in
lines, without any principal group on which the interest of the event
was concentrated. Even so late as the works of Panænus, the brother
of Phidias, the different distances were represented by the very
inartificial and ungracious means of placing the figures in rows one
above the other. In all his improvements, Zeuxis was more than followed
by his able contemporaries. It is a singular and an amusing fact, that
at no time do we find more real talent in art, combined with so much
ridiculous coxcombry in the personal character of artists.
The fourth and last epoch of painting in Greece commences with Apelles,
about the conclusion of the fourth century B. C. This age witnessed
both the glory and the fall of ancient art. Apelles united, in his
own style, the scattered excellences which had separately adorned the
performances of his predecessors. It was this power and equability of
combination, arranged and animated by an elegance and refinement of
taste peculiarly his own, which constituted the just eminence of this
master. From the descriptions of ancient writers, the character of
his style must have closely resembled that of Raphael, while their
choice of subjects appears to have been nearly similar. The Venus
of Apelles, long afterwards purchased by Augustus for one hundred
talents, or £20,000 sterling, was esteemed the most faultless creation
of the Grecian pencil, the most perfect example of that simple yet
unapproachable grace of conception, of symmetry of form, and exquisite
finish, in which may be summed up the distinctive beauties of his
genius. He alone appears to have practised portrait painting in the
full majesty of that art; this, indeed, does not appear to have been
a branch the most cultivated among the Greeks, who preferred busts.
Hence, while Pausanias enumerates eightyeight masterpieces of history,
he mentions only half the number of portraits, which he had seen in his
travels through Greece, during the second century.
The contemporaries of Apelles were Protogenes, an excellent artist,
whose merits his generous rival first pointed out. He was blamed for
finishing too highly; yet, to obtain possession of one of his pictures,
was the chief cause of the siege of Rhodes. Nicias, who is reported to
have touched up the statues of Praxiteles--in what manner is not known,
nor was Canova successful in his researches on this subject. Somewhat
later lived Nichomachus, Pausius, Ætion, the Albano of antiquity, and
others, with whom the art began to lapse. The causes and progress of
this decline have already been traced in the history of sculpture. The
remarks there are applicable to both arts, but peculiar circumstances
rendered the progress of decay more rapid in painting. Even in the
later contemporaries of the great ornament of the art, we discover a
falling off from the great style, to one exactly resembling that of the
modern Dutch school. Although the best pictures, from their greater
rarity, were more highly valued in pecuniary estimation than statues,
yet the art was never so completely national as Sculpture. The ambition
was not cherished, nor the talents of painters directed, by the
nationality of their performances; the general taste was not fixed by
public and venerated monuments, consequently the wholesome restraints
of public opinion operated but slightly, and were speedily withdrawn.
Be it also remembered, that the standard here was formed after the
severe purity of ancient taste, and morals had suffered sad relaxation.
Hence painting was sooner abandoned to the caprice of private patronage
and judgment; but the whole framework of her institutions, moral and
political, was to be dissolved before sculpture,--which honored the
forms of her religion; whose labours were publicly dedicated to the
renown of her good, her learned, and her brave,--could cease to be
regarded with national sympathy in Greece. Pausanias mentions the names
of one hundred and sixtynine sculptors, and only fifteen painters;
while, after three centuries of spoliation, he found in Greece three
thousand statues, not one of them a copy, while he describes only one
hundred and thirtyone paintings. The empire, then, of ancient painting,
appears to have been of brief continuance, for, beyond the age now
under review, no memorials of its greatness remain. The Romans prized
this, as they have been shown to value every accomplishment in the fine
arts, as ministering to luxury, and as a worthy employment for their
slaves. In the early portion of their iron reign, Etruscan captives
decorated their houses--subsequently itinerant Greeks; and though we
find a few names of Roman painters, we never find it carried among them
beyond mere embellishment. The moral dignity of the art never revived.
One difficulty regarding the history of ancient painting still remains
to be stated--satisfactorily cleared it never can be--namely, the
perfection to which the art actually attained. It has been said, and
the remark is just, that there exists a wide disparity between the
means and instruments of the art, as described by writers of antiquity,
and the excellence of the effects produced, as these have reached us
through the same channel. We have, it is replied, the criticisms of the
same writers upon other subjects of taste, with the originals likewise
in our hands, and finding here their opinions correct--not only so,
but exquisitely correct--we are constrained to admit, that in painting
their judgment was equally refined as in poetry, oratory, sculpture,
or architecture. This reasoning may prove relative, but not absolute
excellence; for taste being necessarily formed upon the very models
on which it passes sentence, cannot be admitted as evidence beyond
its experience. Our own conviction is, that, unless in this view of
merely relative beauty, the praises bestowed by the Greek and Roman
writers upon their paintings are overcharged; and that these were much
inferior to their sculptures. This opinion is founded not upon any
alleged inferiority of means, for, besides the difficulty of exactly
comprehending certain passages on this subject, we do find, that the
ancient artists were armed with all the powers of fresco-painting,
in which the grandest conceptions of modern talent are embodied.
But these very descriptions, in many of which are accounts of very
complicated expression, show that the writers, and especially Pliny,
the most circumstantial, either did not truly feel the nature and
object of beauty in painting; or they evince, that if such effects were
attempted, the art was devoid of that simplicity and natural expression
which constitute the primeval source, the all-pervading principle,
of beauty and of grandeur, of truth and excellence, in antique
sculpture. But again, if, from the few and very imperfect remains of
ancient painting, any conclusion be allowed in reference to its higher
state, we discover in these all the principles, especially those of
form, common to sculpture, always well, often admirably understood,
while those peculiar to painting are inartificially expressed, without
firmness or decision.
These remains consist, first, of the delineations upon vases,
improperly called Etruscan, where the pictorial representations
are monochromatic shadows and outline, or monograms, executed with
the _cestrum_, or style, in black, upon a red or yellow ground, or
sometimes the order of the colors is reversed. Even these support the
views just stated; for, vigorous as are the lines, the representation,
on the whole, is inferior to the abstract perception of the beautiful
in form, as exhibited in the vases themselves. The second division of
remains are the frescos, or stucco paintings of Herculaneum, Pompeii,
Stabia near Naples, and those in the baths of Titus at Rome. The former
were doubtless executed by itinerant Greek painters, who are known
to have been very numerous under the empire. The latter were most
probably the performance of the best artists that could be procured;
yet we do not discover an intrinsic difference of style which can bear
against our general conclusion, or rather the similarity proves the
fact, while in Herculaneum every sculptured ornament is infinitely more
elegant than the paintings found in the same spot. To these might be
added some very imperfect sepulchral remains, found near Tarquinia,
which merely prove that the ancient Etruscans were far from ignorant
of painting. In the pictures at Naples and Rome, is greater variety of
coloring than, from some passages in their writings, has been allowed
to the ancients. And, indeed, unless Pliny be supposed to point out
a distinction in this respect between the practice of the earlier and
later painters, he contradicts himself; for in all, he enumerates no
less than five different whites, three yellows, nine reds or purples,
two blues, one of which is indigo, two greens, and one black, which
also appears to be a generic expression, including bitumen, charcoal,
ivory, or lamp-black, mentioned with probably others.
Occasional allusion has been made to the mechanical modes of operation
employed in ancient painting. On comparing the different passages
allusive to these, two things certainly appear: that a permanency
was given to its productions unknown even in modern art; and that
oil-painting, properly so termed, formed no part of its practice.
Laying aside, then, all conflicting opinions, we are disposed to infer
that there were three principal methods; first, Distemper employed
on stuccoed walls, and for pictures not moveable; second, Glazing,
when the picture, after being furnished in water-colours, crayons, or
distemper, was covered with a coat of hard and transparent varnish, of
which several kinds are described; and thirdly, Encaustic, when the
coloring matters actually incorporated with wax, or preparations of
wax, were thus applied in a liquid state, and when finished, allowed
to dry, and most likely afterwards varnished also. In these two latter
methods were executed the most excellent pictures of the great masters,
and which were portable. The last has given rise to much needless
discussion, as if resembling enamel, the colors being burnt in. We
apprehend, however, the Greek and Latin verb here used, merely denotes
that the tints were laid on hot, which, from their nature, must have
been absolutely necessary, while it is evident, from scattered hints,
that the material painted upon was destructible by fire.