In discussing Greek painting we shall rely entirely upon the erudite historical work of Messrs. Woltmann and Woer-mann,giving a short resume of their remarks on the subject.

No Greek Paintings Extant

This is absolutely necessary, as not one specimen of Greek painting has come down to us.2 But ou the other hand, in dealing with Greek and Graeco-Roman sculpture we shall base our remarks on the Greek and Graeco-Roman sculpture in the British Museum.

History Of Greek Painting

Beginning then with Greek painting, let us see what the historians tell us. They begin by saying, in painting "the Greeks effected nothing short of a revolution. ... by right of which they deserve the glory of having first made painting a truthful mirror of realities." This fact, that their pictorial art reached such perfection, is not generally known, for the reason that the assertion rests on written testimony, - but it is reliable testimony. The historians "insist on the fact that no single work of any one of the famous painters recognized in the history of Greek art has survived to our time."

Polygno-Tos

Let us then briefly trace the rise of Greek painting till it culminated in Apelles. Polygnotos (b.c. 475-55) is the first name we hear of, and of his works we are told, "they were just as far from being really complete pictorial representations as the wall-pictures of the Assyrians and Egyptians themselves," although in some particulars there must have been a distinct advancement on the work of the orientals. For example, we are told Polygnotos painted the "fishes of Acheron shadowy grey, and the pebbles of the river-bed so that they could be seen through the water."

Agathar-Chos

Polygnotos fell, however, into a pitfall which has entrapped many painters since, he painted imaginative pictures. We are told he "was a painter of heroes," some of his school attempted portraiture, "but painting though in this age was still a mere system of tinted outline design." Then followed Agatharchos, "the leader of a real revolution, a revolution by which art was enabled to achieve great and decisive progress towards a system of representation corresponding with the laws of optics and the full truth of nature." Agatharchos was a scene-painter, and was no doubt led by striving for naturalism in his scenery to study naturalism in painting generally. As the historians remark, "In scene-painting as thus practised, we find the origins not only of all representations of determinate backgrounds, but also, and more especially, of landscape painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the invention of scene-painting as the most decisive turning-point in the entire history of the art, and Agatharchos is named as the master who, at the inspiration of AEschylus, first devoted himself to practising the invention." This painter, it is said, also paid great attention to perspective, and left a treatise which was afterwards used in drawing up the laws of perspective.

2 Some paintings quite recently discovered in Egypt are apparently the work of Greek artists, and tend to confirm this written testimony.

Scene-painting.

Perspective.

Apollo-doros.

Easel-pictures.

Chiaro-oscuro.

It is said his manner of treatment was "comparatively broad and picturesque,' Next came .Apollodoros, a figure-painter, who also combined landscape and figure subjects, and of whom Pliny says " that he was the first to give the appearance of reality to his pictures, the first to bring the brush into just repute, and even that before him no easel-picture (tabula) had existed by any master fit to charm the eye of the spectator.'" Apollodoros was the first to give his pictures a natural and definite background in true perspective; he was the first, it is emphatically stated, "who rightly managed chiaro-oscuro and the fusion of colours.....He will have also been the first to soften off the outlines of his figures. . . .

Brunn.

Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes.

For this reason we may, with Brunn, in a certain sense call Apollodoros "the first true painter." We are told, however, that his "painting was, in comparison with his successors, hard and imperfect," and that the innovations made by him in the relation of foreground and background cannot be compared to the improvements effected by the brothers Van Eyck in modern times. We now read of Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes, who, we are told, "perfected a system of pictorial representation, adequately rendering on the flat surface the relief and variety of nature, in other particulars if not in colour." The endeavour of Zeuxis was "by the brilliant use of the brush to rival nature herself," and from anecdotes related of him and of Parrhasios, we gather that they "laid the greatest stress on carrying out to the point of actual illusion the deceptive likeness to nature." Many of Zeuxis' subjects were taken from everyday life - 'another step in the right direction. We now come to the Dorian school, with Eupompos as its founder; and here we find a determination to study painting scientifically, and to conscientiously observe nature, for we are told Eupompos expressed the opinion "that the artist who wished to succeed must go first of all to nature as his teacher."

Eupom-pos.

Pamphi-los.

Melan-thios.

Pausias.

Pamphilos, a pupil of Eupompos, brought this school to maturity, and insisted on the "necessity of scientific study for the painter." He was followed by Melanthios, who pursued the same lines of scientific investigation; and was in his turn succeeded by Pausias, of whom we hear, " It is quoted as a novel and striking effect, that in one of his pictures the face of Methe (or personified Intoxication) was visible through the transparent substance of the glass out of which she drank." His work was considered to have great technical excellence, his subjects were taken from everyday life, and his pictures were all on a small scale. Pliny says "his favourite themes were 'boys,' that is, no doubt, scenes of child-life.....He developed, it seems, a more natural method of representing the modelling of objects by the gradations of a single colour." We read, too, that his paintings drawn fresh from life " were much appreciated by the Romans." Such is the case with all good naturalistic works, they always interest posterity, whereas the so-called imaginative works only interest the age for which they are painted. We should to-day prefer and treasure as beyond price one of Pausias' studies of familiar Greek life, whereas the heroes of Polygnotos would lack interest for us, and excite but little enthusiasm.