Painter of Nature. Remi Belleau, one of the Pleiad poets, is so called (1528-1577).
The Shepheardes Calendar, by Spenser, is largely borrowed from Belleau’s Song of April.
Painter of the Graces. Andrea Appiani (1754-1817).
A Bee. Quentin Matsys, the Dutch painter, painted a bee so well that the artist Mandyn thought it a real bee, and proceeded to brush it away with his handkerchief (1450-1529).
A Cow. Myro carved a cow so true to nature that bulls mistook it for a living animal (B.C. 431).
A Curtain. Parrhasios painted a curtain so admirably that even Zeuxis, the artist, mistook it for real drapery (B.C. 400).
A Fly. George Alexander Stevens says, in his Lectures on Heads:
I have heard of a connoisseur who was one day in an auction-room where there was an inimitable piece of painting of fruits and flowers. The connoisseur would not give his opinion of the picture till he had first examined the catalogue; and, finding it was done by an Englishman, he pulled out his eye-glass. “Oh, sir,” says he, “those English fellows have no more idea of genius than a Dutch skipper has of dancing a cotillion. The dog has spoiled a fine piece of canvas; he is worse than a Harp Alley signpost dauber. There’s no keeping, no perspective, no foreground. Why, there now, the fellow has actually attempted to paint a fly upon that rosebud. Why, it is no more like a fly than I am like—;” but, as he approached his finger to the picture, the fly flew away (1772)
Grapes. Zeuxis (2 syl.) a Grecian painter, painted some grapes so well that birds came and pecked at them, thinking them real grapes (B.C. 400).