There are still some other artists, who, though by no means without reputation, can only be noticed here in a summary manner: Aristocydes; Anaxander; Aristobulus of Syria; Arcesilas,[2177] son of Tisicrates; Corœbos, a pupil of Nicomachus; Charmantides, a pupil of Euphranor; Dionysodorus of Colophon; Dicæogenes, a contemporary of King Demetrius;[2178] Euthymides; Heraclides[2179] of Macedon; Milo of Soli, a pupil of the statuary Pyromachus; Mnasitheus of Sicyon; Mnasitimus, the son and pupil of Aristonidas;[2180] Nessus, son of Habron;[2181] Polemon of Alexandria; Theodorus of Samos, and Stadieus, pupils of Nicosthenes; and Xeno of Sicyon, a pupil of Neocles.
There have been some female painters also. Timarete, the daughter of Micon,[2182] painted a Diana at Ephesus, one of the very oldest panel-paintings known. Irene, daughter and pupil of the artist Cratinus,[2183] painted a figure of a girl, now at Eleusis, a Calypso, an Aged Man, the juggler Theodorus, and Alcisthenes the dancer. Aristarete, daughter and pupil of Nearchus, painted an Æsculapius. Iaia of Cyzicus, who always remained single, painted at Rome, in the youth of M. Varro, both with the brush, and with the graver,[2184] upon ivory, her subjects being female portraits mostly. At Naples, there is a large picture by her, the portrait of an Old Woman; as also a portrait of herself, taken by the aid of a mirror. There was no painter superior to her for expedition; while at the same time her artistic skill was such, that her works sold at much higher prices than those of the most celebrated portrait-painters of her day, Sopolis namely, and Dionysius,[2185] with whose pictures our galleries are filled. One Olympias painted also, but nothing is known relative to her, except that she had Autobulus for a pupil.
CHAP. 41.—ENCAUSTIC PAINTING.
In ancient times there were but two methods of encaustic[2186] painting, in wax and on ivory,[2187] with the cestrum or pointed graver. When, however, this art came to be applied to the painting of ships of war, a third method was adopted, that of melting the wax colours and laying them on with a brush, while hot.[2188] Painting of this nature,[2189] applied to vessels, will never spoil from the action of the sun, winds, or salt water.
CHAP. 42.—THE COLOURING OF TISSUES.
In Egypt, too, they employ a very remarkable process for the colouring of tissues. After pressing the material, which is white at first, they saturate it, not with colours, but with mordents that are calculated to absorb colour. This done, the tissues, still unchanged in appearance, are plunged into a cauldron of boiling dye, and are removed the next moment fully coloured. It is a singular fact, too, that although the dye in the pan is of one uniform colour, the material when taken out of it is of various colours, according to the nature of the mordents that have been respectively applied to it: these colours, too, will never wash out. Thus the dye-pan, which under ordinary circumstances, no doubt, would have made but one colour of several, if coloured tissues had been put into it, is here made to yield several colours from a single dye. At the same moment that it dyes the tissues, it boils in the colour; and it is the fact, that material which has been thus submitted to the action of fire becomes stouter and more serviceable for wear, than it would have been if it had not been subjected to the process.
CHAP. 43. (12.)—THE INVENTORS OF THE ART OF MODELLING.
On painting we have now said enough, and more than enough; but it will be only proper to append some accounts of the plastic art. Butades, a potter of Sicyon, was the first who invented, at Corinth, the art of modelling portraits in the earth which he used in his trade. It was through his daughter that he made the discovery; who, being deeply in love with a young man about to depart on a long journey, traced the profile of his face, as thrown upon the wall by the light of the lamp. Upon seeing this, her father filled in the outline, by compressing clay upon the surface, and so made a face in relief, which he then hardened by fire along with other articles of pottery. This model, it is said, was preserved in the Nymphæum[2190] at Corinth, until the destruction of that city by Mummius.[2191] Others, again, assert that the first inventors of the plastic art were Rhœcus[2192] and Theodorus,[2193] at Samos, a considerable period before the expulsion of the Bacchiadæ from Corinth: and that Damaratus,[2194] on taking to flight from that place and settling in Etruria, where he became father of Tarquinius, who was ultimately king of the Roman people, was accompanied thither by the modellers Euchir,[2195] Diopus, and Eugrammus, by whose agency the art was first introduced into Italy.
Butades first invented the method of colouring plastic compositions, by adding red earth to the material, or else modelling them in red chalk: he, too, was the first to make masks on the outer edges of gutter-tiles upon the roofs of buildings; in low relief, and known as “prostypa” at first, but afterwards in high relief, or “ectypa.” It was in these designs,[2196] too, that the ornaments on the pediments of temples originated; and from this invention modellers first had their name of “plastæ.”