pictures abovementioned, namely, Ulysses consulting the shade of Tiresias in Hades, affords sufficient proof. His color,' says Pausanias, is between black and azure, like that of the flies which infest meat; he shows his teeth, and sits upon the skin of the vulture.' Lucian and Pliny both speak in high commendation of this artist; the former, in particular, invoking his aid to finish his perfect woman, exclaims :--- Polygnotus shall open and spread her eyebrows, and give her that fine, glowing, decent blush, which beautifies so irresistibly his Cassandra. He also shall give her a flowing, unconstrained attire, which, with all its delicate wavings, shall partly adhere to her body and partly flutter in the wind.'

Polygnotus, says Aristotle, improves the model. His invention reached the conception of undescribed being in the demon Eurynomus; filled the chasm of description in Theseus and Pirithous, in Ariadne and Phædra; and improved its terrors in the spectre of Tityus; whilst color to assist it became in his hand an organ of expression; such was the prophetic glow which still crimsoned the cheeks of his Cassandra in the time of Lucian. The improvements in painting which Pliny ascribes to him, of having dressed the heads of his females in variegated veils and bandeaus, and robed them in lucid drapery; of having gently opened the lips, given a glimpse of the teeth, and lessened the former monotony of face; such improvements were surely the most trifling part of a power to which the age of Apelles and that of Quintilian paid equal homage: nor can it add much to our esteem for him, to be told by Pliny that there existed, in the portico of Pompey, a picture of his with the figure of a warrior in an attitude so ambiguous as to make it a question whether he were ascending or descending. Such a figure could only be the offspring of mental or technic imbecility, even if it resembled the celebrated one of a Diomede carrying off the palladium with one, and holding a sword in the other hand, on the intaglio inscribed with the name of Dioscorides.

With this simplicity of manner and materials the art seems to have proceeded from Polygnotus, Aglaophon, Phidias, Pananus, Colotes, and Evenor, the father of Parrhasius, during a period of more or less disputed olympiads, till the appearance of Apollodorus the Athenian, who applied the essential principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species, by investigating the leading forms that discriminate the various classes of human qualities and passions. The acuteness of his taste led him to discover that as all men were connected by one general form, sc they were separated each by some predominant power, which fixed character, and bound them to a class: that, in proportion as this specific powe partook of individual peculiarities, the farther it was removed from a share in that harmonious

system which constitutes nature, and consists ir a due balance of all its parts: thence he drew his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities administered without being absorbed agility was not suffered

to destroy firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance did not degenerate to effeminacy, or grandeur swell to hugeness; such were his principles of style: his expression extended them to the mind, if we may judge from the two subjects mentioned by Pliny, in which he seems to have personified the characters of devotion and impiety; that in the adoring figure of a priest, perhaps of Chryses, expanding his gratitude at the shrine of the god whose arrows avenged his wrongs and restored his daughter; and this, in the figure of Ajax wrecked, and from the sea-swept rock hurling defiance unto the murky sky. As neither of these subjects can present themselves to a painter's

mind without a contrast of the most awful and the most terrific tones of color, magic of light and shade, and unlimited command over the tools of art, we may with Pliny and with Plutarch consider Apollodorus as the first assertor of the pencil's honors, as the first colorist of his age, and the man who opened the gates of art which the Heracleot Zeuxis entered. From the essential style of Polygnotus, and the specific discrimination of Apollodorus, Zeuxis, by comparison of what belonged to the genius and what to the class, framed at last that ideal form, which, in his opinion, constituted the supreme degree of human beauty, or, in other words, embodied possibility, by uniting the various but homogeneous powers scattered among many, in one object, to one end. Such a system, if it originated in genius, was the considerate result of taste refined by the unremitting perseverance with which he observed, consulted, compared, and selected, the congenial but scattered forms of nature.

Quintilian remarks of Zeuxis that he considered the poetic unity of character adopted by Homer, in the descriptions of his heroes, as his model; giving to each individual he painted the peculiar distinction of a class. It is said, and the anecdote bears on the remark, that, previously to commencing a picture of Juno for her temple at Agrigentum, he requested to see all the most beautiful maidens of the city naked, and from them selected five whose shape he most admired; purposing to exhibit the most perfect combination of female forms, by selecting and adopting the most beautiful parts of each. Of the coloring employed by Zeuxis, little is known with certainty; but it may doubtless be inferred with some fairness that it rivalled the excellencies of his design; and, from his alleged method of painting monochroms on a black ground, adding the lights in white, we may deduce that he understood the extension of light and shade to

masses.

Timanthes, Eupompus, Androcides, and Parrhasius the Ephesian, all flourished during the same era with Zeuxis. The latter, however, is the only one who may be said to have rivalled that eminent artist; and indeed it is hard to tell which of the two bore the palm, or most selfsufficiently claimed it. The story related by Pliny of their contest is not decisive on the former point, since those pictures had little to do with the real excellencies of either artist, except in the one quality of coloring. Zeuxis painted grapes; and, on exhibiting his picture,

the birds came with the greatest avidity to pluck them. The rival artist then proceeded to display his performance, and, on being introduced to the spot, Zeuxis exclaimed, Remove your curtain that we may see the painting.' The curtain was the painting, and Zeuxis confessed himself vanquished, exclaiming, "Zeuxis has deceived birds, but Parrhasius has deceived Zeuxis himself. Now, how does this fact, if it be regarded as one, tally with the limitation of Pliny as to the colors used by the ancient artists? A curtain may, it is true, be of a dull color, and such a one might possibly have been imitated by Parrhasius with such materials, and so perfectly, as to have deceived Zeuxis: but it is to be presumed that the luscious transparency, color, and brilliancy of the grape, in those days, were not very widely different from what it now exhibits; and those pure qualities can only be represented by the purest and most perfect of colors. Parrhasius is reported to have had a surer eye than this celebrated rival for proportion and symmetry: he circumscribed the ample style of Zeuxis, and, by subtle examination of outline, established that standard of divine and heroic form which raised him to the authority of a legislator from whose decisions there was no appeal. He gave to the divine and heroic character, in painting, what Polycletus had given to the human in sculpture, by his Doryphorus, a canon of proportion. Phidias had discovered in the nod of the Homeric Jupiter the characteristic of majesty, inclination of the head: this hinted to him a higher elevation of the neck behind, a bolder protrusion of the front, and the increased perpendicular of the profile. To this conception Parrhasius fixed a maximum; that point from which descends the ultimate line of celestial beauty, the angle within which moves what is inferior, beyond which what is portentous. From the head conclude to the proportions of the neck, the limbs, the extremities; from the father to the race of gods; all the sons of one, Jupiter; derived from one source of tradition, Homer; formed by one artist, Phidias: on him measured and decided by Parrhasius. In the simplicity of this principle, adhered to by the succeeding periods, lies the uninterrupted progress, and the unattainable superiority, of Grecian art. With this prerogative, which evidently implies a profound as well as general knowledge of the parts, how are we to reconcile the criticism passed on the intermediate parts of his forms as inferior to their outline? or how could Winckelman, in contradiction with his own principles, explain it, by a want of anatomic knowledge? how is it possible to suppose that he who decided his outline with such intelligence that it appeared ambient, and pronounced the parts that escaped the eye, should have been uninformed of its contents? Let us rather suppose that the defect ascribed to the intermediate forms of his bodies, if such a fault there was, consisted in an affectation of smoothness bordering on insipidity, in something effeminately voluptuous, which absorbed their character and the idea of elastic vigor; and this Euphranor seems to have hinted at, when, in comparing his own Theseus with that of Parrhasius, he pronounced the Ionian's to have fed

on roses, his own on flesh: emasculate softness was not in his opinion the proper companion of the contour, or flowery freshness of color an adequate substitute for the sterner tints of heroic form.

None of the ancients seem to have united or wished to combine, as man and artist, more qualities seemingly incompatible than Parrhasius:-the volubility and ostentatious insolence of an Asiatic with Athenian simplicity and urbanity of manners; punctilious correctness with blandishments of handling and luxurious color; and with sublime and pathetic conception a fancy libidinously sportive. If he was not the inventor, he surely was the greatest master of allegory, supposing that he really embodied, by signs universally comprehended, that image of the Athenian AHMO or people, which was to combine and to express at once its contradictory qualities. Perhaps he traced the jarring branches to their source, the aboriginal moral principle of the Athenian character, which he made intuitive. This supposition alone can shed a dawn of possibility on what else appears impossible. We know that the personification of the Athenian Anuoc was an object of sculpture, and that its images by Lyson and Leochares were publicly set up; but there is no clue to decide whether they preceded or followed the conceit of Parrhasius. It was repeated by Aristolaus, the son of Pausias. The decided forms of Parrhasius, Timanthes the Cythnian, his competitor for fame, attempted to inspire with mind and to animate with passions. No picture of antiquity is more celebrated than his immolation of Iphigenia in Aulis, painted, as Quintilian informs us, in contest with Colotes of Teos, a painter and sculptor from the school of Phidias; crowned with victory at its rival exhibition, and since the theme of unlimited praise from the orators and historians of antiquity, though the solidity or justice of their praise relatively to the art has been questioned by modern criticism.

The art now continued to advance with rapid strides. Nature was the guide; and to develope her various charms, in expression, shape, and color, the object of the artists. The leading principle of Eupompus may be traced in the advice which he gave to Lysippus, as preserved by Pliny, whom, when consulted on a standard of imitation, he directed to the contemplation of human variety in the multitude of characters who were passing by. Behold,' said the painter, 'behold my models! From nature, not from art, by whomsoever wrought, must he study who seeks to acquire reputation and extend the scope of his art." The doctrine of Eupompus was adopted by Pamphilus the Amphipolitan, the most scientific artist of his time, and by him transmitted to Apelles of Cos, or, according to Lucian, of Ephesus, his pupil. This wonderfu. person was, if we may credit the tradition respecting him, gifted with such a combinatior. of natural and acquired endowments as never, perhaps, either before or since, fell to the lot of another individual. In addition, he had the happiness to live at that period wherein the genius of his country had reached its highest point of elevation. The name of Apelles in

tion.

Pliny is the synonyme of unrivalled and unattainable excellence; but, in our estimate of his talents, we must candidly consider what modifications may be requisite on an enumeration of his actual works. It is very difficult to ascertain how far real value may be attached to the panegyrics on works of art. These will always be bestowed, in the highest strain, on the best works of the writer's time: and thus we observe that, at all periods, contemporary authors have expressed the same degrees of approbation, and in the same terms, of the pictures they have seen produced; whilst we know that, as art was slow in its progress, it is impossible that in every stage it could have merited equal commendaThe works of Apelles, so far as it is possible to comprehend their nature, exhibit neither the deepest pathos of expression, the widest sphere of comprehension, nor the most acute discrimination of character: his great prerogative consisted, perhaps, more in the unison than in the extent of his powers: he knew better what his capabilities could achieve, and what lay beyond them, than any other artist. Grace of conception, and refinement of taste, were his elements, and went hand in hand with grace of execution, and completeness in finish, irresistible when found united. The Venus of Apelles, or, as it may rather be called, the personification of the birthday of Love, was esteemed as the most splendid achievement of art; the outline of the goddess baffled every attempt at improvement, whilst imitation shrunk from the purity, the force, the brilliancy, the evanescent gradations of her tints. The pictures produced by this consummate artist appear to have been numerous, and the reader will find, in Pliny, lib. xxxv. cap. 10, a pretty extensive list. A brief enumeration of some of them will serve to convey a just idea of the class of subjects generally chosen by him. The portraits painted by him both of Alexander the Great and his father Philip were numerous; some of them single, some accompanied by other figures. Alexander launching thunder, in the temple of Diana at Ephesus, has been greatly extolled for its effect and the boldness of its relief, the hand which was raised appearing to come forward, and the lightning to be out of the picture.' In another portrait of the same prince he was represented in a triumphal chariot, and near him the figure of war, with his hands tied behind his back.

This, and another Alexander, accompanied by Castor and Pollux, and a figure of Victory, were presented by Augustus to the forum.

Many other portraits are alluded to: namely, Antiochus, king of Syria; Antigonus; Archelaus, with his wife and daughter; Abron, an effeminate debauchee; Clatus, on horseback armed (except his head), with an attendant delivering his helmet to him; and Megabysus, a priest of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, sacrificing, in his pontifical vestments. In fanciful subjects we find :-Diana attending a sacrifice, surrounded by her nymphs; Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, on horseback, contending with Persians; Hercules, with his back towards the observer, and his head turned round so as to show his face; and lastly his renowned picture of Venus

rising from the sea, already mentioned, which, being taken to Rome, was dedicated by Augustus in the temple of Julius Cæsar; and upon which several Greek epigrams are to be found in the Anthologia.

The refinements of the art were by Aristides of Thebes applied to the mind. The passions which history had organised for Timanthes, Aristides caught as they rose from the breast or escaped from the lips of nature herself; his volume was man, his scene society: he drew the subtle discriminations of mind in every stage of life, the whispers, the simple cry of passion, and its most complex accents. Such, as histo v informs us, was the suppliant whose voice you seemed to hear, such his sick man's half extinguished eye and laboring breast, such the sister dying for her brother, and, above all, the halfslain mother shuddering lest the eager babe should suck the blood from her palsied nipple. This picture was probably at Thebes, when Alexander sacked that town; what his feelings were when he saw it we may guess from his sending it to Pella. Its expression, poised between the anguish of maternal affection and the pangs of death, gives to commiseration an image which neither the infant piteously caressing his slain mother in the group of Epigonus, nor the absorbed feature of the Niobe, nor the struggle of the Laocoon, excite. Timanthes had marked the limits that discriminate terror from the excess of horror; Aristides drew the line that separates it from disgust. His subject is one of those that touch the ambiguous line of a squeamish sense. -Taste and smell, as sources of tragic emotion, and, in consequence of their power, commanding gesture, seem scarcely admissible in art or on the theatre, because their extremes are more nearly allied to disgust, and loathsome or risible ideas, than to terror. The prophetic rance of Cassandra, who scents the prepared murder of Agamemnon at the threshold of the ominous hall; the desperate moan of Macbeth's queen on seeing the visionary spot still uneffaced infect her hand- -are images snatched from the lap of terror-but soon would cease to be so were the artist or the actress to enforce the dreadful hint with indiscreet expression or gesture. This, completely understood by Aristides, was as completely missed by his imitators, Raffaelle in the Morbetto, and Poussin in his Plague of the Philistines. In the group of Aristides our sympathy is immediately interested by the mother, still alive though mortally wounded, helpless, beautiful, and forgetting herself in the anguish for her child, whose situation still suffers hope to mingle with our fears: he is only approaching the nipple of the mother. In the group of Raffaelle the mother dead of the plague, herself an object of apathy, becomes one of disgust, by the action of the man, who bending over her, at his utmost reach of arm, with one hand removes the child from the breast, whilst the other, applied to his nostrils, bars the effluvia of death. Our feelings alienated from the mother, come too late even for the child, who by his langour already betrays the mortal symptoms of the poison he imbibed at the parent corpse. It is curious to observe the permutation of ideas which takes

place, as imitation is removed from the sources of nature: Poussin, not content with adopting the group of Raffaelle, once more repeats the loathsome attitude in the same scene; he forgot, in his eagerness to render the idea of contagion still more intuitive, that he was averting our feelings with ideas of disgust.'

At the same era flourished Protogenes of Rhodes, towards whom the generous conduct of Apelles deserves particular attention. Protogenes had painted a picture of Jalysus, which so delighted Apelles that he sailed to Rhodes on purpose to visit his accomplished contemporary. There, finding him in poverty and obscurity, he is reported to have bought several of the performances of Protogenes with the avowed intention of selling them as his own, and thus succeeded in exciting the notice of the people of Rhodes towards the abilities of their fellow citizen, who thence rose from his hitherto humble situation to fame and fortune. The well known friendly contest of Apelles and Protogenes respecting the lines has been described elsewhere, and stands as a fact on undeniable testimony. The tablet whereon they were drawn, having been taken to Rome, was there seen by Pliny himself, who speaks of it as having the appearance of a large blank surface, the extreme delicacy of the lines rendering them invisible except on close inspection. They were drawn with different colors-one upon, or rather within the other. Judging from Pliny's account it might be imagined that all the beauty lay in the extreme delicacy of the points which had been used, and of the hands which had applied them; but it is reasonable to suppose that the first direction of the line might have some principle of beauty for its guide, by which, as well as by the neatness of its execution, Protogenes was immediately moved to the declaration, that none but Apelles could have drawn it.

In comparing the performances of modern painters with the character of those the names and description of which ancient authors have handed down to us, it will appear pretty clearly that the Greek artists surpassed the moderns in sentiment, in invention or imagination, in expression, in position of figures, in proportion, and contour. With regard to color, although they are remarkable for vividness, the case is by no means so evident. Pliny allows them the use of but four, and yet at other times makes allusions which palpably imply their means of that kind to be far more extensive. The use of oils has however given to moderns a decided advantage in this particular.

In A. R. 259, and A. A. C. 494, Appius Claudius consecrated a number of shields in the temple of Bellona, which contained in basso relievo the portraits of his family. This example was followed; and in process of time it was common among the Romans to place those images in private houses. The execution in basso relievo is a proof that they had an idea of painting, at least with one color. As long as the Romans employed artists of other nations, they had little desire to cultivate the arts; but about the year of Rome 450, and 303 years before Christ, one of the Fabii employed himself in

painting. He painted the temple of Safety; and his works remained till that temple was burnt, in the reign of Claudius. The example of Fabius, surnamed Pictor from his profession, did not excite his fellow citizens to imitation. A century and a half elapsed before the tragic poet Pacuvius, nephew of Ennius, painted the temple of Hercules in the forum boarium. The glory which he had acquired by his dramatic works shed some lustre on the art which he exercised; but did not confer on it that respect which could recommend it to general practice. The paintings of Fabius were the recreations of his youth; those of Pacuvius the amusements of his old age; but painting is a difficult art, which requires a man's whole time and attention to be solely devoted to it.

There were in fact no eminent painters at Rome till the time of the emperors; but, as the national spirit was changed, the profession of the fine arts acquired more respectability. The Romans, during the time of the republic, were animated with the spirit of liberty and the desire for conquest. When these two passions were weakened, the love of the arts obtained among them. As a proof of this, Nero himself gloried in being an artist. A Colossian picture of 120 feet was painted at Rome by his command, which was afterwards destroyed by lightning. The name of the painter is not recorded. but this is the only painting on cloth mentioned by ancient authors.

were

The paintings of the ancient artists were either moveable, or on the ceilings or compartments of buildings. According to Pliny, the most eminent were those who painted moveable pictures. The latter were either on fir wood, larch, boxwood, or canvas, sometimes on marble. When they employed wood, they laid on first a white ground. Among the antiquities of the Herculaneum are four paintings on white marble. Their immoveable paintings on walls either in fresco, or on dry stucco in distemper. Indeed all the ancient paintings may be reduced to, 1st, fresco painting; 2dly, water color, or distemper painting on a dry ground; and, 3dly, encaustic painting. The ancient fresco paintings appear to have been always on a white stucco ground, the colors inlaid very deep, and the drawing much more bold and free than any similar performance of modern art. The outlines of the ancient paintings on fresco were probably done at once, as appears from the depth of the incision, and the boldness and freedom of the design, equal to the care and spirit of a penciled outline.

In general the ancients painted on a dry ground, even in their buildings, as appears from the Herculanean antiquities, most of which are executed in this manner. At Rome and Naples the first (deepest) coat is of true Puzzolana, of the same nature with the terras now used in mortar, required to keep out wet, about one finger thick: the next of ground marble or alabaster, and sometimes of pure lime or stucco, in thickness about one-third of the former. Upon this they appear to have laid a coat of black, and then another of red paint; on which last the subject itself was executed. Such seems to have been

their method of painting on walls; but in their moveable pictures, and in the performance of their first artists, and where the effects of shade and light were necessary, they doubtless used white. The colors employed they seemed to have mixed up with size, of which they preferred that made by boiling the ears and genitals of bulls. This appears to have made the colors so durable and adhesive, that the ancient paintings lately found bear washing with a soft cloth and water; and sometimes even diluted aquafortis is employed to clean their paintings on fresco. Pliny says, that glue, dissolved in vinegar and then dried, is not again soluble. The ancient colors, we have said, were vivid: it is obvious also that they were remarkably enduring, from the fact of the Greek paintings having existed uninjured, and become objects of admiration to the Romans several ages after they were executed. They were in the habit of employing a sort of varnish called atramentum, which served to secure their paintings from the influence of the atmospheric air.

Whether the art of composition, at least in the scientific way now practiced, was ever understood by them, or whether they possessed any knowledge whatever of the laws of chiaro-scuro, is wrapped up in doubt and mystery which it is next to impossible any opportunity will occur of unravelling. The accounts of these performances by ancient writers do not seem to have sprung from any practical acquaintance with the rules of the art, and hence they are, as will be readily imagined, very vague and unsatisfactory to the painter. According to the light which is thus afforded us we are led to conclude that the chief aim of the Greek artists was to impress on the mind of the spectator in the most energetic way the effect of one particular image; we do, it is true, occasionally encounter descriptions of pictures containing many figures, but in general the subject is confined to the introduction of two or three. Nothing is said by these writers of what we term background, and little on the contrasts of light and shade, &c. That they had some knowledge of this kind, however, is apparent from an observation of Plutarch, namely, that painters heighten the brilliancy of light colors by opposing them to dark ones, or to shades;' and from another of Pliny, who, speaking of painters in the monochromatic style, adds: In process of time the art assumed new powers, and discovered light and shadow, by gradating which the colors are alternately kept down or heightened. Afterward splendor was added, which was different from light, and which, being a medium between light and shade, was denominated tonon; while the union of colors, and transition from one to another, they called harmogen; lib. xxxv. c. 5. Hence we find that the great requisites for the science of chiaro-scuro, viz. contrast, tone, and harmony, were comprehended by them; that the various degrees of light and shade, distinctly and in combination, were duly felt; and that the value of middle or half tint was perceived and attended to. Led away by these facts, M. du Bos and others have concluded that chiaro-scuro was scientifically comprehended and practised by

them. It will not fail, however, to strike the artist that every thing stated by Pliny to have been known by the ancient artists is resolvable into that which is requisite for the due execution of a single figure on a plain ground, and in the most simple style of execution. In the best of the paintings found at Herculaneum there is exhibited an unusually skilful management of chiaro-scuro in the reduction of tone on parts, both of the flesh and drapery, but it is inconclusive on the general point at issue.

With respect to their knowledge of perspective similar uncertainty appears to exist. Vitruvius, indeed, reports it to have been practised by Agatharcus (a contemporary of Eschylus and Polygnotus) in the theatre at Athens; and to have been shortly after reduced to principles, and treated as a science by Anaxagoras and Democritus. The deductions, however, are made from premises of a similarly inconclusive nature to those enumerated in our observations on chiaro-scuro.

Lastly, we may remark that no mention, at all events none of consequence, is made of a ground of relief on the ancient writers on painting. Landscape also appears to have been wholly disregarded. There are attempts at background made in several of the paintings of Herculaneum, but undeserving of any commendation; and the most beautiful of those productions of ancient art which have hitherto been displayed to the eyes of the moderns are of figures relieved off plain grounds, or rather amalgamated into them. In none of the criticisms or observations of ancient authors is a secondary object ever mentioned as being in the distance.

We shall not dwell on the degree of cultivation bestowed on the art of painting by the ancient Romans, but pass on to enumerate the several colors stated by Pliny to have been known to them. See lib. xxxv., caps. 6 and 7.

WHITES.--Melinum. A native white earth from the island of Melos, used by Apelles before white lead prepared with vinegar was invented.

Puratonium. An Egyptian white earth used in distemper, and similar, probably, to the white now called Cremnitz white, from Hungary. Pliny complains that paratonium was often adulterated with Cimolian earth, which was used by the fullers at Rome.

Eretria. An ashy white. It is so named from a town of Euboea, now Trocco. Cerussa. White lead.

Anulare. Gypsum. Creta. Chalk. YELLOWS.-Sil. Ochre of four kinds; named Atticum, Lucidum, Syricum, and Marmorosum. Auripigmentum, or Arsenicum. Orpiment. Cerussa usta. Masticot, first discovered by the fire at the Piraus.

REDS.-Minium. Red lead, both natural and artificial. The best native minium was found in a quicksilver mine near Ephesus; and, in endeavouring to extract gold from it, Callias the Athenian discovered vermilion.

Vermilion. The same as now used

Sinopis. A red earth. The best was found near Lemnos, and was so valuable as to be sold sealed up. It approached near, in color, to

minium.