Pictor in fabula

We find examples of all the variery of painting amongst the Antients: Antiphilus did a Boy blowing the fire in a house, which is enlightened by the reflection from it.

[[4:suit Pireicus]] : Callicles also excelled so exceedingly in mignature works, that he was reckoned but little inferior to the great masters. And tho’ the invention of Calades was more noble, he too prefered comedy to tragedy ; that is, he chose rather to paint mean, common subjects than great events. But Antiphilus, who likewise painted small pieces only, knew how to represent both high and low life. He had a delicate pencil, and a very great command of it[[3:Parva et Callicles fecit, item Calates comicis tabellis, utraque Antiphilus : namque et Hesionam nobilem pinxit ; idemque, jocoso nomine, Gryllum deridiculi habitus pinxit ; unde id genus pictura Grylli vocantur. Plin. ibid. facilitate est praestantissumus Antiphilus. Quint. Inst. lib. 12 c. 10. Varro joins with him Lysippus. Tua haec villa tam et oblita tabulis est, nec minus signis ornata at meam vestigium ubi nullum Lysippi ait Antiphili videbis. De re Rus. L. 2. c. 2. Picturae studiosis nihil profuerit cognovisse Apellis, Protogenis et Antiphili opera, nisi et ipsi manum admoverint operi. Theon. Sophis. Progymnas. cap. I.]] . When he attempted tragedy, or sublime or elevated subject ; or to move pity, horror, or the greater passions, he had excellent success. And the comical humour he shewed on other occasions in painting fantastical, ludicrous ideas, has made him very famous, for having amused himself in painting one very ridiculously dressed ; hee was highly delighted with that figure, and called it his gryllus ; whence ever afterwards grotesque figures, and chimeras were called amongst the painters by that name.

But what is worth our attention with regard to the colouring of the ancient Greek masters is, what we are told of their care not to display it too much. They avoided the gaudy, luscious, and florid; and studied chastity and severity in their colours. It was not till painting was in its decline, that luxury and libertinism in colouring, so to speak, came into vogue; or that gorgeous, splendid, expensive colours were esteemed, and the pleasure arising from these preferred to truth or design, unity and simplicity of composition, with due strength of expression[[3:See Plin. lib. 35. C. 2. Primumque dicemus quæ restant de pictura : arte quondam nobili — Nunc vero in totum marmoribus pulsa, jam quidem et auro, etc. c. 15. Qua contemplatione tot colorum, tanta varietate, subit antiquitatem mirari ! Quatuor coloribus solis immortalia illa opera fecere ; ex albis Melino ; ex filaceis, Attico ; ex rubris, Sinopide Pontica ; ex nigris atramento ; Apelles, Echion, Melanthius, Nicomachus, clarissumi pictores : quum tabulæ eorum singulæ oppidorum venirent opibus. Nunc et purpuris in parietes migrantibus, et India conferente fluminum suorum limum, et Draconum ac Elephantorum saniem ; nulla nobilis pictura est. Omnia ergo meliora tunc fuere, quum minor copia. Ita est, quoniam, ut supra diximus, rerum non animi pretiis excubatur. Quare vincat veritatem ratio falsa non erit alienum exponere. Quod enim antiqui insumentes laborem et industriam probare contendebant artibus, id nunc coloribus et eorum eleganti specie consequuntur ; et quam subtilitas artificis adjiciebat operibus auctoritatem, nunc Dominicus sumptus effficit ne desideretur. Quis enim antiquorum, non uti medicamenta, minio parce videtur usus esse ? At nunc passim plerumque toti parietes inducuntur. Accedit huc Chrysocolla, Ostrum, Armenium. Hæc vero cum inducuntur, etsi non ab arte sunt posita, fulgentes tamen oculorum reddunt visus ; et ideo, quod pretiosa sunt, legibus excipiuntur, ut a domino, non a redemptore, repræsententur. Vitr. lib. 7. c. I.]]. This imitative art, in the sense of al the better Anciens, tho’ it requires help from colours to execute its illusive designs; and uses them as means to render its copies of nature specious and deceiving: though it is indeed only by colours, that painting can attain to that command over the sense, which is its high and distinguishing aim; yet it hath nothing wider of its real scope, than to make a shew of colours, or by their mixture to raise a separate and flattering gratification to the sense. “This pleasure, says an author well acquainted with the Ancients, is plainly foreign and of another kind, as having no share or concern in the proper delight and entertainment which naturally arises from the subject. For the subject, in respect of rational pleasure, is absolutely completed when the design is executed. And thus it was always best, in their opinion, when the colours were most submitted, and made wholly subservient.”

Many authorities might be brought to prove this[[3:To the just mentioned may be added the famous saying of Apelles. Cum vidisset quendam ex suis discipulis pinxisse Helenam multo auro ornatam : O adolescens, inquit, cum non posses pingere pulchram, fecisti divitem. Cl. Alex. — Sic hæc subtilis pictura etiam incompta delectat. Fit enim quiddam in utroque queo sit venustius, sed non ut appareat. Tum removebitur omnis insignis ornatus quasi margaritarum. Ne calamistri quidem adhibebuntur. Fucati vero medicamenta candoris, et ruboris, omnia repellentur : elengantia modo, et munditia remanebit. Cic. Orat. 23. Virgo minime quidem speciosa, formosa tamen, vera pariter atque antiqua pulchritudine referta, qualia sunt antiquæ artis simulacra, quæ ad sui admirationem temporis moram atque accuratiores oculos requirunt. Themistii Orat. 3. De Amicit. Recentiores deorum imagines in admiratione sunt propter operis dignitatem, veteres vero propter operis simplicitatem, magis vero Deorum majestati congruentem. Porphy. De Abst. lib. 2. So Silius Ital. Lib. 14. circa fin. speaking of the ancient images of the gods : 

— Simulacra Deorum

Numen ab arte datum servantia.

Non ideo tamen segnius precor, ut quandoque veniat dies ; utinamque jam venerit ; quo austeris illis severisque dulcia hæc blandaque, ut justa possessione decedant. Plin. jun. Lib. 3 Ep. 8. See Cicero de Orat. lib. 3. 25. Quint. lib. 8. c. 3. lib. 12. 10.

]]. Apelles is said, by Pliny, to have invented a kind of varnish which served to preserve his pictures neat and clean: it could not be discerned unless one came very near, and looked narrowly to his pictures: but it gave them a charming transparency at a due distance: it likewise render’d the colouring wonderfully mellow: but it was chiefly intended by him to darken the too florid colours, and to give them a certain austerity[[3:Inventa ejus et ceteris profuere in arte : unum imitari nemo potuit, quod absoluta opera atramento inlinebat ita tenui, ut idipsum repercussum claritates colorum omnium excitaret custodiretque a pulvere et sordibus ; admotum intuenti demum adpareret : sed et tum ratione magna, ne claritas colorum aciem offenderet ; veluti per lapidem specularem intuentibus e longinquo ; et eadem res nimis floridis coloribus austeritatem occulte daret. Plin. 35.]]. Nicias had likewise discovered a varnish which was of great use to statuaries, as well as painters[[3:Hic est Nicias, de quo dicebat Praxiteles, interrogatus quæ maxime opera sua probaret in marmoribus ? Quibus Nicias manum admovisset : tantum circumlitioni ejus tribuebat. Plin. 35. See French notes ad loc.]], and had much the same effect in painting, as has been described.

[[2:Homer’s comparison taken from Diana painted by Apelles]] Homer’s comparison taken from Diana, attended by her nymphs, is exceedingly beautiful: and yet Apelles is thought to have out-done the poet in painting that subject.

A sylvan train the huntress queen surrounds,

Her rattling quiver from her shoulder sounds:

Fierce in the sport, along the mountain-brow

They bay the boar, or chase the bounding roe:

High o’er the lawn, with more majestick pace,

Above the nymphs she treads with stately grace;

Distinguish’d excellence the goddess proves;

Exults Latona as the Virgin moves, etc.

And it is not improbable that Virgil had this picture of Apelles, as well as the original whence it was taken, it his eye, in his description od the same goddess.

Qualis in Eurote ripis, aut per juga Cynthi

Exercet Diana choros ; quam mille secutae

Hinc atque hinc glomerantur orcades ; illa pharetram

Fert humero, gradiensque deas supereminet ones

Latonae tacitum pertentant gaudia pectus. Æn. Lib. I ver. 504.

It is particularly taken notice of by Pliny and others, that the ancient painters and statuaries disdained not to listen to the remarks even of the illiterate and uninstructed, and to observe the effects which their works had upon them. [[2:The ancient custom of exposing pictures to publick view and censure]] It was customary amongst them to expose pictures and statues to publick view, to the common criticism of all, not only in the publick and solemn congresses, but at all times[[3:Ut enim pictores, et ii, qui signa fabricantur, et ero etiam poetae, suum quisque opus a vulgo considerari vult : ut, siquid reprehensum sit a pluribus, id corrigatur : hique et secum, et cum aliis, quid in eo peccatum sit, exquirunt : sic aliorum judicio permulta nobis et facienda et non facienda, et mutanda, et corrigenda sunt. Cic. de Of. lib. 2. 41. Apelles perfecta opera proponebat in pergula transeuntibus, atque ipse post tabulam latens, vitia quae notarentur auscultabat, vulgum diligentiorem judicem quam se praeferens : feruntque a sutore deprehensum quod in crepidis una pauciores intus fecisset ansas : eodem, postero die, superbo ex emendatione pristinae admonitionis, cavillante circa crus, indignatum prospexisse, denuntiantem ne supra crepidam judicaret. Plin. 35. — Quandoquidem hoc Phidiam quoque fecisse perhibent quo tempore apud Elios Jovem jam absolverat. Stetisse enim illum post januam, ubi primum opus in lucem productum hominibus visendum ostendisset, subauscultasseque quid quisque spectantium laudaret aut reprehenderet. Ceterum hic quidam nasum reprehendebat  —  alius vero faciem  — Deinde digressis spectatoribus, rursus Phidiam semet concludentem correxisse, atque ad multorum opinionem, et judicium imaginem emendasse. Neque enim mediocre aut contemnendum esse existimabat populi tam numerosi consilium, sed hoc sibi persuaserat necessario fore, ut multi semper plus quam unus perviderent : tametsi ipse semet Phidiam esse non ignorabat. Lucian de Imag. Rhodiis in admiratione fuere Ialysus et Satyrus, columnae adstans, cui columnae perdix adsistebat atque adeo tabula isthac primum posita, perdix tantopere traxit hominum oculos, atque inse defixos tenuit, ut Satyrum nemo admiraretur quanquam elaboratissimum. — Videns igitur Protogenes ipsum opus factum esse quoddam quasi additamentum ad opus, perdicem delevit. Strabo, lib. 14. p. 652.]]. And thus the artist had excellent opportunities of taking many useful hints, and making several important observations for the improvement of his art. The frequent confluence of spectators to see their works, gave the artists occasions of remarking how people of different orders, characters, ages, formed an excellent school for them to study Nature in. [[2:What the Ancients say of the difference between the learned and the vulgar]] And indeed it is an error to suppose that the learned only can judge of good performances, or of the arts that imitate nature, and have it for their aim to touch and move the heart. This practice of the ancient painters, which was likewise followed by orators and poets, of trying their works upon untaught nature, proceeded on a true observation often repeated by Cicero and others; that the unlearned are seldom wrong in their judgment about what is good or bad in any of the arts; and that the chief difference between the learned and the vulgar consists in this, that the latter are not able to apply rules and maxims, but judge merely from what they feel; whereas the former reason about their feeling from principles of science and art. Cicero insists at great length on this observation[[3:Illud autem nequis admiretur, quonam modo haec vulgus imperitorum in audiendo notet ; cum in omni genere, tum in hoc ipso magna quaedam est vis, incredibilisque naturae. Omnes enim tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte aut ratione, quae sint in artibus ac rationibus recta ac prava, dijudicant : idque cum faciunt in picturis et in signis, et in aliis operibus, ad quorum intelligentiam a natura minus habent instrumenti ; tum multo ostendunt magis in verborum, numerorum, vocumque judicio ; quod ea sunt in communibus infixa sensibus, neque earum rerum quenquam funditus natura voluit esse expertem. — Mirabile est, cum plurimum in faciendo intersit inter doctum et rudem, quam non multum differat in judicando. Ars enim cum a natura profecta sit, nisi natura moveat ac delectet, nihil sane egisse videatur, etc. Cic. de Orat. lib. 3. 50.]]. But Quintilian dispatches the whole matter in one very just and expressive sentence. “Docti rationem artis intelligunt, indocti voluptatem.”

[[2:The regard paid by modern painters to common judgment]] What regard the best modern painters likewise paid to the sentiments and feelings of the vulgar, in whom Nature expresses herself just as she is moved, without any affectation or disguise, we learn from several stories in their lives, of their close and careful attention to the effects which their pictures had even on ordinary women and children: I shall only mention one Bellori and Coypel tell us[[3:See Coypel on Painting, and Leonardo da Vinci, p. 35. While a painter is employed in designing or painting, he ought to listen to the different sentiments wich different people entertain of his performance : there being no body, how ignorant in painting soever, but who, etc.]] of Annibal Carrache; he had observed an old woman mightily moved by a famous picture of Dominichino, representing the Flagellation of St. Andrew, and describing all the passions in it to her child with great emotion; but having remark’d, that a picture of Guido’s, in the same church, of another martyrdom, did not equally touch her; when a dispute happened afterwards about these two pictures, he only told this story, leaving it to every one to judge to which the preference was to be given; on supposition, that touching and moving the affections was the chief end and excellence of the pencil.

They[[5:Nicomachus and Philoxenus.]] both painted excellent pieces; and, though they painted very fast, they do not seem to have deserved the just and very instructive reproofs, Apelles and Zeuxis are said to have given to certain painters, who boasted of their having finished several pictures in a very short time. It is however very remarkable, that Petronius speaks of a certain quick and compendious way of painting, which, coming into vogue, was one great cause of the ruin of the noble art[[3:Pictura quoque non alium exitum fecit, postquam Aegyptiorum audacia tam magnae artis compendiariam invenit. Petron. Satyric. Nicomachi vero tabulis, et carminibus Homeri, praeter reliquam vim, Veneremque, etiam hoc adest, quod expedite et cum summa facilitate facta videantur. Plutar. in Timoleonte. Vitruvius ranks him with those painters, Quos neque industria, neque artis stadium, neque solertia defecit. Lib. 3 in Prooem.]].

[[4:suit Apelle nimia diligentia]] He well knew the difference between nicety or concinnity, and true elegance; how necessary to grace and beauty, and the perfection of works of genius and fancy, ease, freedom, and the hiding of art and labour are: he had found the secret of discerning when to stop and lay aside his pencil; whereas Protogenes not knowing when to give over, his works appeared too laboured, and had not the spirit, ease, and grace, that are the great charms in painting: an important lesson in all the arts, and often applied by Cicero and Quintilian to oratory[[3:In omnibus rebus videndum est quatenus; etsi enim suus cuique modus est, tamen magis offendit nimium quam parum. In quo Apelles Pictores quoque eos peccare dicebat, qui non sntirent quod esset satis. Cic. Orator n. 22

Et ipsa emendation finem habet. Quint. Inst. Lib. 10. c. 4.

Utilissima est dissimulata subtilitas, quae effectu apparet, habitu latet. Senec. In Pro lib. I. Contro.

]]. Now Raphael is praised for the same courteousness to his rivals, affability and communicativeness to all; the same readiness to commend whatever is excellent, and to learn from every one; the same ambition to be ever improving, without which any degree of self-confidence is insufferable arrogance. And what that grace means in which Apelles so greatly excelled all his competitors, can only be understood and learned from Raphael or Correggio’s works. For that je-ne-sçay-quoi of sweetness duely mixed with freedom and greatness, that at the same time touches the heart and sooths the imagination, cannot be defined by words or taught by rules; it is in a peculiar sense the gift of Nature, and can only be distinguish’d by the eye, and felt within one.

In fine, the quality which is pronounced by the Ancients most essential to good painting, is called by them Grace[[3:See what is said in the notes on the second chapter of Apelles. And to the passages of Cicero and Quintilan referred to concerning the decorum, may be added what Cicero says (De Orat. l. I). Roscium sæpe audio dicere, caput esse artis docere ; quod tamen unum esse quod tradi arte non possit. See Quint. Inst. l. 8. c. 3. Virtus et gratia in omnibus operibus efflorescens, res est prorsus admiranda, et quamvis disertæ orationis vim exsuperans. Maxime quidem ideonea est conspici, omnibusque pariter idiotis, atque artium harum intelligentibus perspiciendam se præbet ; oratione tamen eam explicari etiam iis est arduum, qui plurimum dicendo valent. Quisquis itaque qualemcumque hanc vim explicari sibi verbis requirit, plurimarum quoque aliarum insignium atque ineffabilium rerum rationem pari jure postulabit. Quidnam videlicet in corporum pulchritudine vocamus ὥραν. Quid in mobili illa modulatione ac flexu vocum ἔυαρμοσον, quid in omni convenientia temporum sit τάχις atque ἔυρυθμον. In omni denique opere atque in omni re gerenda, quisnam sit ille qui dicitur χαιρόν, quemadmodum etiam τό μέτριον in quo consistat. Sensu enim horum singula, non oratione comprehenduntur. Dion. Halic. In Lysia. ]]. This we are told comprehends truth, beauty, ease, freedom, spirit, greatness, all these are necessary to it; yet it superadds something to them, which it is exceeding difficult to describe by words. We find by their accounts of it, that its greatest opposite is the κακοζηλον, or over-diligence in finishing. The pictures of Protogenes wanted grace, because he did not know when it was time to give over. It is extremely rare and difficult to give grace to a piece; and yet there is a certain air of negligence, says Cicero, that is a main ingredient in every kind of grace, as well as in that of dress. Simplicity is inseparable from it. It is far removed from superfluity and affectation. Whatever is graceful is likewise truly beautiful and great; yet grace is something distinct from both: for it is grace that distinguishes greatness from the rough and savage; and it is greatness, on the other hand, that supports beauty from degenerating into the languid and insipid. It is withal a mistake to imagine, that grace is peculiar to one character; on the contrary, each character hath its peculiar and distinguishing grace. Meekness hath its grace as well as majesty. Humility has its grace as well as magnanimity. Cheerfulness may be graceful; and fear itself frequently adds a very great beauty and grace. It results from the whole, and yet belongs to every part, the very folds of the draperies not excepted. But it is vain to attempt to define that charm which the Ancients themselves have pronounced so inexplicable by words. It may be clearly discerned, or rather felt in the works of Raphael, and in the antiques upon with that most perfect master of greatness and grace formed, or rather perfected his taste.

And accordingly, Apelles, far from imagining himself at the top of perfection, continued, after all the advances he had made, and the glory he had justly acquired, indefatigably to aspire after greater excellence in his art. He was thus an example to painters of the earnest and persevering, emulous zeal that alone can perfect the artist and the arts, of diligence and care to improve one’s ideas and taste of beauty and greatness; diligence and ambition to excel one’s self as well as all others: and, at the same time, he, by his modest censure of Protogenes, has left one of the best and most instructive lessons to painters, with regard to that over-carefulness and too rigorous, anxious exactness in correcting and finishing, by which pictures are deadned, dispirited, and lose all grace. He well knew the difference between nicety or concinnity, and true elegance; how necessary to grace and beauty, and the perfection of works of genius and fancy, ease, freedom, and the hiding of art and labour are: he had found the secret of discerning when to stop and lay aside his pencil; whereas Protogenes not knowing when to give over, his works appeared too laboured, and had not the spirit, ease, and grace, that are the great charms in painting: an important lesson in all the arts, and often applied by Cicero and Quintilian to oratory[[3:[1] In omnibus rebus videndum est quatenus; etsi enim suus cuique modus est, tamen magis offendit nimium quam parum. In quo Apelles Pictores quoque eos peccare dicebat, qui non sentirent quod esset satis. Cic. Orator n. 22

Et ipsa emendation finem habet. Quint. Inst. Lib. 10. c. 4.

Utilissima est dissimulata subtilitas, quae effectu apparet, habitu latet. Senec. In Pro lib. I. Contro.]].

[[7:voir le reste dans Apelle grâce]] In fine, the quality which is pronounced by the Ancients most essential to good painting, is called by them Grace. This we are told comprehends truth, beauty, ease, freedom, spirit, greatness, all these are necessary to it; yet it superadds something to them, which it is exceeding difficult to describe by words. We find by their accounts of it, that its greatest opposite is the κακοζηλον, or over-diligence in finishing. The pictures of Protogenes wanted grace, because he did not know when it was time to give over.

The most celebrated piece of that great master Apelles, was his Venus Anadyomenè, or Venus coming out of the sea[[3:Venerem exeuntem e mari D. Augustus dicavit in delubro patris Caesaris, quae anadyomene vocatur; versibus Graecis, tali opere dum laudatur, victo, sed illustrato: Cuius inferiorem partem corruptam qui reficeret non potuit reperiri. Verum ipsa iniuria cessit in gloriam artificis. Plin. ibid.]]. Lucian in his beautiful dialogue entitled, The images, where, in order to draw the portrait of a woman more charming than any he found existing, he borrows from all the best sculptors and painters their most masterly strokes, says, Euphranor shall paint her hair; Polygnotus her eye-brows, and the vermilion of her cheeks; but Apelles shall do all the rest of her body after the model of his Pancaste; that is to say, of his Venus which was done chiefly after the life, from Pancaste the Thessalian beauty, Alexander’s first mistress; whom he afterwards gave to Apelles upon his falling deeply in love with her[[3:Athenaeus, lib. 13. c. 6. says it was done after Phryne. Erat utique Phryne magis pulchra in iis partibus quae non videntur quamobrem haud facile fuit eam conspicere nudam: induebatur enim tunicam arcte carnes adstringentem neque publicis utebatur balneis. Frequentissimo tamen Eleusiniorum convenit feriatisque Neptuno diebus, in Graecorum omnium conspectu, deponens vestes et solvens comas, ingressa est mare: adeo ut Venerem e mari emergentem ad hoc etiam exemplum pinxerit Apelles.]]. This Venus was a consummate beauty; so perfect a piece, that, in Augustus’s time, this picture being then at Rome, and a little spoiled in some of the interior parts, no painter would adventure to repair it. It was in a like manner, with the greatest difficulty, that Carlo Maratti, as sweet and gracious as his pencil was, and as fine an idea of beauty as he had, was persuaded to retouch some parts of Raphael’s paintings in the little Farnese at Rome. Apelles had also begun another Venus, which not living to finish, no painter would ever undertake to complete; so elegant was the outlines and contours of this unfinished piece[[3:Venerem Cois, superaturus etiam illam suam priorem. Invidit mors peracta parte, nec qui succederet operi ad praescripta lineamenta inventus est. Plin. 35. 17. Ad præscripta lineamenta, this properly signifies the contours in sculpture and painting. Tu videlicet solus vasis Corinthiis delectaris? — Tu operum lineamenta solertissime perspicis. Cic. in Ver. l. 4. So a poet contemporary with Pliny speaks:

Artificum veteres agnoscere ductus.

And a little afterwards:

Linea quæ veterem longe fateatur Achillem.

Stat. in Hercul. Lib. 4.]]. For that he had perfected the head, and upper part of the breast with admirable art Cicero tells us[[3:Epist. Ad Famil. Lib. I. Ep. 9. Nunc ut Apelles Veneris caput, et summa pectoris politissima arte perfecerit, reliquam partem corporis inchoatam reliquit.]].

The charming beauties are often celebrated by the poets:

Formosæ periere comæ: quas vellet Apollo,

Quas vellet capiti, Bacchus inesse suo.

Illis contulerim, quas quondam nuda Dione

Pingitur humenti sustinuisse manu. Ov. Am. l. 2. El. 14.

Again, Sic madidos siccat digitis Venus uda capillos,

Et modo maternis tecta videtur aquis. Trist. l. 2. 526.

Ovid there describes several pictures in the palace of Augustus.

Again, Ut Venus artificis labor et gloria Coi

Aequoreo madidas quae premit imbre comas. Ov. Ep. de Ponto, l. 4. Ep. I.

And there is an epigram of Ausonius on the same subject.

Emersam pelagi nuper genitalibus ondis

Cyprin Apellei cerne laboris opus;

Ut complexa manu madidos salis aequore crines

Humidulis spumas stringit utraque comis.

Jam tibi nos Crypri, Juno inquit et innuba Pallas,

Cedimus, et formae praemia deferimus. Aus. Ep. n. 104. In Ven. Anady.

And another in the Greek Epigrams by Antipater Sidonius; thus translated into Latin by Grotius:

Maternis primum de fluctibus emergentem

Cyprin Apellei cerne laboris opus:

Ut manibus mulcens respersos æquore crines,

De madidis spumam cogit abire comis,

Non tibi de forma posthac certabimus, ipsæ

Dicent, si videant, nata sororque Jovis. Anthol. l. 4. tit. 12.

Apelles had also begun another Venus, which not living to finish, no painter would ever undertake to complete; so elegant was the outlines and contours of this unfinished piece[[3:Venerem Cois, superaturus etiam illam suam priorem. Invidit mors peracta parte, nec qui succederet operi ad praescripta lineamenta inventus est. Plin. 35. 17. Ad præscripta lineamenta, this properly signifies the contours in sculpture and painting. Tu videlicet solus vasis Corinthiis delectaris? — Tu operum lineamenta solertissime perspicis. Cic. in Ver. l. 4. So a poet contemporary with Pliny speaks:

      Artificum veteres agnoscere ductus.

      And a little afterwards:

      Linea quæ veterem longe fateatur Achillem.

      Stat. in Hercul. Lib. 4.]]. For that he had perfected the head, and upper part of the breast with admirable art Cicero tells us[[3:Epist. Ad Famil. Lib. I. Ep. 9. Nunc ut Apelles Veneris caput, et summa pectoris politissima arte perfecerit, reliquam partem corporis inchoatam reliquit.]].

[[2:Poussin praised for his skill in expressing the passions.]] Poussin was so great a master of expression, that he is justly reckoned among the chief, if not the greatest, fort painting the inward sentiments, affections, and movements of the human heart[[3:This is the character Felibien, Bellori, etc. give of Nicolas Poussin. Je l’ai dejà dit, que ce sçavant homme a même surpassé en quelque sorte les plus fameux peintres et sculpteurs de l’antiquité qu’il s’est proposé d’imiter, en ce que dans ses ouvrages on y voit toutes les belles expressions qui ne se rencontroient que dans differens maîtres. Car Timomachus qui representa Ajax en colere, ne fut recommendable que pour avoir bien peint les passions les plus vehementes. Le talent particulier de Zeuxis, etoit de peindre des affections pus douces et plus tranquilles, comme il fit dans cette belle figure de Penelope, sur le visage de laquelle on reconnoissoit de la pudeur et de la sagesse. Le sculpteur Ctesilas fut principalement consideré pour les expressions de douleur. Mais le Poussin les possedoit toutes. Felibien.]]. [[2:And this the talent of Aristides]] Tho’ he failed like Aristides in his colouring, and fell as far short of Raphael as the other is said to have done of Apelles; yet he deserves the same character that is given of that great ancient master; who, as Pliny and others tell us, was the first who by genius and study attained to the compleat science of exhibiting manners and passions of all sorts. They both excelled in painting all kinds of affections, not only the soft and tender, but the strong and impetuous. As defective as Aristides was in his colouring, for it was dry and harsh, yet his pictures were eagerly sought after, highly estimeemed and purchased at very high prices[[3:[2] Is omnium primus animum pinxit et sensus humanos expressit, quae vocant Graeci ἤθη; idem perturbationes : durior paulo in coloribus. Plin. 35. Pliny’s distinction is explained by Quintilian, and in what he places the excellency of oratory, the Ancients made that of painting likewise chiefly to consist ; as it is well expressed by Martial :

Ars utinam mores animumque effingere posset :

Pulchrior in terris nulla tabella foret.

Huc igitur incumbat orator, hoc opus ejus, hic labor est, sine quo cetera nuda, jejuna, infirma, ingrata sunt. Adeo velut spiritus operis hujus atque animus est in affectibus. Quint. lib. 6. c. 3.]]; so greatly was his skill in displaying human nature, and in touching the heart valued; and so will Poussin’s likewise for ever be by all men of true taste: the reason is obvious; nothing affects the heart like that which is purely from itself, and of its own growth. “The most delightful, the most engaging, and pathetick of all subjects which poets fing or artists form, is that which is drawn from moral life or from the affections and passions.” Other imitations may please, but these interest us. This is the excellence that is likewise ascribed to Dominichin amongst the modern. While Guido’s pictures, by the beauty of passions in the other’s violently move and agitate the heart, which (as Felibien justly observes) is one of the noblest effects of painting[[3:[3] Si la beauté de pinceau et la Grace qui paroit dans les tableaux du Guide charmoit les yeux : les fortes et naturelles expressions du Dominiquin touchoient beaucoup l’esprit, et emouvoient davantage les passions de ceux qui les consideroient : ce qui est un des plus beaux effets de la peinture. Felibien tells us, that Nicolas Poussin spoke in this manner of Guido and Dominichin, tom. 4. p. 16.]].

[[2:Aristides’s pictures. A dying mother]]. Aristides[[3:Huius pictura est ; oppida capta ; ad matris morientis e vulnere mammam adrepens infans, intellegiturque sentire mater et timere, ne e mortuo lacte sanguinem lambat. […] The first is thus described in one of the Greek Epigrams :

Suge miser ! nunquam quae posthac pocula suges :

Ultima ab exanimo corpore poc’la trahe.

Expiravit enim jam saucia: sed vel ab orco

Infantem novit pascere matris amor.

Anthol. l. 3. t. 12.]], who was famous for expressing the passions, painted a subject of the most moving kind, a dying mother, whose wounded breast the hungry undiscerning infant greedily snatches, even in her last moments interesting herself with the greatest tenderness, lest her dear child should suffer by sucking her blood. […]

[[2:Persons expiring.]] He could, it seems, express with the greatest truth the languishing body or mind[[3:Pinxit et ægrum sine fine laudatum ; qua in arte tantum valuit, ut Attalus Rex unam tabulam ejus centum talentis emisse tradatur. Plin. ibid. et lib. 7. c. 38.]]; for Attalus gave a great sum of money for a picture by him, of a person quite exhausted, and just expiring. Apelles delighted in this subject[[3:Sunt inter opera ejus et expirantium imagines. Plin. lib. 35.]]; and so did likewise several of the best sculptors and statuaries. Pliny mentions a wounded man by Ctesilaus, in whom one might see how much life remained[[3:This is the very character, and chief excellency of the dying Gladiator at Rome. Ctesilaus vulneratum, deficientem, in quo posit intelligi quantum restet animae, lib. 34.]].

We are told by Pliny and others, that there were very excellent painters long before Panaenus. There is mention made of a celebrated battle-piece by Bularchus a painter, for which Candaules King of Lydia, the last of the Heraclides, gave a very high price[[3:In confesso perinde est Bularchi pictoris tabulam in qua erat Magnetum proelium, a Candaule rege Lydiae Heraclidarum novissimo, qui et Myrsilus vocitatus est, repensam auro. Tanta jam dignatio picturae erat, id circa aetatem Romuli acciderit necesse est: duo enim de vicesima Olympiade interiit Candaules; aut, ut quidam tradunt, eodem anno quo Romulus nisi fallor; manifesta jam tunc claritate artis, atque absolutione. Quod si recipi necesse est, simul adparet multo vetustiora principia esse, etc. Plin. 35.]].

Plato and other authors tell us, it was the Sun, the first and ablest of painters, that taught men to design and paint. And what else can these writers mean; what else can that known story of a shepherdess circumscribing her lovers shadow in order to preserve his image, and other such like fables concerning its origin, signify; but that this imitative art, which is equally useful and pleasant, and to which Nature points and invites us so strongly, by retracing or copying her own works in various manners, must have been very early attempted.

[[2:Dionysus called the man-painter]] Pliny speaks of a Dionysus who was called the man-painter, because he only did portraits. But there was another painter of that name, whom Aristotle reckons amongst those who understood manners, and expressed them in their pictures[[3:Arist. cap. 2 de re poet.]]. He says, he painted men just as they commonly are, in ordinary life, neither better nor worse.

[[2:Some women famous for painting amonst the moderns]] As amongst the moderns, the daughter of Tintoret, Marietta Tintoretta; the daughter of Prospero Fontani ; the daughter of Vincentino ; Sophonisba Anguisciola; Madam Schurman ; Rosalba, and several other ladies, have made very great advances in painting works; [[2:Some ancient paintresses]] so there are not wanting amonsgt the ancient ladies several very eminent genius’s for painting. Pliny says, that Timarete was the first of her sex who acquired considerable reputation by painting; a Diana done by her, having been plac’d in the Temple of Ephesus, amongst the works of the most famoust masters[[3:Timarete Miconis filia Dianam in tabula, quae Ephesi est, in antiquissimus picturis. Plin. 35. Fuit et alius Micon, qui minoris cognomine distinguitur ; cujus filia Timarete et ipsa pinxit. Plin. 35.]]. Irene not only had a very good hand at portraits; but likewise painted historical pieces with great judgment. Calypso, Alcisthene, Aristarete, and others are highly commended[[3:Irene Cratini pictoris filia et discipula, puellam quae est Eleusinae : Calypso, senem et praestigiatorem Theodorum : Alcisthene, Saltarorem, Aristarete, Nearchi filia et discipula, Æsculapium. Plin. 35.]]. [[2:Lala in particular. Her character from Varro]] But of all the painters of that sex Lala is the most celebrated. Varro makes honourable mention of her in his Treatise of the Liberal Arts. He says she would not marry, because family-cares are apt to distract the mind, and are hardly compatible with that freedom, that force of genius, and that lightness and easiness of the pencil, which are the great charms of painting. While she was very young she painted portraits either on wood or ivory, or in wax, to great perfection, of her own sex especially. She drew herself with excellent taste in the attitude of a girl at her toilet, admiring her own charms in the mirror; and an old woman, so natural, that nothing could go beyond it. In fine, he remarks, that she possessed many excellent talents, that seldom meet together, in a very eminent degree: she had an exceeding light and easy pencil, and painted with great freedom, expedition and facility; and, at the same time, as for the likeness, the colouring, and the keeping, she so greatly excelled in them all, that her pictures commonly bore a higher prince than those of Denis and Sopolis, the best face-painters of her time[[3:Lala Cyzicena, perpetua virgo Marci Varronis juventa, Romae et penicillo pinxit et cestro in ebore imagines mulierum maxime ; ac, Neapoli, anum in grandi tabula ; suam quoque imaginem ad speculum. Nec ullius velocior in pictura manus fuit : artis vero tantum, ut multum manipretio antecederet celeberrumos eadem aetate imaginum pictores, Sopolin et Dionysium quorum tabulae pinacothecas inplent. Plin. ibid. See the notes in French.]]; whose works (saith he) do now adorn the cabinets of the curious[[3:Dionysius nihil aliud quam homines pinxit, ob id Anthropographus cognominatus. Plin. ibid. There is another, Dionysius Colophonius, mentioned by Ælian, Aristotle, and others, of whom afterwards.]]. These two were Greeks by birth, but painted in Rome a great many portraits of both sexes. The first of them was surnamed the Anthropographos, or the man-painter, because he only did portraits.

[[2:How much he eesteemed and studied the antient paintings]] So much did he [[5:Raphael.]] and the roman school study the ancient grotesque paintings, that they are said to have transplanted several figures and groupes of figures from them into all their works ; into their paintings particularly in the Vatican Loges, and upon the walls and ceilings of other places at Rome ; which are therefore considered at Rome rather as copies by those great masters from the antique, than as original works of their own.

GIOV. d’UDINA, a favourite scholar of his master Raphael, made it his whole business to make collections of drawings after then antient grotesque paintings on stucco, and other antient stucco works, and to imitate them ; and accordingly to hi mit is that we owe the revival of what is called grotesque. Polydore and Mathurin, as I have observed in another place, likewise employed their whole time in drawing after antiques, and copying them.

Pliny mentions but very few roman painters, and gives no very great character of most of them. First of all he names Ludius[[3:[1] Decet non sileri et ardeatis templi pictorem præsertim ciuitate donatum ibi (Ludius Eotas) — non fraudando et Ludio, Divi Augusti ætate, qui primus instituit amœnissimam parietum picturam : uillas et porticus, ac topiaria opera, lucos, nemora, colles, piscinas, euripos, amnis, litora ; qualia quis optaret : uarias ibi obambulantium species ; aut nauigantium ; terraque villas adeuntium asellis aut uehiculis ; iam piscantis, aucupantique aut uenantis, aut etiam uindemiantis. Sunt in ejus exemplaribus nobiles, palustri accessu villa, succollatis sponsione mulieribus labantes trepidique. That these paintings were upon the walls in fresco, appears from what Pliny adds : idemque subdialibus maritimas urbis pingere instituit, blandissimo aspectu minimoque impendio. The French translator gives the meaning of the passage thus ; Il le peignoit dans les maisons, ou dans les vestibules pourvû que ce fut à couvert du soleil et de la pluye.]], who chiefly painted little pieces on the walls and ceilings, reprensenting sea-ports, porticoes, landscapes, gardens, villaes, country festivals, and other subjects of that inferiour kind.

This painter[[5:Nealces.]] had a strict regard to truth, nature, and the costume in his pieces, which made them very intelligible, and added to their beauty and force exceedingly. We have an instance of this in one of his pictures representing a naval fight between the Persians and Egyptians; for having occasion to paint the Nile, which is very large towards the end of his course, and whose water there is hardly discernible from the sea; he characterizes the Nile distinctly by an ass drinking, and a crocodile, at a little distance, half hid amongst the bushes, watching it opportunity to spring upon the ass[[3:Nealces, Venerem; ingeniosus et solers in arte, etc. Plin. ibid. Coypel in his pictures representing Moses saved by Pharaoh’s daughter, has imitated in several circumstances this picture of Nealces.]]. Whence we see how well the ancient masters understood, by their art, to give every thing its proper character, and to determine by evident marks the scene of their representations.

Pamphilus the master of Apelles had joined to the art of painting, the study of all the liberal arts and sciences, which enlarge, elevate, and enrich the mind; of mathematicks especially, without the help of which, he used to say, that it was impossible to bring painting to perfection. And thus he contributed exceedingly to the improvement and reputation of the growing Art. He had the interest to procure certain valuable privileges[[3:Eupompus docuit Pamphilum Apellis praeceptorem. Ipse (Pamphilus) Macedo natione, sed primus, in pictura, omnibus literis eruditus, praecipue arithmetice et geometrice, sine quibus negauit artem perfici posse. Docuit neminem minoris talento, annis decem ; quam mercedem ei Apelles et Melanthius dedere. Et hujus auctoritate effectum est, Sicyone primum, deinde et in tota Graecia, ut pueri ingenui, omnia ante, graphicen, hoc est, picturam, in buxo docerentur, recipereturque ea ars in primum gradum liberalium. Semper quidem honos ei fuit, ut ingenui exercerent ; mox ut honesti ; perpetuo interdicto ne seruitia docerentur, etc. Plin. Nat. Hist. 35.]] and advantages to its students and professors, which greatly ennobled the art in the opinion of the world; and so were no inconsiderable incentives to those to apply temselves to it who are most likely to succeed in painting, or indeed to improve any ingenious art. But, which is of principal moment, he first introduced the custom at Sicyon, that was soon followed throughout all Greece, of teaching the elements of design very early in the schools amongst the liberal arts; by which means, no doubt, painting became in a little time generally understood by all who had a liberal education, and consequently was very highly relished and esteemed. We may easily conceive, that the art must have gained very great improvements from a painter so universally well acquainted with all the parts of polite literature, with philosophy, and every other usefull science; and who imployed every branch of his scholarship towards perfecting his favorite profession. For this, like every other art, can only be advanced, and improved, in proportion as its scope, extent, power and excellence are fully comprehended; and in consequence thereof all necessary aids from the other sciences are called great success, but taught it and wrote of it with equal applause. And to his instruction was owing Apelles in a great measure; so true it is, that the best natural genius, as well as the best soil, requires proper culture; and that Art and Nature must conspire together to produce truly beautiful, generous plants. So Horace speaking of Painting as well as Poetry,

Ego nec studium sine divite vena

Nec rude quid profit video ingenium. Alterius sic

Altera poscit opem res, et coniurat amice. Hor. Art. Poet.

Now such a genius was Leonardo da Vinci in the latter age of painting; and to his like abilities and accomplishments is the improvement of the art at that period ascribed. He was one of the compleatest scholars and finest gentlemen of that age; a person of very extraordinary natural endowments, and of vast acquired parts; he was particularly well-skilled in the mathematicks; in those parts of that science at least which relate more immediately to the arts of design. He not only shewed the usefulness of that science to a painter by his performances and writings; but gave in the general, by his works and lessons, a larger notion and a higher idea, than had been hitherto conceived, of the grandeur, truth, and sublimity the art is capable of attaining, and ought to aspire after. And thus he had so great a share in kindling the ambition and emulation of painters; in directing them to the right method of improving the art, and in procuring just esteem to its students and professors; that he is justly said to be one of those who in any age have contributed the greatest share towards the advancement of painting to its true dignity and glory. By his interest an Academy of Painting was founded in Milan, which was under his direction for a long time; and conduced not a little to promote the knowledge, taste, and love of the then growing art. He practised it, taught it, and wrote of it with great approbation.

[[2:Arguments to prove that the science of perspective was not unknown to the Ancients]] I would therefore just observe on this head, that it seems highly probable that the science of perspective was not unknown to them, from the following authorities. Pliny says expressely, that Pamphilus, master to Apelles, added geometry to painting[[3:Sed primus, in pictura, omnibus literis eruditus, præcipue arithmetice et geometrice, sine quibus negauit artem perfici posse. Plin. 35. 17.]]; as a science without which it was impossible to compleat the art, or bring it to full perfection. And what other part of geometry can this be supposed to be but perspective? Besides, in speaking of the part of painting in which Apelles was inferiour to others, he plainly distinguishes between the measures and the position[[3:Plin. 35 in Apelles.]].

[[2:Parrhasius’ skill in symmetry, in rounding off the extremities, and in painting characters.]] He is highly commended for the softness, and elegance of his out-line. Pliny expatiates with delight upon his excelling eminently in rounding off his figures, so as to detach them from the board, and to make them stand out with great strength and relief. This is indeed a very masterly part; and as Pliny says of the ancient painters, so it may be likewise said of the moderns, “Tho’ many have succeeded in painting the middle parts, very few have been able to come up to the throughly illusive way of terminating the extremities, so as to give them a just degree of roundness, and make them fly off, inviting the eye to look behind them, and promising as it were to discover what they hide.”[[3:[1] Primus (Parrhasius) symmetriam picturae dedit : primus argutias uultus, elegantiam capilli, uenustatem oris ; confessione artificum, in lineis extremis palmam adeptus. Haec est picturae summa sublimitas. Corpora enim pingere et media rerum, est quidem magni operis ; sed in quo multi gloriam tulerint : extrema corporum facere et desinentis picturae modum includere rarum in successu artis inuenitur : ambire enim se ipsa debet extremitas et sic desinere, ut promittat alia et post se ; ostendatque etiam quae occultat. Plin. 35. Ludovicus Demontiosus says, Sic malim legere (extrema corporum facere, et desinentis picturae modo illudere rarum in successu artis inuenitur). Nam desinentis picturae modum includere quid sit nescio, sed desinentis picturae modo spectantibus illudere, hoc artis est. Lud. Demont. Comment. de Sculp. et Pict. Antiq.]] But this wonderful art ought rather to be called the subtility than the sublimity of painting[[3:This is called by others subtilitas. Parrhasius examinasse lineas subtilius, traditur. Quint. Inst. lib. 12. c. 10. Tanta enim subtilitate extremitates imaginum erant ad similitudinam praecisae, ut crederes etiam animorum esse picturam. Petron. Arb. Satyr. And Pliny himself afterwards, Ferunt artificem protinus, contemplatum subtilitatem, discisse, etc. The sublime in painting is that which he describes afterwards in the character of Timanthes, and what Varro ascribes to Euphranor.]], which last belongs more properly to the poetical part of it, consisting in greatness of invention and composition; nobleness of ideas; energy of expression, and a grand taste joined with beauty and grace.

[[4:suit Parrhasios Peuple]] Now Socrates is famous for his deep insight into human nature, and his vast comprehension of men and manners; for his ironical humorous turn, and the wonderful facility with which he could assume any mien, or put on any character, in order to accomplish more successfully, his truly philosophical design or stripping all false appearances of wit, learning or virtue, or their artificial varnish, and exposing them in their native colours[[3:In hoc genere Fanius in Annalibus suis Africanum hunc Æmilianum dicit fuisse, et eum uerbo Graeco appellat ̓Είρωνα: Sed, uti ferunt, qui melius haec norunt, Socratem, opinor, in hac ironia dissimulantiaque longe lepore, et humanitate omnibus praestitisse. Genus est perelegans, et cum grauitate falsum, cumque oratoriis dictionibus, tum urbanis sermonibus accommodatum. Cic. De Orat. L. 2. Primum, inquam, deprecor, ne me, tanquam philosophum, putetis scholam uobis aliquam explicaturum: quod ne in ipsis quidem philosophis magnopere unquam probavi. Quando enim Socrates, qui parens philosophiae iure dici potest, quidquam tale fecit? Eorum erat iste mos, qui tum sophistae nominabantur: quorum e numero primus est ausus Leontinas Georgias in convent poscere quaestionem, id est, iubere dicere, qua de re quis uellet audire. Audax negotium; dicerem impudens, nisi hoc institutum postea translatum ad philosophos nostros esset. Sed et illum, quem nominaui, et ceteros sophistas, ut e Platone intelligi potest, lusos uidemus a Socrate. Is enim percunctando, atque interrogando elicere solebat eorum opiniones, quibuscum differebat, ut ad ea quae ii respondissent, siquid videretur, diceret. Cic. de fin. lib. 2. ab initio.]]. Parrhasius’s house being much frequented by the people of the first distinction, was often, we are told, the scene of Socrate’s Disputes, conferences, and lectures. There he frequently took occasion, in his noted, particular manner, to give sound and wholesome advices, or severe rebukes; and to hold conversations on the profoundest subjects in philosophy and morals, under the specious appearance of only intending to criticize a picture, and unfold the beauties and excellencies of the arts of design. It is not there witty, ingenious philosopher, for the advances he had made in one of the most difficult, most useful, and most philosophical parts of the art; in representing, truly, and naturally, a great variety of manners and characters. Socrate’s chief talent and peculiar excellence consisted in the very same dexterity which distinguished this painter[[5:Parrhasius.]], with whom he was so truth and spirit; in giving due propriety, force, and relief to the characters and personages he had a mind to exhibit; or in making, either the faults and imperfections, or the beauties and excellencies he drew, so evident, so palpable, that they could not but strike and make a very deep impression.

If we look into the Lives of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, of the Carraches, Dominichin, and all the painters who excelled in representing the passions and manners, we shall find them all to have been no less obliged to the instructions and conversation of philosophers, than Parrhasius was to Socrates: being persuaded that the grand usefulness of painting consisted in that art, they took all necessary pains to understand human nature and to be able, by a skilful imitation of its various workings and motions, to touch the heart, and make instructive impressions upon it.

We have a short but beautiful description of painting, and the end it ought chiefly to aim at, in a Conference of Socrates with Parrhasius that hath been already commended. I shall give it here in English, as well as I can, because I am to keep it in view throughout the following remarks.

“When Socrates (says Xenophon) had occasion to discourse with artists, his conversation was of great advantage to them[[3:εἰσελθὼν μὲν γάρ ποτε πρὸς Παρράσιον τὸν  ζωγράφον καὶ διαλεγόμενος αὐτῷ, Ἆρα, ἔφη, ὦ Παρράσιε, γραφική ἐστιν εἰκασία τῶν ὁρωμένων; τὰ γοῦν κοῖλα καὶ  τὰ ὑψηλὰ καὶ τὰ σκοτεινὰ καὶ τὰ φωτεινὰ καὶ τὰ σκληρὰ  καὶ τὰ μαλακὰ καὶ τὰ τραχέα καὶ τὰ λεῖα καὶ τὰ νέα  καὶ τὰ παλαιὰ σώματα διὰ τῶν χρωμάτων ἀπεικάζοντες  ἐκμιμεῖσθε. Ἀληθῆ λέγεις, ἔφη. Καὶ μὴν τά γε καλὰ  εἴδη ἀφομοιοῦντες, ἐπειδὴ οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἑνὶ ἀνθρώπῳ περιτυχεῖν  ἄμεμπτα πάντα ἔχοντι, ἐκ πολλῶν συνάγοντες τὰ ἐξ ἑκάστου  κάλλιστα οὕτως ὅλα τὰ σώματα καλὰ ποιεῖτε φαίνεσθαι. Ποιοῦμεν γάρ, ἔφη, οὕτως. Τί γάρ; ἔφη, τὸ πιθανώτατον  καὶ ἥδιστον καὶ φιλικώτατον καὶ ποθεινότατον καὶ ἐρασμιώτατον ἀπομιμεῖσθε τῆς ψυχῆς ἦθος; ἢ οὐδὲ μιμητόν ἐστι  τοῦτο; Πῶς γὰρ ἄν, ἔφη, μιμητὸν εἴη, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὃ μήτε  συμμετρίαν μήτε χρῶμα μήτε ὧν σὺ εἶπας ἄρτι μηδὲν ἔχει μηδὲ ὅλως ὁρατόν ἐστιν; Ἆρ´ οὖν, ἔφη, γίγνεται ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ τό τε φιλοφρόνως καὶ τὸ ἐχθρῶς βλέπειν πρός  τινας; Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ἔφη. Οὐκοῦν τοῦτό γε μιμητὸν ἐν  τοῖς ὄμμασι; Καὶ μάλα, ἔφη. Ἐπὶ δὲ τοῖς τῶν φίλων  ἀγαθοῖς καὶ τοῖς κακοῖς ὁμοίως σοι δοκοῦσιν ἔχειν τὰ  πρόσωπα οἵ τε φροντίζοντες καὶ οἱ μή; Μὰ Δί´ οὐ δῆτα, ἔφη· ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς φαιδροί, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῖς κακοῖς  σκυθρωποὶ γίγνονται. Οὐκοῦν, ἔφη, καὶ ταῦτα δυνατὸν  ἀπεικάζειν; Καὶ μάλα, ἔφη. Ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸ μεγαλοπρεπές τε καὶ ἐλευθέριον καὶ τὸ ταπεινόν τε καὶ ἀνελεύθερον  καὶ τὸ σωφρονικόν τε καὶ φρόνιμον καὶ τὸ ὑβριστικόν τε  καὶ ἀπειρόκαλον καὶ διὰ τοῦ προσώπου καὶ διὰ τῶν σχημάτων καὶ ἑστώτων καὶ κινουμένων ἀνθρώπων διαφαίνει. Ἀληθῆ λέγεις, ἔφη. Οὐκοῦν καὶ ταῦτα μιμητά; Καὶ μάλα, ἔφη. Πότερον οὖν, ἔφη, νομίζεις ἥδιον ὁρᾶν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους δι´ ὧν τὰ καλά τε κἀγαθὰ καὶ ἀγαπητὰ ἤθη φαίνεται  ἢ δι´ ὧν τὰ αἰσχρά τε καὶ πονηρὰ καὶ μισητά; Πολὺ νὴ  Δί´, ἔφη, διαφέρει, ὦ Σώκρατες. Απομνημ. lib. 3. c. 10 ab initio.]]. For example, happening to go to Parrhasius the painter, he discoursed with him of his art, to this purpose. What is Painting, Parrhasius? Is it not an imitation of visible objects; for do you not express or represent by colours, the concave, and the eminent; the obscure, and the enlightened, the hard and soft, the rough and smooth, the new and old, and, in fine, all sorts of objects, and all the various appearances of Nature?

But when you propose to imitate beautiful forms, since, for instance, ’tis not easy to find any one person all whose members are absolutely faultless, do you not select from many human bodies those parts which are best proportioned and most beautiful in each; and by combining them, make whole figures that are beautiful? We do, said Parrhasius.

But what more? replied Socrates: Do not you attempt to represent the temper, disposition, and affections of the mind; that genius, and habitude chiefly, which is the most engaging, sweet, friendly, lovely, and desirable? Or are these quite inimitable? How can we, says Parrhasius? For how can that be imitated which hath neither measure nor colour, nor any of those visible qualities you have just now enumerated, and which can not indeed be seen? Doth not a man sometimes look upon others with a friendly pleasant aspect, and sometimes with the contrary one? I can’t deny that, says Parrhasius. And can’t you imitate that in their eyes? Certainly, replies the painter. Have our friends, says Socrates, the same countenance when their affairs succeeds well, or ill? Are the looks of the anxious the same with those of the man that is not oppressed by sollicitous cares? Not at all, answers Parrhasius, they are cheerful in prosperity, but sad in adverse circumstances. But these differences can be expressed or represented? Said Socrates. They can, replies Parrhasius.

Which is more, continues the philosopher, doth not a noble and liberal spirit, or a mean and ignoble one; a prudent and well-governed mind, or a petulant and dissolute one, discover itself in the countenance, air, and gesture of men whether they stand or move? That is very true, answers the painter. But all these differences surely, said Socrates, can be expressed by imitation? The can indeed, replies Parrhasius. Which then do you think, says Socrates, men behold with greatest pleasure and satisfaction, the representations by which good, beautiful, and lovely manners are expressed, or those which exhibit the base, deformed, corrupt and hateful? As to that, in truth, says Parrhasius, the difference is so great, that is is distinguishable to every body.”

[[2:The end of Painting is to imitate all visible appearances]]. In this short dialogue, it is first observed, that painting in general proposes to give a true image or likeness of every visible object: in the next place, that even with regard to merely sensible forms, ‘tis necessary that the painter should have a just notion and taste of beauty. And last of all, the chief design of it is to teach that painting may be rendered serviceable in morality, in showing the deformity of Vice, and the beauties of Virtue. I shall therefore, keeping this description of painting in my eye, make some observations on drawing and colouring, the imitation of moral life, or the expression of manners, and truth, beauty, grace, and greatness of composition in painting: that is, I shall endeavour to show how these qualities are explained by ancient authors.

[[2:Socrates represents moral imitation as the chief end of painting]] But the great merit of painting consists, in making a fine and judicious choice of nature; in exhibiting great, rare, surprizing, and beautiful objects in a lively manner; and thus conveying great and pleasing ideas into the mind. But because rational is the highest order of life, the source whence the greatest, the loftiest, as well as the most instructive and touching sentiments are derived; the highest merit and excellence of painting must consist in a fine taste of moral truth; in exciting in our minds great and noble ideas of the moral kind, and of moving our passions in a sound and wholesome way: for such is our frame and constitution, that what hath a virtuous effect is at the same time more pleasant and agreeable.

Parrhasius ask’d Socrates how this could be done; and the philosopher answers, that if all that is visible may be painted, all the passions and affections of the mind may be painted, for all these have their visible characteristics. Whatever is great, generous, beautiful, or graceful in the mind, shows itself by plain marks in the countenance, and gesture; and so likewise do mean, low, base, unworthy sentiments and affections. And therefore all these may be exhibited to the sight by a painter who has studied mankind, and is profoundly skilled in the human heart, and the natural language of the passions. So Horace:

Format enim natura prius non intus ad omnem

Fortunarum habitum ; iuvat aut impellit ad iram,

Aut ad humum maerore graui deducit et angit ;

Post effert animi motus interprete lingua. De Art. Poet.

And Pliny gives us a long and elegant account of the force of expression in the eye, that well deserves the consideration of painters[[3:Neque ulla ex parte, maiora animi indici cunctis animalibus, sed homini maxime, id est, moderationis, clementiae, misericordiae, odii, amoris, tristitiae, laetitiae. Contuitu quoque multiformes, truces, torui, flagrantes, graves, transuersi, limi, summissi, blandi. Profecto in oculis animus inhabitat. Ardent, intenduntur, humescunt, conniuent. Hinc illae misericordiae lacrymae, etc. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 11 c. 37. So Seneca, Epist. 106. Annon vides quantum oculis det uigorem fortitudo ? Quantam intentionem prudentia ? Quantam modestiam et quietem reuerentia. Quantam serenitatem lætitia ? Quantum rigorem seueritas ? Quantum remissionem hilaritas ? See Quint. lib. 2. c. 3.]].

But Socrates, speaking of moral painting, or of the expression of manners, goes farther, and leads Parrhasius to give the preference to those pictures which express the beauties of Virtue; amiable and worthy characters; truly good and great actions; pure and virtuous manners. These the mind contemplates with the highest delight and satisfaction; these raise our admiration, and inspire us with the most pleasing sentiments and generous dispositions. Merely corporeal beauty has a wonderfully charming influence upon the mind; but ’tis moral beauty, the graces of the soul, the fair, lovely and decent in characters and actions that most highly ravishes and transports us. We find this philosopher often discoursing to his disciples in Plato and Xenophon’s works, upon the excellence of Virtue; often telling them, such is the force of its charms that it appears in its highest glory when we see its behaviour in distress. ’Tis then most lovely and engaging when it is put to the severest trials. Then do we see all its majesty and firmness, all its strength, resolution, and sublimity: then is it we are most deeply interested in its behalf; our hearts are then filled with the highest admiration and astonishment, and at the same time melted into the most tender, generous pity. So virtuous is our frame, (according to the doctrine of that most excellent moralist) that no act of the mind yield it such a complicated contentment, or so high a relish of pleasure, as the self-approving complacency and affection with which it embraces suffering virtue and magnanimity. Now the same philosopher, consistently with his constant doctrine, tells Parrhasius and Clito, that in order to give us the highest satisfaction, and the most delightful as well as wholesome entertainment by art or imitation, they ought to paint the beauties of virtue; and for that end, that they should make a wise choice of proper circumstances, to exhibit its greatest force and excellence; or, in one word, that thy should study human nature and the beauty and sublime of characters and actions, in order to paint these truly amiable virtues, the contemplation of which exalts, enlarges and transports the mind.

Such, no doubt, were those pictures amongst the Greeks, done in memory of their heroes, and their glorious achievements for their country and the publick good. And ’tis of such pictures Aristotle speaks, when he justly asserts that painters and sculptors may teach virtue and recommend it, in a more striking, powerful, and efficacious manner, than philosophers can do by their dissertations and reasonings; and that pictures are more capable of exciting remorse in the vitious, and of making them enter into a serious conversation with their own hearts, and return to a right judgment of life and conduct, than the best moral precepts can do without such assistance[[3:Aristo. Polit. lib. 5. So Quintilian, lib. 11 c. 3. Nec mirum, si ista quæ tamen in aliquo posita sunt motu, tantum in animis valent, cum pictura, tacens opus, et habitus semper ejusdem, sic in intimos penetret affectus ut ipsam vim dicendi nonnumquam superare vieatur. So Seneca, lib. 2 de ira. Mouet mentes et atrox pictura, et iustissimorum suppliciorum tristis euentus. So Val. Maximus, lib. 5. c. 4. Exemplo ext. I where he mentions an ancient picture : Idem de pietate filiæ existimetur quæ patrem suum, Cimona consimili fortuna affectum ; parique custodiæ traditum tam ultimæ senectutis, uelut infantem pectori suo admotum aluit. Hærent ac stupent hominum oculi cum huius facti pictam imaginem uident, casusque antiqui conditionem, præsenti spectaculi admiratione renouant ; in illis mutis membrorum lineamentis viua ac spirantia corpora intueri credentes.]]

Parrhasius is led by Socrates to acknowledge that the virtues are the most agreeable objects pictures can represent; and that the vices cannot be beheld without abhorrence and detestation. Whence Parrhasius might have learned, that the deformity and vileness of vitious characters, is then most pleasantly represented in pictures, when the hateful characters are introduced into a piece, so as so serve by way of contrast or foil, to set off and heighten the beauty of the virtuous action which is the principal subject. At least this conclusion naturally follows from what Socrates leads Parrhasius to perceive and confess with great emphasis[[3:See the 15th chapter of Arist. de re poet. Boni imaginum fictores quantum res patitur, pulchriores fingunt, etc.]]

His conference with Clito the statuary (as we have seen) is to the same effect. And the philosopher concludes: “Thus then you see what ought to be your chief study, and what is the noblest attainment your art can aspire at.” It ought to be your principal employment to exhibit the beauties and proportions of the mind; to recommend virtue, and to abash and discountenance vice: thus it is that your art may be at once useful and pleasing; for virtuous manners well painted cannot fail to charm and delight. The philosopher’s design is plainly to lead the painter at once to just notions of virtue, and of his own art, by an argument taken from his art, and to shew how serviceable it might be rendered to true philosophy, by displaying the beauties of virtue, and the turpitude of vice.

Pliny gives no account of his little obscene pieces, some of which are mentioned by Suetonius; but on this, and every other occasion, condamns the vile prostitution  and abuse of an art, so capable of giving sound instruction and wholesome exercise to the mind[[3:See Pliny, liv. 33: Heu prodigiosa ingenia! Quot modis auximus pretia rerum [...] Cicero distinguishes very well duo jocandi genera, Unum illiberale, petulans, flagitiosum, obscaenum; alterum, elegans, urbanum, ingeniosum, facetum. Cic. De off. I, 29. And Pliny calls res, Parrhasius’s lascivious pictures, eo genere petulantis joci. Propertius moralizes charmingly on this subject. Templa Pudicitiae quid opus posuisse puellis... (Eleg. II, 6)]].

For in this he is said to have made great proficiency[[3:Quas aut Parrhasius protulit, aut Scopas ;

Hic saxo, liquidis ille coloribus

Solers nunc hominem ponere, nunc Deum. Hor. l. 4. Od. 8.

Et cum Parrhasii tabulis, signisque Myronis,

Phidiacum uiuebat ebur. Juvenal. Sat. 8.

Date mihi Zeuxidis artem, et Parrhasii sophismata. Hymerius apud Photium. Pliny commends Myron for the same quality, Myron numerosior in arte quam Polycletus et in symmetria diligentio. Plin. lib. 34. cap. 8.]], and to have shown a vast fertility of genius or imagination. This appears sufficiently from the description that is given of his picture of the people of Athens, representing by several well-distributed and judiciously-managed groups in one piece, a very considerable diversity of humours, tempers and characters.

His most famous picture (and he was very probably assisted in it by Socrates) represented the People of Athens. This piece Carlo Dati thinks difficult to comprehend, or to form a distinct idea of, imagining that it was one single figure; whereas it probably consisted of several judicious, well-understood groups: in it he had painted to the life all the vicissitudes of temper to which this jealous, spirituous people were reliable. They were represented as of a fluctuating inconstant humour; apt to be provoked and angry, yet very exorable; cruel, yet compassionate and clement; unjust and outragious, yet mild and tender, smooth and equitable; haughty, vain-glorious, and fierce, yet at other time timid and submissive[[3:Pinxit et Demon Atheniensium, argumento quoque ingenioso : uolebat namque uarium, iracundum, iniustum, — et omnia pariter. Plin. ibid.]]. All these varieties of temper and genius were nobly and perspicuously expressed; so that the Athenians might see their own image in it as in a mirror: with such a looking glass, the philosopher already named, and some of theirs poets, used frequently to present them. Pausanias mentions a picture very nearly of the same genius, and extent of art and invention, upon the walls of the square at Athens, called Ceramicos, representing Theseus in the midst of the people, founding the Democracy, and establishing its laws and constitutions[[3:In extremo pariete Theseus pictus est, et Democratia una cum populo. Hæc pictura probat Theseum æquabilem reipublicæ administrationem Atheniensibus constituisse. Paus. Lib. I. p. 6.]]. For in such a picture, doubtless a very great variety of humours, dispositions and characters must have been painted.

[[2:A false story about him refuted]] Seneca the rhetorician, and other declamators, have harangued upon a story of this Parrhasius, as if he had tormented an old man most cruelly, that he might be able to paint the tortures of Prometheus with greater force. But Carlo Dati very justly holds that story for a calumny, as that very false one of the same kind, with which some have defamed Michel Angelo[[3:See Carlo Dati in his Life of Parrhasius.]].

They also seem to have been rather designers than painters, and but very indifferent designers too. Nay the art appears to have been in a more imperfect state in their time, than in that of Giotto and his immediate successors: for before Ardices of Corinth[[3:Primi exercuere Ardices Corinthius, et Telephanes Sicyonius, sine ullo etiamnum hi colore ; iam tamen spargentes lineas intus ; ideo et quos pingerent adscribere institutum. Primus inuenit eos colores, testa ut ferunt, trita, Cloephantus Corinthius.]], Telephanes of Sicyon, and Crato of the same city, painting was no better than served just to represent the bare shadow of a man, or any animal; which was done by circumscribing the figure they intended to express, whatever it was, with a single line only; a simple manner of drawing called sciographia (sic). They began to add new lines (by way of shadowing to their figures) which gave them some appearance of roundness, and a little more strengh. And this manner was called graphice. But so imperfect was this way of delineating objects, that they found it not unnecessary to write under every piece, the name of what it was designed to represent.

Amongst the Ancient Pyreicus got the nick-name of rhyparographus, from the sordid and mean subjects to which he applied himself, such as barbers or shoe-makers shops, kitchens, animals, herbage, and the still-life[[3:Minori pictura celebres in penicillo, e quibus fuit Pyreicus, arte paucis postferendus. Is proposito nescio an destruxerit sese quoniam humilia quidem secutus, humilitatis tamen summam adeptus est gloriam. Tonstrinas, sustrinasque et pinxit similia: ob hoc cognominatus ρὑπαρόγραφος : in his consummatae uoluptatis quippe eae pluris veniere quam maximae multorum. Plin. 35. 18.]]: like the Bassans amongst the moderns, whose performance is also admirable, tho’ the subjects are low. Such pieces in all ages have had their admirers. The smallest pictures of Pyrheicus were more esteemed by some, and bought at higher rates, than the nobler works of many other masters. Pyreicus chiefly painted little pieces.

Those two painters[[5:Polygnotus and Panænus.]] chose great subjects, and seem to have vied by their art with poetry and its sublimest masters. Their pictures had manners, which, according to Aristotle, is the quality that renders painting at once most affecting and instructive : thery chiefly employed their pencils to paint great actions, or pleasing fables and allegories ; and designed in a manly, vigorous stile. Such was the art in its first beginnings ; before colouring was fully understood, design and composition were in great perfection.

[[2:The opinion of Socrates and Aristotle]] Socrates and Aristotle have not hesitated to pronounce the talent of imitating moral life, and expressing the affections of the mind, the chief excellence in all the imitative arts[[3:[1] Arist. de Poet. c. 6. Prima igitur pars, et velut anima tragœdiæ est ipsa fabula. Proxima autem loco sunt mores : his enim assimile quiddam est etiam in re pictoria. Siquis namque tabulam pigmentis licet pulcherrimis temere fusimque illeverit ; non perinde spectantem oblectet, ac si, albo licet colore imaginem delinearit certam : pari modo in tragœdiis absque constitutione rerum, magis valent mores quam morum expers fabula. Est etiam omnis imitatio, proprie quidem, ipsius actionis et per hanc, eorum est maxime qui agunt ; quibus primitus hærent mores. So likewise Horace de Arte Poet.

Non satis est pulchra esse poemata dulcia sunto :

Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto.

Again. Si plausoris æges Aulæa manentis et usque

Sessuri, donec cantor, voc plaudite dicat ;

Ætatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores, etc.

Again. Interdum speciosa locis, morataque recte

Fabula nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte

Valdius oblectat populum, meliusque moratur,

Quam versus inopes rerum, nugæque canoræ.]]. And the latter divides moral imitation in painting and poetry into three sorts. « Men, saith he, are either good or bad ; they are chiefly distinguish’d by their manners, that is, by their virtues and vices. Those therefore who propose to imitate human life, must either paint men better or worse than they are in the ordinay course of human affairs ; or such as they commonly are. There are but these three kinds of representation. Now Polygnotus excelled in the first, exhibiting men of great, illustrious, and uncommon virtues ; Poussin[[6:Coquille ; lire « Pauson ».]] in the second, painting extraordinary scelerates, or the vilest and most abominable characters ; and Dionysius drew the more common manners, dispositions, and qualities of mankind[[3:See Arist. de re poet. the whole 2d chapter, and compare it with the last paragraph of the 15th chapter. Quoniam autem tragœdia, meliorum imitatio est : (ut comœdia sequiorum) fictores imaginum bonos imitari debemus ; qui cum singulis suam propriamque dent formam, faciendo similes ; quntum res patitur, pulchriores fingunt. Ita et poeta, etc.]] ».

This passage is misunderstood by those who imagine the Stagyrite to be speaking of mere face or portrait-painters. He is discoursing of moral imitation in poetry ; and is illustrating it by such painting as aimed also at the representation of manners, actions, and characters. He adds, that the tragedies of some young men were like the pictures of Zeuxis, in which manners were not painted ; not properly distinguished or characterized. Propriety and truth of characters do therefore belong no less to painting than to poetry ; and according to Aristotle and Socrates, it is the pincipal end of both to express manners and to touch the mind.

To mention but one circumstance more in Protogene’s character and life; the tranquility with which he possess’d himself at Rhodes, continuing to work while it was besieged; and the ingenious reply he gave to those who were sent by Demetrius to ask how he had the courage to paint even in the very camp of the enemy, are much celebrated[[3:[1] Accitus a Rege, interrogatusque, qua fiducia extra muros ageret ? Respondit, scire se cum Rhodiis ille bellum esse, non cum artibus. Disposuit ergo rex in tutelam ejus stationes ; gaudens quod manus servaret, quibus jam perpercerat : et ne saepius avocaret, ultro ad eum venit hostis, relictisque victoriae suae votis, inter arma et murorum ictus spectavit artificem : sequiturque tabulam illius temporis haec fama, quod eam Protogenes sub gladio pinxerit. Pin. Ibid. See Felibian’s account of Parmegiano.]]; He answer’d with an easy smile, that he knew very well the prince was not come to make wear against the fine arts. Now we have almost a parallel instance of the same command of temper in a modern painter (Parmegiano) who likewise had one of the gentlest, sweetest, and most gracious peincls in the world. When Charles the Fifth had taken Rom by storm, some of the common soldiers, in sacking the town, having broke into his apartments, and found him, like Protogenes of old, intent upon his work, were so astonish’d at the charming beauty of his pieces, that instead of plunder and destruction, which was then their business, they resolved to protect him, as they afterwards did, from all manner of violence.

The two most celebrated pictures of Protogenes are his Ialysus, and his Satyr, both exceedingly praised by a great number of ancient authors. It was his Ialysus that charmed Apelles. It is said to have been the labour of seven years, and Protogenes took care to give a very good body of colours, that it might be a lasting memorial of his admirable pencil. The painter while he was about this excellent piece was exceedingly abstemious, and lived chiefly on roots, to preserve his fancy clear, lively, and unclouded[[3:Palmam habet tabularum, eius Ialysus, qui est Romae dicatus in templo Pacis : quem cum pingeret, traditur madidis lupinis vixisse, quoniam simul famem sustinerent et sitim ; ne sensus nimia dulcedine obstrueret. Huic picturae quater colorem induxit subsidio iniuriae et vetustatis, ut decedente superiore inferior succederet. Carlo Dati explains this, Volendo dare un buonissimo corpo di colori a quest’opera, nell’abozzarla, e nel finirla la ripassasse, e sopra vi tornasse fino a quattro volte sempre migliorandola, e piu morbida riducendola, come se proprio di nuovo la dissignesse. Est in ea canis mire factus, ut quem pariter et casus pinxerit, etc.]]. We have many instances of the severity of the ancient painters in their way of living. A parallel story is told of Nicias; and Horace’s excellent rule extends not only to poets, but to painters, and all authors:

Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam,

Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit,

Abstinuit Venere et Vino, etc. Hor. de Art. Poet.

There was a dog in this picture warm and foaming, like one just returned from hunting ; in expressing which, fortune is said to have favoured the painter exceedingly : for being quite angry that he could not, by all his arts and pains, come up to nature, in painting the foam about the dog’s mouth, he threw his pencil against the picture, and by this accidental stroke, was done to his satisfaction, what, by all his labour, he had not been able to perform. Let that story be as it will, Apelles thought this picture very beautiful; but rather too much laboured: whereas Protogenes, on the other hand, could hardly ever be contented with any of his own works, or think them so near to nature as he wished to make all he did. As much as this picture is commended by the ancient, not one of them has given a particular account of it. But if it was a view of a part of the Rhodian country, as some imagine, the must have been the image of some beautiful youth in it, for which it was chiefly esteemd, and whose name it took. For Aulus Gellius calls it a most wonderful image or picture of Ialysus[[3:[2] Noctes Atticae, lib. 15. c. 3. In his aedibus erat memoratissima illa imago Ialysi, Protogenis manu facta, illustris pictoris: cujus operis pulchritudinem, etc. So Plutarch and Aelian in passages already cited.]], and Cicero joins it with the Venus of Apelles[[3:Orator ab initio. — Qui aut Ialysi quem Rhodi vidimus, non potuerunt, aut Coæ Veneris pulchritudinem imitari, lib. 4 in Verrem, N°60. Quid Thespienseis ut Cupidinis signum, propter quod unum visuntur Thespii ? Quid Cnidios ut Venerem marmoream ? Quid ut pictam Coos ? Quid Ephesios ut Alexandrum ? Quid Cyzicenos ut Ajacem, aut Medeam ? Quid Rhodios ut Ialysum ? Epis. Ad Att. lib. 2. Ep. 21. — Et ut Apelles, si Venerem, aut si Protogenes Ialysum illum suum cæno oblitum videret, magnam, credo acciperet dolorem.]], and speaks of it as a picture representing some beautiful youth: it therefore very probably represented Ialysus the founder of Rhodes as a very comely youth, in the attitude of a hunter returned from the chase, with his dog sweating and foaming by him. And not improbably, the scene was some beautiful part of the Rhodian country, with a prospect of the city of Rhodes perhaps at a little distance. All the different conjectures about it, and all the various ways of speaking of it amoungst the ancients, being laid together, this seems to be the most probable opinion that can be formed of that celebrated piece; by which, chiefly, Rhodes was saved, and by which the painter gained the favour of Demetrius Poliorcetes (the besieger) to a degree that has added not a little to he reputation of both[[3:Carlo Dati gives us the various opinions about this picture in the Postille to his Life of Protogenes, chap. 5, 6 and 7, where he observes, that, according to Suidas, it was a figure of Bacchus. We have given the Sum of all their conjectures.]].

He lived in great poverty and obscurity, and fort a long time only painted galleys and ships, and mere still-life.

The Satyr is more particularly described[[5:than the Ialysus.]]; which Protogenes seems to have been painting when the siege was laid. It was a satyr called Anapauomenos[[3:Satyrus est, quem Anapauomenon vocant; et nequid desit tempori se jus securitati tibias tenens. Plin. 35. See the French Notes on this passage, and Carlo Dati’s Postille, etc.]]; because he was in a reclining posture. He held a flute in his hand, like a shepherd resting himself at the foot of an old oak, and singing the charms of his mistress, or the pleasures of a country life. He seems to have chosen this subject which required great tranquillity and quietness of mind to succeed in it, on purpose to be a monument of the undisturbedness with which he possessed himself, and applied to his work, in the midst of enemies and arms. Strabo says, it was a Satyr resting upon a pillar, on which was painted a partridge; that, being more admired than the satyr, was afterwards effaced by the painter, that the principal subject might be attended to as it deserved[[3:Strabo, lib. 14. p. 652.]].

There is likewise some dispute among criticks about two other works of his, one called Paralus, and the other Hemionida or Nausicaa. The greater part of the learned[[3:See Carlo Dati as above, and the French Notes. Pliny’s words are, Ubi fecit nobilem Paralum et Hemionida, quam quidam Nausicaam vocant ; adjecerit parvulas naves longas in iis, quae pictores paregia appellant : ut adpareret a quibus initiis ad arcem ostentationis opera sua pervenissent.]], Carlo Dati, Hardouin, and others, understand by these names given to the pictures, the names of ships he had painted. But, besides that even the finest ship is but one of the lowest subjects of painting; it is plain that the principal subject represented in these pieces was not a ship, since Pliny says, “That the painter had added in these pictures, by way of parerga, or accidental ornaments, several little galliots to preserve the memory of the small beginnings from which his pencil had risen to such glory and honour. For he has for a long time painted only ships and galleys.”

[[2:Another famous picture by him, and his stratagem to shew it to advantage]] Ælian describes another picture by the same Theon[[3:Æl. var. Hist. lib. 2. cap. ult.]], which deserves to be taken notice of, on account of an ingenuous stratagem the painter employed, in order to shew his piece to the best advantage at the Olympick Prices, according to the custom of those times. He had painted a person in armour, who seems to sally upon the enemy with fury: he flies to the combat with eyes flaming with rage: he brandishes his sword, and lifts his arm to reach a heavy blow. Mean while there is no other figure in the picture; he is single and quite alone. Now the method he took to display the beauties of this picture to the people assembled to judge of it, was this: he had hired trumpets on purpose, and ordered them to be founded on a private signal; so that when the people were surprized with that unexpected noise, and their imaginations alarmed with the fears of some sudden irruption, he drew the curtain and shewed this piece to the great astonishment of all the spectators, who by this means were exceedingly struck with its beauties.

He[[5:Timanthes.]] is chiefly renowned for the invention and perfect judgment that appeard in his works. It was not the mechanical, but rather the poetical part in which he was so eminent. For tho’ he has a very light, and, at the same time, a bold pencil ; yet there was more genius, invention, spirit and compass of thought in his pictures, than ability of hand. It was his ideas and the talent of his mind, that were chiefly admired, in consequence of that mastrerly way he had, of awakening great thoughts and sentiments, by his ingenious works, in the breasts of spectators ; his wonderful talent of spreading their imaginations, and leading them to conceive in their own minds more than was expressed by his pictures. In all his works, says Pliny, there was something more understood than was seen ; and tho’ there was all the art imaginable, yer there was still more ingenuity than art[[3:In unius hujus operibus intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur, et cum sit ars summa, ingenium tamen ultra artem est.]]. This is the true sublime in painting, as well as in the poetry and oratory. [[2:He excelled in what may be called the sublime in painting. It is described by Pliny as Longinus defines it in writing.]] Longinus in giving an account of the reason why the true sublime hath such a powerful and pleasing effect, describes it just as Pliny does this excellency, he and all ancient authors ascribe to Timanthes above all the other painters.

Timanthe’s Iphigenia is greatly celebrated by Cicero, Quintilian, Valerius Maximus, Pliny, and several others, for the jugment he shewed in it. Having expressed a great variety of grief and affliction in the countenances and gestures of the priest, her brother, friends, relations, and admirers, he veiled the father’s face, thus leaving the spectators to measure his inexpressible anguish and misery, by the effect this confession of the difficulty of expressing it must naturally have had upon their minds[[3:Cicero speaks of the decorum in all works of genius, which he thus defines: Quasi aptum esse, consentaneumque tempori, et personae: quod cum in factis saepissime, tum in dictis valet, in vultu denique, et gestu, et incessu: contraque item dedecere). He gives this example of it in painting. Si denique 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. Cic. Orat. 22.]]. Cicero mentions this as a great proof of the artist’s judgment, and of his skill in the most difficult part of painting. And all the Ancient praise it as a sublime thought, than which nothing could more powerfully move, and affect the mind of the beholders[[3:Quint. Inst. lib. 2. c. 17. Consumptis affectibus, non reperiens quo digno modo patris vultum posset exprimere, velavit ejus caput et suo quique animo dedit æstimandum. So Pliny, lib. 35. c. 15. Eius enim est Iphigenia oratorum laudibus celebrata : qua stante ad aras peritura, cum mœstos pinxisset omnis, praecipueque patruum, et tristitiæ omnem imaginem consumpsisset, patris ipsius voltum velavit, quem digne non poterat ostendere.]]. Nicolas Poussin has deserved great applause, by his ingenious imitation of this artful, sublime device of Timanthes ; by representing Agrippina, in his picture for the Death of Germanicus, hiding her face, and in such an attitude of the profoundest grief and sorrow, that she is felt to be afflicted beyond expression, and far above all the other persons in the piece. Euripides had employed the same ingenious stroke of art in his tragedy Iphigenia ; making the father Agamemnon turn away his head, and hide his face, quite over-power’d with grief[[3:— Vt vero Agamemnon vidit

Puellam euntem ad caedem in Nemus,

Ingemuit : et retro vertens caput,

Emisit lacrymas, oculis vestem opponens. Eurip. In Aulide. 1550.]].

The noble thought (as Eustathius observes) was originally Homer’s[[3:Poeta non inveniens aliquam doloris exsuperantiam, quam digne tanto mœrori scenis adderet, operit eum ; neque tantum silentem facit, sed totum e conspectu veluti amovet. Hic Sicyonius pictor Thimanthes pingens illam Iphigeniæ mactationem obvelavit Agamemnonem. Eusthat. In Il. 24. Ver. 163. Edit. Rom. p. 1343. This notable circumstance in this picture ; and several other paintings, are thus described in the Ætna of Cornelius Severus, by some ascribed to Virgil.

Quin etiam Graiae fixos tenuere tabellae

Signave ; nunc Paphiae rorantes arte capilli ;

Sub truce nunc parvi ludentes Cholchide nati,

Nunc tristes circa subjectae altaria cervae,

Velatusque pater, — etc.]]; but it was first introduced into painting by the judicious hand of Timanthes; who well understood how to make the best use of every circumstance of a well-told story in a good poet, and to rival it in painting. Pliny commends the ingenious fancy, and good effect in another picture of Timanthes, representing one of the Cyclops fast asleep, and young satyrs measuring his thumb with their thyrsus, and expressing in their looks their wonder at the vastness of it[[3:Sunt et alia ingenii ejus exemplaria : veluti Cyclops dormiens, in parvula tabella ; cujus et sic magnitudinem exprimere cupiens, pinxit juxta Satyros pollicem ejus metientes. Plin. ibid.]]. Giulio Romano, in imitation of that ancient piece, did a Polyphemus, which appears of a prodigious size by means of satyrs and little infants playing about him.

The sublime in writing, as we have already had occasion to observe in the character of Timanthes[[3:See Longinus, Sec. 7. et Plin. l. 35.]], who is said to have been a very sublime painter, consists, according to Longinus, in exciting noble conceptions, which by leaving more behind them to be contemplated than is expressed, lead the mind into an almost inexhaustible fund of great thinking.

[[2:Of decorum]] The perfection of oratory, poetry, painting, and of every art, is said by Cicero to consist in τό πρέπον, that is, decorum[[3:Cicero ad Brutum orat. N°21.]]. “It is this (saith he) that is most difficult to obtain in life, or in art: it is the supreme beauty in both: in poems and orations are owing. The good painters have exceedingly studid it. Timanthes shewed his just taste of it in his picture of Iphigenia, by veiling the father. This was not only a most happy way of expressing his extreme grief, by a tacit confession of the impossibility of painting it; but more a judicious, decent way, as it could not have been represented more bitter and vehement then that of the other persons in the picture, who were each so violently afflicted, without being disagreeable, or giving to much pain to the spectators ; which ought carefully to be avoided in painting as well as in poetry[[3:[2] Longinus de Sublim. s. 9 censures this fault. At vide quam dissimile sit illud ex Aspide Hesiodum de Justitia, si tamen hoc Hesiodi poemation est. Non enim tam horribilem nobis ejus imaginem objecti quam ingratam odiosamque.]].”

[[2:Timomachus a tragick painter]]. Timomachus[[3:Timomachus Byzantius, Cæsaris dictatoris Ajacem et Medeam pinxit, ab eo in Veneris genetricis æde positas octoginta talentis venumdatas. — Timomachi laudantur et Orestes, Iphigenia, etc. Plin. 35.]] seems to have been a tragic painter ; he delighted and excelled most in melancholy and horrible subjects ; and shewed that the tragic style may be attained to in painting as well as in poetry ; or that the former is no less capable of moving, and purging (as Aristotle calls it) our pity and horrour than the latter. And therefore his pictures are highly celebrated by the greek and latin poets. He painted Ajax become frantick upon his disappointment in not having the arms of Achilles adjudged to him by the Greeks : likewise Medea, who in killing her infants is not able to restrain her tears, tho’ transported to that barbarous cruelty by the most violent of all passions. Ovid alludes to both these :

Vtque sedet vultu falsus Telamonius, iram

Inque oculis facinus barbara mater habet[[3:See Heinsius’ notes upon the place. There are two Greek Epigrams upon the Medea, both translated into Latin by Ausonius :

Medeam vellet quum pingere Timomachi mens,

Volventem in natos crudum anima facinus ;

Immanem exhausit rerum in diversa laborem,

Fingeret affectum matris ut ambiguum :

Ira subest lachrymis ; miseratio non caret ira,

Alterutrum videas ut sit in alterutro

Cunctantem satis est. Nam digna est sanguine mater

Natorum, tua non dextera, Timomache.

Anthol. Ep. lib. 4. c. 9. Vertit Auson. Ep. 122.

Quis te pictorum simulavit, pessima Colchis,

In natos crudum volvere mente nefas ?

Vsque adeone sitis puerorum haurire cruorem

Vt ne picta quidem parcere cæde velis ?

Numnam te Pellex stimulat ? numne alter Iason,

Altera vel Glauce, sunt tibi causa necis ?

Quod** ne picta quidem sis barbara ; namque tui vim

Cera tenax zeli concipit immodicam.

Laudo Timomachum, matrem quod pinxit in ensem

Cunctantem prolis sanguine ne maculet.

Ausonius, Ep. 202.

There are several other Greek Epigrams in the Anthol. upon this Medea. This subject, finely done in marble, is described by Callistratus. Calistrati εκφρασεις in signum Medeæ 13.]]. Tristium l. 2

He painted Orestes; Iphigenia acknowledging her brother, and saving him out of the hands of the barbarians ; a Medusa’s head, and several other pieces. Philostratus speaking of his Ajax, very justly observes how well one must be acquainted with the human mind and passions in order to peint such subjects[[3:Quapropter dixerim ego, et eos, qui pictoriæ artis opera aspiciant, imitatrice opus habere facultate. Nemo enim laudaverit pictum equum, aut taurum, qui animal illud mente non intueatur, cujus similitudinem refert : neque vero Timomachi Ajacem quisquam miretur, qui furens ab illo pictus extat, nisi aliquam mente Ajacis speciem complexus fuerit, utque eum verosimile sit, interemptis ad Trojam armentis concidisse fessum, idque animo agitantem ut seipsum quoque interimat. Philostrat. De vit. Apoll. Lib. 2. C. 23.]]. « As one (says he) must know a horse exactly, in order to represent it to the life ; so must be one intimately skilled in the heart of man, in order to paint its motions, affections, sentiments and passions, and to be able to touch and work them. » I cannot however choose but observe on this occasion, how reasonably Plutarch censures those who delight in painting base, barbarous, or cruel and horrible actions[[3:Quidam pingunt actiones turpes : ut Timomachus Medeam pueros necantem, Theon Orestem manus inferentem matri, Parrhasius Ulyssis simulatam insaniam, et Chærephanes libidinosos mulierum cum virginis congressus. Plutarch. de poet. audien.]]. It requires a great deal of delicacy and judgment to treat them rightly, or without being offensive ; and to deserve the character which Lucian gives of a picture of Pylades and Orestes killing Clytemnestra and Aeghisthus, due in a great measure to Timomachus’s Medea. He calls it a most decent, virtuous picture, because what was barbarous and inhumane in the action was not represented in it[[3:Lucian De domo. Here he describes a very gay pleasant picture. Post hæc autem Deus est formosus et adolescentulus venustus, amatorum quoddam ludicrum : Branchus puta in rupe sedens tenet leporem, et alludit cani. Hic autem assilienti ad ipsum in sublimi, similis est : Et Apollo adstans arridet. Delectatur videlicet utroque et puero ludente, et cane saltum meditante. He here describes likewise a picture of Medea, Æmulatione atque invidia flagrans, pueros aspiciens, et grave quiddam meditans, tenet quippe jam gladium : miseri autem illi adstant ridentes, nihil eorum quæ futura erant, scientes, et hunc aspicientes in manibus gladium. A little before the picture of Pylades, etc. is described. (γράμμα δικαιότατον). Honestum quiddam pictor excogitavit, qui quod impium in hac re fuit id ostendit solum, et quasi jam peractum prætercurrit ; sed adolescentes, in cæde adulteri, immmorantes exprimit.]]. The slaughter of the Innocents even by a Raphael will ever be a subject too horrible to be beheld without suffering. Horace’s rule is as necessary in painting as in poetry :

Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet.

But the greatest fault with which this painter[[5:Zeuxis.]] is charged, is his not having painted manners. Tho’ Pliny mentions a Penelope by Zeuxis, in which he[[3:Mores pinxisse videtur. Ibidem.]] seemed to have expressed her modest, soft character and manners; and some other pieces that do not deserve that censure: yet Aristotle and others have remarked that defect in this renowned colourist[[3:Plurimorum juniorum tragoediae sunt sine moribus, et multi prorsus poetae sunt tales : ita quoque inter pictores Zeuxis se habet ad Polygnotum. Polygnotus enim est bonus morum pictor, at Zeuxidis pictura nullos habet mores. Arist. Poet. c. 6.]].

Now the same fault is found with Titian, and with all the painters in general of the Venetian School, who so eminently excelled in colouring. And thus it hath been observed in ancient times as well as modern, that as the best colourists have failed in that other most essential part of painting; so, on the other hand, those who excelled in correct design and just expression, were defective in colouring: so limited is human perfection, or so extremely difficult it is to excel in many things, as an excellent ancient author observes on this subject[[3:Diodorus Siculus, lib. 26, makes this observation, Fieri nequit ut Natura mortalis, etiamsi scopum sibi propositum assequatur, comprehensionem omnium sine ulla reprehensione obtineat. Neque enim Phidias, in magna habitus admiratione ob simulacrorum eburneorum fabricationem ; neque Praxiteles qui lapideis operibus eximie admiscuit affectiones animi ; neque Apelles aut Parrhasius, artem pictoriam experienter temperatis coloribus ad summum fastigium provehentes, tantam in suis operibus experti sunt felicitatem, ut peritiae suae effectum prorsus irreprehensibilem exhiberent. Cum enim homines essent, ac primas obtinerent in iis quae sibi agenda susceperant, nihilominus tamen propter imbecillitatem humanam in multis a proposito sibi scopo aberrarunt.]].

[[2:Of the Dispute about colouring, design, and expression, to which the preference is due.]]

It is however entirely a modern dispute wich of these parts is the most excellent. From what is said of Zeuxis, on account of his not having studied expression enough, by that excellent critick of all the polite arts, the Stagyrite (at the same time that his sweet, harmonious, enchanting colouring is so exceedingly praised) and from a conversation of Socrates with the best artists of his time (in which he shews that the representation of manners is the principal beauty of the imitative arts) we may learn that the best judges in ancient times were not at a stand what to think when the soul was not expressed by a picture, however fine the flesh and blood might be. The could not but admire the art which was able to go so far as to give the most plausible appearance of real life, a very fine carnation (as the painters call it) to a figure; but at the same time they regretted that the same admirable skill and dexterity had not the other talent, of exhibiting manners and the qualities of the mind, joined with it; in order to make the art not merely wonderful and pleasing to the sight, but instructive too in morals, by which means it might have become as useful as it was agreeable. And what indeed are fine proportion and regular features in real life, if a soul is wanting; or if there is neither sense nor meaning in the countenance and gait, no spirit, no vivacity, nothing that bespeaks intelligence, nor any one quality of the mind; or, in a word, if no manners are expressed? Does not an idiot-look destroy the effect of all the outward charms of shape, colour, and stature; and rob the fair-one of all her power to touch our hearts, though formed in all the exactness of features, and with all the beauty of the finest complexion? We may judge what it is that strikes and enchants, by the praises that are extorted so soon as we are touched. For if it is not some particular outward expression in the turn of features, or in the air and mien, of something that dwells within; if it be not this which charms, why is it that we naturally and immediately cry out, what a spreightly look! What a graceful mien! What a majestick air! What a soft gentle look! How much goodness and sweetness! What affability, what humanity, what freedom of mind, or what sagacity and judgment! And must it not then be the same in an art which imitates life? Can there be beauty in the finest unmeaning portrait, since there is nonce in such a real face? Or is it possible that the famous Helen of Zeuxis[[3:Zeuxis pictor in magna erat admiratione apud Crotoniatas. Huic Helenam pingenti, miserunt pulcherrimas quas penes se habebant Virgines, ut eas inspiceret nudas : ex multis itaque partibus, pulcherrimum quodque in animo comprehendens ars, construxit opus perfectae pulchritudinis Ideam repraesentans. Dion Halic. So Cicero de Inventione. Valerius Maximus tells us, Cum pinxisset Helenam, quid de eo opere homines censuri essent, expectandum non putavit, sed protinus hoc versus adjectit ex Iliad 3. vers. 156.]] could have been esteemed the most perfect model of female beauty, if it expressed none of the feminine affections and graces, but had an insipid, senseless countenance and air? How very unvaluable must a picture of Penelope have been, if it did not represent her as Homer has done, in comparison of one that did?

Swift from above descends the royal fair;

Her beauteous cheeks the blush of Venus wear

Chasten’d with coy Dianas’s pensive air. Odys. B. 17.

Some criticks, being aware of this, have endeavoured to reconcile what Aristole says of Zeuxis, with the praises given to him by others: Pliny in particular, by means of that division of affections very generally received amongst philosophers, into soft and rough, smooth and boisterous[[3:See this division explained at large, Quint. Inst. l. 10. c. 2.]]. And it has indeed been remarked at all times, that some painters have excelled in representing the one kind, and some in expressing the other. But this distinction between passions, tho’ Pliny himself uses it afterwards in his character of Aristides, is not sufficient to reconcile what he says of Zeuxis, with the accounts of their perfections or imperfections. For, according to Pliny, he had not only painted the manners of Penelope, that is to say, the soft, tender, modest virtues that make her character in the Odyssey; but likewise other subjects in which he had expressed the violent passions; as for example, Hercules yet an infant strangling the serpents before his trembling mother. But Aristotle expressly says, on the other hand, that there are no manners in his pictures.

[[2:Zeuxis and Titian excell’d in colouring, but not in expressing manners]] When therefore all the accounts that are given us of Zeuxis are compared together, what is said by Aristotle, with respect to the want of manners in his pictures, must be understood in the same way as the like charge against Titian or the Venetian School in general, that is, in a comparative sense, or in respect of other masters who chiefly studied expression, and eminently excelled in it; as the best masters of the Roman and Florentine School among the moderns: and, amongst the Ancient, Apelles, Aristides, Timanthes, and others. It seems manifest that Zeuxis, like Titian, far excelled all in colouring, but was like him also inferior to many in expression.

But whatever may be determined with regard to this censure of Zeuxis, it was, in the opinion of the Ancients, but the lowest attainment of a painter, to be able to give the truest appearance of flesh and blood, or a fine natural colouring to bodies, however rare and difficult a talent that may be: correctness of design, and truth of expression, are, according to them, the chief excellencies; for the sake of which, defects in colouring will be easily forgiven and over-looked by the most understanding; that is, by those who seek from pictures not merely gratification or pleasure to the sense, but employment and entertainment to their understanding, and agreeable wholesome exercise to their affections: in order to gain which ends of painting, pictures must be animated by minds; the must have souls; characters and manners must be painted.

We are told by the best philosophers what ought to be the scope and study of those who would arrive at perfection in the designing arts; and what really was the aim and pursuit of the Ancients whose works were so perfect. For thus Socrates accosts Parrhasius in the Conference between them recorded by Xenophon: When you painters would represent some perfect form, do you not collect from many objects those beauties, which, when skilfully combined together, make a most beautiful whole[[3:The passage has been often referred to, and is given at full length at the begining of the four chapter.]]? Maximus Tyrius speaking of the ancient sculptors and statuaries, says[[3:Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. 7. So Plato, pictorum facultas nullum in pingendo terminum habere videtur, sed semper inumbrando, et deumbrando, vel quomodocunque aliter a pictoribus id vocetur, nec cessat unquam ; non enim potest fieri ut ad pulchriora expressioraque incrementum non habeatur. Platon de Leg. lib. 6.]], “They chose with admirable discernement and taste, the most beautiful parts out of many bodies, and of these scattered excellencies made one perfect piece: but this mixture and combination is done with so much judgment and propriety, that they seem to have taken but one model of consummate beauty for their imitation. For Art ought thus to aim at somewhat more perfect than Nature, which yet shall appear natural; and therefore let us not imagine that we can ever find one natural beauty that can dispute with the statues of the great masters.” In fine, how the ancient painters attained to that exquisite Idea of Beauty, Simplicity and Greatness, in which the excellence of their works consisted, is finely represented to us by Cicero, in order to shew how a notion of perfect eloquence must be in like manner formed, by setting to view a Zeuxis chusing from many beautiful women, the several graces and charms, that being put together with judgment and taste, composed his famous Helen, that most compleat form and standard of female beauty. What Cicero makes this famous painter say is very remarkable: “Set before me some of your most beautiful virgins, whilst I paint the picture I have promised you, that truth may be transferred from the living original into my mute copy[[3:Cic. Rhet. lib. 2. ab initio. “Praebete igitur mihi, quaeso, ex istis virginibus formosissimis, dum pingo id, quod pollicitus sum vobis, ut mutum in simulacrum ex animali exemplo veritas transferatur.” He adds the reason why a painter ougt not to take his Idea of Beauty from one particular part, but from many objects of nature. “Ille autem quinque delegit; quarum nomina multi poetae memoriae tradiderunt, quod eius essent iudicio probatae, qui pulchritudinis habere verissimum iudicium debuisset. Neque enim putavit omnia, quae quaereret ad venustatem, uno se in corpore reperire posse, ideo quod nihil, simplici in genere, omni ex parte perfectum, natura expolivit. Itaque tamquam ceteris non sit habitura quod largiatur, si uni cuncta concesserit, aliud alii commodi aliquo adiuncto incommodo muneratur.” And then he goes on to shew that the same must be done in oratory: Quod quoniam nobis quoque voluntatis accidit ut artem dicendi perscriberemus, non unum aliquod proposuimus exemplum — ac si par in nobis hujus artis, atque in illo picturae, scientia fuisset, fortasse magis hoc suo in genere opus nostrum, qua mille in sua pictura nobilis eniteret, etc.]].”

The modern masters who brought painting to so great perfection, had the same notion of the art, and of the method of study that is requisite to produce works of good taste, and uncommon beauty. This evidently appears from the accounts that are given us of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, Guido, Rubens, Poussin, and many others; and from the writings of Leonardo da Vinci, and other authors upon this art.