Pictor in fabula

Pliny assures us, that Apelles took his image of the picture of Diana from that passage of the same poet[[5:Homer.]], where she is so elegantly described. [[4:suite : Timanthe]]

To come at this[[5:the decorum.]], he must neglect nothing, but call in all the helps and assistances which history, tradition, or travels can afford him, to distinguish the manners, habits and dress of his persons. He must descend to the minutest particulars, as a cap, or a helmet, a shoe or a slipper, if they can serve to fix any particular distinction of a people. He must carefully observe every thing that is proper and peculiar to a country, the trees, plants, animals, and even the fishes of it, as that judicious [[3:This painter, Pliny saith, who being to represent a sea-fight between the Persians and Egyptians by the river Nile, to shew the scene of the action, drew an ass drinking upon the banks, and a crocodile watching his opportunity to devour him. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 35. c. 10. The famous Ant. Coypel, in his celebrated picture of Moses in the rushes, has not forgotten the circumstance of the crocodile, though he has omitted that of the ass.]]painter, who drawing a battle fought near the river Nile, took care to place upon the banks a crocodile, which was an animal peculiar to that water.

Their great masters had such a regard for their works, such a value for their paintings, that they would not so far gratify the vanity of those they work for, as to paint on their walls and cielings, which in case of fire, or any other accident, could not be removed, but must unavoidably perish. Apelles would not draw any pieces, but what were portable and removeable ; and Pliny[[3:Hist. Nat. Lib. 35. Cap. 10.]] saith, that Protogenes used to work in a little cell in his garden, at a distance from his house, that his works might be exempt from such calamities. It must be confessed, the moderns have not had such a regard to their pieces of which vast numbers are perished for want of that precaution.

[[7:voir le reste dans Protogène et Démétrios]] This was this famous piece that saved the city of Rhodes; for when Demetrius found he could not take the place, without attacking on that side where it was, he chose to raise the siege, rather than destroy the picture.

Mr Fresnoy tells us, in his Art of Painting, that when M. Angelo was employed about this work, he took no other sustenance but bread and wine, lest high feeding, and the fumes of meat, might cloud his fancy, and damp the fire of his [[3:[1]Pliny relates something like this of Protogenes the Painter, that when he was drawing the picture of Jalisus, he lived upon lupins and water only, and took just enough to allay hunger and thirst, lest higher feeding should blunt the edge of his fancy. Pline. L. 35. C. 10.

This was this famous piece that saved the city of Rhodes; for when Demetrius found he could not take the place, without attacking on that side where it was, he chose to raise the siege, rather than destroy the picture. Thus we read the philosopher Carneades, before he wrote against Zeno to confute his opinions, he purged his stomach with hellebore lest the vapours of it should affect his head, weaken the vigour of his fancy, and darken his conceptions. Plin. L. 25. C. 10.

This also was the practice of poet Bayes in the rehearsal, who tells his friends, that if he was to write familiar things, as sonnets, he made use of stewed prunes only; but that when he had a grand design in hand, he ever took physick and let blood; for when you would (saith he) have pure switness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part; in fine, you would purge the belly. Rehears. Act. 2. Scene. 1.

I once thought that this was pure waggery, and banter of the author of that diverting play. But I have been told since by a person of good credit, and who was acquainted with Mr Dryden, that it was actually true; and that when he was about any considerable work, he used to purge his body, and clear his head, by a dose of physick.]]imagination. If he confined himself to this diet, I am apt to think he took too large a dose of the last, else he would never have ventured on such a disparate, as justly has entailed the censure of all posterity upon him.

The learned Fr. Junius thinks, that the painter Timanthes took the [[3:Ὡς δ’ἐσεῖδεν Ἀγαμέμνον αναξ

Ἐπὶ σφαγὰς σείκουσαν εἰς ᾶλσον κόρην,

Ἀνεσέναξε· κἄμπαλιν σρέψας κάρα,

Δάκρυα προῆγειν, ὀμμάτων πέπλον προθεις.

Eurip. Iphigen. in Aulide v. 1550.]]hint of putting a veil over the face of Agamemnon, at the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, from a place in Euripides, where that prince is described in that very posture. This device of the painters has been magnified and extoll’d by many great [[3:Pictor ille vidit, cum immolanda Iphigenia tristis Calchas esset, tristior Ulixes, maereret Menelaus, obvolendum caput Agamemnonis esse ; quoniam summum illum luctum penicillo non posset imitari. Cicero de Oratore.

Cum maestos pinxisset omnes, praecipueque patrum, et tristitiæ omnem imaginem consumpsisset, patris ipsius voltum velavit quem digne non poterat ostendere. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 35. Cap. 10.

Cum in Iphigeniæ immolatione pinxisset tristem Calchantem, tristiorem Ulyssem, addidisset Menalao quem summum poterat ars efficere mœrorem, consumptis omnibus affectibus caput Agamemnonis velavit, et suo cuique animo dedit æstimandum. Lactant : Instit : c. 11. c. 13.]]men, and even by Tully himself, as a most happy thought, and ingenious invention. But I must own, I cannot find that the painter deserved such elogies, such an excess of praise, since (if there was any thing so very ingenious in it) it was not properly his own, but borrowed from the tragick poet ; which I wonder those writers take no manner of notice of. Neither do I think the honour of it is to be scribed either to the poet or the painter ; since it was nothing but what was usual and common, for mourners to have their heads covered, that they might the better indulge their passion, give a loose to their grief, and weep and lament with greater freedom and decency ; which custom I believe the poet alluded to in his tragedy.