Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were painted after Nature with representations of different species of animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul, but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth, painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable that these were copied from the Greeks.
Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however, the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground; then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins, and gave natural folds to drapery.
A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463 B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously. He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing, and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks, and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles, with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any other modern artist.
The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls, which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture. The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing. Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors, about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus, without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility. Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared. He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro. Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus obtained what the moderns call tone. He was the first who conferred due honor on the pencil,--primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit.
This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school, but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects. He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen, painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation, the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious, and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and the classic expression of Polygnotus.