Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/386

Rh Painted 364 ing tlie wet out of her hair, with swelling bosom and an expression of desire in her eyes. A second figure of the goddess, also intended for Cos, remained unfinished at his death. Of personifications and allegorical figures or groups, such as delighted the age in which he lived, we have examples of the former in his group of Bronte, Astrape, and Ceraunobolia; and of the latter in his famous picture of Calumny. Partly of this character also were his two pictures of Alexander grouped with Castor, Pollux, and Victory; and Alexander in a triumphal car, beside a personification of war, in the form of a captive with hands bound behind back and seated on armour. The execution of subjects of this nature, for which thought and reflection are mainly required as opposed to the poetic and spontane ously creative faculty of a true artist, has been urged as detracting from the greatness of Apelles, and to this extent, no doubt, he was subject to the weakness of his times. Like Correggio, with whom, he has been compared, he lived at a time when the great creative spirit had passed away, and it remained for him, as for the Italian master, to dis cover the last resources of his art for the attainment of powerful effect and absolute finish simultaneously. To refine the harmony of his light and tones, as well as to protect his paintings from dirt, he employed a peculiar black glaze which broke the sharp contrasts of colours (Pliny, JV. //., xxxv. 97) required for such powerful effects as the appearance of Zeus hurling lightning. With regard to his colours little is known. The statement that he used only four (Pliny, A r . //., xxxv. 50, 92) may or may not be correct (Cicero, Brut., 18). Of his mere skill we have an example in the figure of Hercules, after wards in Rome, of which it was said that the face, though turned away from the spectator, was suggested almost as vividly as if it had been actually painted (Wustmann, Apelles Leben und Werke, 1870). In technical skill Apelles confessed himself equalled by his contemporary Protogenes the Rhodian, claiming, however, as his own special superiority, that he knew when to stop. The fault of Protogenes was over-elaboration. On one painting he is said to have worked seven or eleven years, finishing it with four separate glazes to protect it from injury. Of the painters of this period there are still to be mentioned Antiphilus, a native of Egypt, and a pupil of Ctesidemus ; Theon of Samus, who was praised for his happy choice of the right moment at which to seize an action ; and Action. Though the works of the masters of this period have wholly perished, there remain two sources from which some idea may be gathered of their manner, first, a number of Pompeian paintings, which, though executed in a later age, and often intentionally varied from the originals, are still copies of the spirit and manner of the works of this time ; and secondly, a large series of painted vases, which, though the production of inferior workmen, display a wonderful facility of execution, a splendour of glaze, and an application of colours which show that the example of the great painters had not been neglected. The figures stand out in red from the black ground of the vase ; for the accessories, red, yellow, violet, black, blue, green, and gilding are employed. It is not, however, alone from their possession of certain traits which are assumed to have characterised the style of painting in this period that these vases are assigned to it. There exists a small but increas ing series of painted vases which had been gained at the Panathenaic games at Athens, on several of which is in scribed the name of the archon for the year in which they were obtained. We have thus the exact years in which these vases were made, and at the same time specimens of the art of the time, from which a comparison is easily made with the larger series of undated vases (see Catalogue of the Vases of the British Museum). [CLASSICAL FOUKTU With the close of the Periclean period in Athens the Aichitec- public desire for more temples seems to have ceased; so ture. that the architecture of the period now before us is to be traced rather in works of utility, whether public or private. Of the former class are (1), the stadium at Agrae for the athletic competitions at the Panathenaic festival ; (2), the gymnasium ; (3), the store-house at the Piraeus, built to contain the equipments of 1000 ships. From private sources were (4), the temple of the Muses, said to have been erected by Plato, in the Academy; and (5), the choragic monument of Lysicrates, which is the only existing example of Athenian architecture of this time (Stuart, Antiquities of Athens, i. pis. 23-30). A greater architectural activity prevailed in the Peloponnesus. At Tegea was erected, under the direction of Scopas, a temple which scarcely yielded in splendour to that of Zeus at Olympia. The laying out and building of new towns which followed upon the recovery of freedom by Thebes under Epaminondas, gave abundant scope for architects. A remarkable example of this was Megalopolis in Arcadia, which was built in an elliptical form, on the principle laid down by Hippodamus of Miletus, and carried out in the Pirreus, Thurium, and Pihodes. A more magnificent ex ample of a new town erected in this period was Alexandria, founded by Alexander to be the first city of the world of which he was master, and built in that spirit by hid favourite architect Dinocrates. The model of Alexandria was adopted by the successors of Alexander for the many new towns raised by them, as, for example, Antioch on the Orontes, the architect of which was Xenajus. The templo.s of Asia Minor erected in the time of Alexander may be judged from the ruins of those of Athene Polias at Priene, of Artemis at Magnesia on the Mceander, and of Artemis at Ephesus, of which last the site has lately been excavated, with the result of confirming the few existing statements regarding its dimensions and style. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the Nereid monument of Xanthus, are instances of temple architecture modified for the purposes of a tomb. Fifth Period. The conquests of Alexander had opened to the Greek gaze the East, gorgeous in its personal attire and equip ments, and unlimited in its resources for the encourage ment of personal vanity. Alexander appeared in Asiatic costume, and what became the monarch was shortly found becoming to the subject. Under his successors, in what is called the Macedonian, or, better, the Hellenistic period, the opulence and taste for luxury of the times led artists to aim at producing works conspicuous f or picturesqueness; not, however, that picturesqueness which is born of a fine fancy, but that which originates in a studied effort to throw a gleam of romance over a plain historical incident. The creation of ideal types of deities ceased, and the production of allegorical figures, which had found acceptance in the preceding age, took its place. These figures were simply studies of character, and implied a faculty of observation which the existing portraits of this period on coins and in marble warrant us in estimating highly. To this, no doubt, was added a power of generalisation which enabled the artist to deduce a type from a number of individuals, as, for example, in the type of Gauls introduced by the school of Pergamus. In figures of deities or heroes the old types were retained. It was in portraiture that the essential characteristic of the time consisted. With art in this con dition Grsecia Capta enthralled her Roman captors, and the further development of this phase of art was transferred to Rome. For this reason we shall here follow the unusual plan of classing the Hellenistic and Roman art under one period The two principal schools of sculpture of the last period