[7] By the authority chiefly of Pamphilus the master of Apelles, who taught at Sicyon. ‘Hujus auctoritate,’ says Pliny, xxxv. 10. ‘effectum est Sicyone primum, deinde et in tota Græcia, ut pueri ingenui ante omnia diagraphicen, hoc est, picturam in buxo, docerentur,’ &c. Harduin, contrary to the common editions, reads indeed, and by the authority, he says, of all the MSS. graphicen, which he translates: ars ‘delineandi,’ desseigner, but he has not proved that graphice means not more than design; and if he had, what was it that Pamphilus taught? he was not the inventor of what he had been taught himself. He established or rather renewed a particular method of drawing, which contained the rudiments, and facilitated the method of painting.
[8] Pausan. Phocica, c. xxv. seq.
[9] This I take to be the sense of Μεγεθος here, which distinguished him, according to Ælian, Var. Hist. iv. 3. from Dionysius of Colophon. The word Τελειοις in the same passage: και ἐν τοις τελειοις ἐιργαζετο τα ἀθλα, I translate: he aimed at, he sought his praise in the representation of essential proportion; which leads to ideal beauty.
The κρειττους, χειρους, ὁμοιους; or the βελτιονας ἦ καθ’ ἡμας, ἦκαι τοιουτους, ἠ χειρονας, of Aristotle, Poetic. c. 2. by which he distinguishes Polygnotus, Dionysius, Pauson, confirms the sense given to the passage of Ælian.
[10] παρειῶν το ἐνερευθες, ὁιαν την Κασσανδραν ἐν τη λεσχη ἐποιησε τοις Δελφοις. Lucian: ειχονες. This, and what Pausanias tells of the colour of Eurynomus in the same picture, together with the coloured draperies mentioned by Pliny; makes it evident, that the ‘simplex color’ ascribed by Quintilian to Polygnotus and Aglaophon, implies less a single colour, as some have supposed, than that simplicity always attendant on the infancy of painting, which leaves every colour unmixed and crudely by itself. Indeed the Poecile (ἡ ποικιλη στοα) which obtained its name from his pictures, is alone a sufficient proof of variety of colours.
[11] Hic primus species exprimere instituit, Pliny, xxxv. 96. as species in the sense Harduin takes it, ‘oris et habitus venustas,’ cannot be refused to Polygnotus, and the artists immediately preceding Apollodorus, it must mean here the subdivisions of generic form; the classes.
At this period we may with probability fix the invention of local colour, and tone; which, though strictly speaking it be neither the light nor the shade, is regulated by the medium which tinges both. This, Pliny calls ‘splendour.’ To Apollodorus Plutarch ascribes likewise the invention of tints, the mixtures of colour and the gradations of shade, if I conceive the passage rightly: Ἀπολλοδωρος ὁ Ζωγραφος Ἀνθρωπων πρωτος ἐξευρων φθοραν και ἀποχρωσιν Σκιας, (Plutarch, Bellone an pace Ath, &c. 346.) This was the element of the ancient Αρμογη, that imperceptible transition, which, without opacity, confusion or hardness, united local colour, demi-tint, shade and reflexes.
[12] ‘Pinxit et monochromata ex albo.’ Pliny, xxxv. 9. This Aristotle, Poet. c. 6. calls λευκογραφειν.
[13] In lineis extremis palmam adeptus——minor tamen videtur, sibi comparatus, in mediis corporibus exprimendis. Pliny, xxxv. 10. Here we find the inferiority of the middle parts merely relative to himself. Compared with himself, Parrhasius was not all equal.
[14] Theseus, in quo dixit, eundem apud Parrhasium rosa pastum esse, suum vero carne. Plin. xxxv. 11.