Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/477

Rh colours, which we know to have prevailed in the dress of the Greek women. His draperies are described by Lucian as havrftg the appearance of thinness of substance, part adhering to the limbs so as to cover the figure without hiding it, and the greater part arranged in flowing masses as if moved by the wind. (Lucian. da Imatj. 7, vol. ii. p. 465.) Respecting the mitrae versicolores, see Bottiger, p. 265.

Concerning his principles of composition, we know but little ; but from that little it would seem that his pictiires had nothing of that elaborate and yet natural grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, which is so much admired in modern works of art. The figures seem to have been grouped in regular lines, as in tlie bas-reliefs upon a frieze ; and when it was desired to introduce other sets of figures nearer to, or more remote from the spectator, this was effected by placing them in other parallel lines below or above the first. A sort of principle of architectural symmetry governed the whole composition, the figures on each side of the centre of the picture being made to correspond with each other.

Such an advance as painting made in the age of Polj'gnotus could not have taken place without some new appliances in colouring ; and accordingly we are told by Pliny that Polygnotus and his con- temporary Micon were the first who used the sil or yellow ochre which was found in the Attic silver mines ; and that the same artists made a black {atramentuni) from the husks of pressed grapes, which was therefore called tryyinon, rpvyivou. (Plin. H.N. xxxiii. 12. s. 56,xxv. 6. s. 25.) Bottiger supposes that they used the yellow ochre to a great extent for draperies and head-dresses. Polygnotus is one of those artists whom Cicero mentions as having used no more than four colours. {Brut. 1 8 ; but respecting the error in this state- ment see Muller, Arch. d. Kunst^ § 319, and Diet, of Ant. art. Colores.)

The instrument with which Polygnotus usually worked was the pencil, as we learn from a passage in Pliny, which also furnishes another proof of the excellence of the artist. The great painter Pausias, 'who was a pupil of Pamphilus, the master of Apelles, restored certain paintings of Polygnotus at Tiiespiae, and was considered to have fallen far short of the excellence of the original paintings, because "non sua yenere certasset" that is, he used the pencil, as Polygnotus had done in the original pictures, instead of painting, as he was accustomed to do, in encaustic with the cestrum. (Plin. H. N.xxxv. U.S. 40.) Polygnotus, however, some- times painted in encaustic, and he is mentioned as one of the earliest artists who did so. (PUn. H.N. XXXV. 11. s. 39.)

As to the form of his pictures, it may be assumed that he generally followed what we know to have been the usual practice with the Greek artists, namely, to paint on panels, which were afterwaids let into the walls wiiere they were to remain. {Diet, of Ant. art. Fainting; Bottiger, Arch. d. M.) In Pliny's list of his works, one of them is expressly mentioned as a panel picture (tabula) ; but, on the other hand, the pictures at Thespiae, just referred to, are said to have been on walls (parietes). Indeed, the common opinion, that panel pictures were the form almost invariably Used by the early Greek artists, should be received with some cauliou. VOL,, III.

There is one passage of Pliny, from which it would appear that Polygnotus excelled in statuary as well as painting, though none of his works in that de- partment were preserved. (Plin. H.N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 25, adopting the reading of the Bamberg MS., Polyynotus, idem pictor e nobilissimis.) Per- haps this fact may contribute to the explanation of two obscure epigrams in the Greek Anthology. (Brunck, AncU. vol. ii. pp. 279, 440 ; see Jacobs's Notes; and comp. Polycleitus.) His chief contemporaries, besides the members of his own family, already mentioned, were Micon, Panaenus, the brother or nephew of Pheidias, Onatas of Aegina, Dionysius of Colophon, Tima- GORAS of Chalcis, and Agatharchus the scene- painter. No disciples of his are mentioned, al- though we may almost assume that he instructed his brother Aristophon and his nephew Aglaophon ; but we are told by Aelian ( V. H. iv. 3), that Dio- nysius closely imitated his style. (But see Aris- tot. l.c. and Plut. Ti7nol. 2.) T/ie Works of Folyy?wtus, as mentioned by Pliny (H. N. XXXV. 9. s. 35), include paintings in the temple at Delphi, in the portico called Foecile at Athens, those at Thespiae already mentioned, and a panel picture, which was placed in the portico in front of-Pompey's Curia, at Rome. Pliny and Harpocration both state that he executed his works at Athens gratuitously ; and the former says that, on this account, he was more highly esteemed than Myron, who painted for pay ; the latter, that it was for this service that he obtained the citizenship of Athens. We may infer that he displayed the same liberality at Delphi, especially as Pliny tells us that the Amphictyons decreed him "hospitia gratuita" that is, the Trpo^^via, in all the states of Greece. (Bottiger, pp. 271,272.) To the above works must be added, on other authorities, his paintings in the temple of Theseus, in the Ana- ceium, and the chamber of the Propylaea, at Athens, and those in the temple of Athena Areia at Pla- taeae. The detailed description of these works, and the full discussion of the questions which arise respecting their composition, would far exceed our limits. We have, therefore, preterred to occupy the space with the more important subjects of the time and artistic character of Polygnotus ; and we shall now describe his works briefly, referring to the authorities in which full deuiils will be found. We follow a chronological arrangement, so far as it can be made out with any probability. I. Faintinys in tJbe Temple of Tlieseus at Athens. — It is true that the only authority for supposing him to have painted here <it all is a conjectural emendation of a passage of Harpocration ; but the conjecture is so simple, and agrees so well with what we know of the artist's history, and the only interpretation of the text as it stands is so forced, that we can hardly hesitate to admit the correction. Harpocration, followed by Suidas and Photius, says (s. V. ) that Polygnotus obtained the citizen- ship of Athens, either because he painted the Stoa Foecile gratuitously, or, as others say, the pictures eV T(f &r]aavpf icat r^ 'AvaKeicp. Now, we know that the Anaceium was the temple of the Dioscuri, but what was the Thesaurus 'i Bottiger (p. 270) replies, the public treasury in the Opisthodomus of the temple of Athena Polias. The objection, that it is strange that Polygnotus should have been employed to decorate the secret chamber of tne temple, Bottiger endeavours to obviate by i£ 21