The 10 Most Influential Ancient Greek Painters

 

 

 

‘Future ages will wonder at us as the present age wonders at us now’

Pericles of Athens

 

Greece: sunny skies, golden beaches and sparkling seas but scratch the surface and what do you find?

You find art, lots of it, everywhere you look and often in the most unexpected of places!

Greeks are aesthetic people, how can they not be? They invented the word, which derives from aisthanomai, meaning ‘I perceive, I feel, I sense’ and all this begins with ‘the pleasures of the imagination’.

Art has been a form of expression for thousands of years, older even than language; Greeks express their feelings through poetry, literature and of course, art; in the guise of pottery, painting, architecture, sculpture and jewelry and Greek art stands out, maybe more than art from any other ancient culture.

 They created sculptures of humans with so much beauty that they could not possibly appear so flawless in real life, they were pioneers of architecture and their innovative painting techniques are still influencing artists today.

 

‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance’

Aristotle

 

Ancient Greek art scans four specific periods which produced some of the most influential painters of ancient Greece; the Geometric, the Archaic, the Classical and the Hellenistic.

 

The Four ages of Ancient Greek Art

The Geometric Age

900 to 700 BC

 

 

 The most common form of art during the Geometric Age was to be found as decoration on ceramic vases, which although using simple geometric shapes, progressed from shapes only to include animals and humans.

 

The Archaic Age

 700 BC to 480 BC.

 

 

 During the Archaic period potters began to use the first coloured glazes.

First came black and secondly, red but this age is best known for the realistic representations of the human in the form of stone sculptures.

The Archaic age produced the limestone statues know as Kouros (male) and Kore (female), nude statues which always seem to have a smile on their faces.

 

The Classical Age

 480-323 BC.

 

 

Created during ‘the Golden Age’, the Classical Age is famous for sculpture and architecture; the time when human statues, with the help of the invention of metal chisels, which sliced through marble, became more life – like, more in proportion.

 

The Hellenistic Age

 323 BC to 30 BC

 

 Museums and libraries appear for the first time in the Hellenistic Age; such as those at Alexandria, in Egypt and Pergamon, an ancient Greek city in Mysia, the modern day city of Bergama,Turkey.

  Greek sculptors, who had mastered the art of carving marble to perfection, began to sculpt humans of such beauty who could not possibly appear so flawless in real life.

Greeks appreciated painting even more than sculpture and by the Hellenistic Age painting had become an important part of a gentleman’s education.

 The Hellenistic Age ended with the Roman invasion of Greece; nonetheless, the Romans went on to copy the style of Greek Hellenistic art.

 

 

‘Art completes what nature leaves unfinished’

 Aristotle

 

It was during the Classical age (510 BC to 320 BC) that the great ancient Greek painters emerged, many of them from the school of Sicyon.

 

Sicyonian school of painting

 

 

 The school of Sicyon was founded by the ancient Greek painter Eupompus who though an acclaimed painter, rather than for his art is remembered for advice he gave to Lysippus; one of the three greatest sculptors of the Classical Greek era, along with Scopas and Praxiteles, which was: ‘follow nature rather than any master’.

 

 

After Eupompus, Pamphilus, mentor to the distinguished painter, Apelles, became the head of The school of Sicyon.

 Sicyon, an ancient Greek city state in northern Peloponnesus near Corinth, an ancient kingdom during times of the Trojan War, is acclaimed for its legacy to ancient Greek art giving to Greece, more famous painters, poets and sculptors and playwrights than I can count.

 

 

The usual forms of art during the Classical and Hellenistic Ages were wall painting, frescos and panel painting (paintings on wooden boards, invented by the ancient Greeks in Sicyon), depicting scenes including figures, portraits and still-life.

 

 

The earliest surviving Greek panel paintings are the Pitsa panels, from c. 530 BC, consisting of four painted wooden tablets (two of them in very bad condition) which were found in a cave in Pitsa, near Sicyon, in the 1930s.

 

 

Sadly hardly any examples of work belonging to the ancient Greek painters of the fourth and fifth century BC have survived but one important Greek fresco was discovered, in perfect condition, at Magna Graecia, meaning ‘Great Greece’, a Greek settlement in Southern Italy, (present-day regions of Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily), at the Tomb of the Divers.

 

 ‘We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes’

 Thucydides

 

The Tomb of the Divers

 

 

The Tomb of the Divers is a grave which was built from local limestone slabs in around 470 BC, discovered by the Italian archaeologist Mario Napoli in 1968, during his excavations at the Greek city of Paestum in Magna Graecia, (Great Greece), southern Italy and is now displayed in the museum at Paestum.

 

 

In the tomb were found well-preserved frescos from c. 480 BC, depicting a Greek symposium, the only example of Greek paintings of scenes, incorporating  figures, dating from the Archaic, or Classical eras, to survive in perfect condition.

Greek wall-paintings were common in the Greek world but unfortunately few survived, of the many thousands of Greek tombs from this era, 700–400 BC, The Diver’s Tomb is the only one decorated with human figures.

 

 

Amongst art buffs, the consensus is, that most of the famous Roman wallpaintings at sites such as Pompeii, are copies of famous ancient Greek panel paintings.

 

 

Thanks to many Greek and roman writers, especially Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, who wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), we are familiar, not only with  the names of ancient Greek painters, mostly from the Classical and Hellenistic periods, but also with their works, who invented which technique and who were adversaries.

Below, I have compiled a list of the ten most well-known ancient Greek painters, along with a short description of their lives and accomplishments.

  Apelles of Kos, seemed to have ranked first, Pliny thought him to have ‘surpassed all the other painters who either preceded or succeeded him’.

 

Ten influential ancient Greek artists

 

‘Let each man exercise the art he knows’

Aristophanes

 

1. Cimon of Cleone

Uncertain – 8th or the 6th century BC

 

We’re going so far back with Cimon of Cleone (Cleonae or Kleonai-a city in ancient Peloponnesus, near Corinth); one of the earliest ancient Greek painters, that there’s some uncertainty about whether he lived in the 8^th or 6^th century BC.

 

 

Little is known of Cimon of Cleonae but he is known in the art world for his extraordinary and at the time, unique way of depicting human figures.

Cimon invented the technique of foreshortening (the compression of height and distance to give the powerful illusion of perspective) or ‘three-quarter views’ where, although the whole figure is represented, only a portion of it is seen by the viewer. (See an example of foreshortening in the image below)

 

 

This foreshortening technique was what gave Cimon of Cleone the title of:

‘The first painter of perspective’

 

 

Cleone was also thought to be the first painter to apply Catagrapha: figures not only looking straight ahead but which were also looking upwards, backwards, sideways and downwards.

 

 

With his obsession for intricate details and life-like accuracy plus the attention he gave to joints and wrinkles, how he emphasized veins and the folds, creases and draping of clothing, Cimon’s unique style of painting stood out amongst other artists of the day.

The best way to understand or gain insight into Cimon of Cleone’s innovative style of figure painting is to study human figures decorating early ancient Greek pottery.

 

 

2.  Agatharcus

5th century B.C.

 

Agatharchus, a painter from the fifth century BC, born on the Greek island of Samos was the first artist to integrate perspective on a large scale in his paintings.

With his ingenious idea of placing objects against the sun, in order to show their corresponding shadows, he created the art of ‘scene painting’ and brought perspective and illusion to the art world.

Optical illusion painting; have a look at this short video below;

Painter Patrick Hughes is adept in the art of perspective and illusion but Agatharcus did it first!

 

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBfNJ3-xYwg&feature=emb_logo

 

 

This breakthrough for the world of art earned Agatharchus praise from Vitruvius, a Roman author and architect of the first century BC.

Perspective and illusion: All is not what you see!

 

 

Agatharcus’s most famous work was the backdrop for Aeschylus’ (ancient Greek playwright), tragedy: ‘Seven against Thebes’.

Agatharcus even wrote a book about scene painting, which inspired both Anaxagoras and Democritus, Greek philosophers of the fifth century BC, to write on the subject of perspective.

 Plutarch (Greek philosopher), tells us, Agatharchus, known for the ease and speed with which he finished his paintings, was coaxed into the home of Alcibiades (a prominent Athenian statesman and general), who kept him more or less imprisoned there for around three months, until he painted his whole house.

 

3.  Apollodorus

5th Century BC

 

Apollodorus Skiagraphos was one of the most influential painters of Greece in the fifth century B.C

His works, although similar in content to his peers, stood out through his adept control of shadow, called skiagraphia; shadow painting, which influenced many future painters, especially the Italian renaissance artists who called it chiaroscuro and it’s still important to artists today and is absolutely essential to all great works of art.

 

 

Skiagraphia is a technique of shading making it easier to achieve a shadow on canvas by highlighting sections to give the impression of shadow and volume.

The type of shading used by Apollodorus, a complicated “crosshatching’ and use of both light and dark tones to give a form of perspective, is tricky, even today it’s a difficult to get the hang of it.

 

 

It was this shadow painting technique which gave Apollodurus his name; Apollodorus Skiagraphos – Apollodorus the shadow painter and put him well and truly in the archives of art.

Another of Apollodorus’ achievements did not have to do with style or technique:

Apollodorus is one of the first well–known artists, who, instead of painting directly onto a wall, used an easel.

None of Apollodous’s paintings remain but we can detect the elegance and beauty of Greek art and use of Skiagraphia, not in a painting but on the The Derveni  Krater, made around 370 BC in Athens and discovered in 1962 in a tomb at Derveni, near Thessaloniki, now in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.

 

 

This beautiful vase, or krater, is made with different metals used as overlays and inlays in silver, copper and bronze.

The use of different metals give the krater a golden sheen without the use of any gold at all and create highlights, (Skiagraphia) including the silver garlands of vine and ivy around the krater, the silver and copper stripes on the snakes at the handles, and the silver orbs of the eyes on the masks.

Though now lost, some of Apollodorus’s paintings were recorded by ancient Greek historians: the painting of ‘Odysseus Wearing a Cap’ and also ‘Heracleidae’, a painting which depicted the descendants of Hercules and a painting, thought to be called ‘Alcmena and the Daughters of Hercules Supplicating the Athenians’.

 Pliny (Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher (AD 23/24 – 79), in his book, Naturalis Historia, recorded two paintings belonging to Apollodorus: ‘Praying Priest’ and ‘Ajax Burned by Lightning’ which were in the ancient Greek city of Pergamon, in modern-day Turkey.

 

 

One thing that has remained, recorded by an historian, is a message left by Apollodorus  on one of his paintings:

‘Tis no hard thing to reprehend me but let the men that blame, me mend me, you can criticize my technique easily but you cannot imitate easily.’

 

 4. Zeuxis

5th century BC

 

 

Zeuxis, an ancient Greek painter famous for realism, born in Heraclea, Southern Italy, who lived during the fifth century BC, was a master of still life with an unprecedented ability to mirror nature.

Zeuxis perfected the skiagrafia technique, or shadow painting, first used by his contemporary,  Apollodorus, the first artist to paint things as they actually appeared, which was of the intent of Greek art: to mimic reality.

His technique of using light and shadow, rather than just creating blocks of flat colour, created volumetric illusion (relating to, or involving the measurement of volume).

On witnessing Zeuxis success, Apollodorus is said to have retorted:

‘I have been robbed of my art’

 

 

Zeuxis, who is known to have tried his hand at vase painting as well as a the odd sculpture here and there, favoured working on small paintings rather than murals (he was known for introducing still life into art), which usually included only one figure.

His disregard of outlines, prompted Pliny (Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher (AD 23/24–79), to comment that the heads and limbs of his figures were enlarged out of all proportion, which was actually Zeuxis way of achieving the fundamentals of human beauty.

 

Zeuxis’ painting of Helen of Troy

 

 

Zeuxis’s ‘Helen’; a painting of Helen of Troy, classed as the most beautiful woman of ancient Greece, with the face that launched a thousand ships, was one of most famous paintings of the era; even Zeuxis patted himself on the back and declared it to be the best picture he had ever painted and when he exhibited it, charged people for the privilege of laying their eyes upon this masterpiece.

 

 

His pride came back to bite him; not only did Zeuxis earn something through charging a fee, which was exceptionally unusual at this time, his painting of Helen earned the not so nice title of ‘hetaera’, which in Greek means a courtesan, concubine or, in plain English, prostitute.

 

 

Whilst working on his painting of Helen, with the image of the ideal nude in his head, Zeuxis, unable to find a woman who matched the image to pose as a model, selected five women, from the city of Croton, a port in southern Italy and combined their most beautiful characteristics to create, what was, in his eyes, the ideal image of beauty.

This mix and match method became a key element of Greek art.

 

 

The contest between Zeuxis and

fellow painter, Parrhasius

 

Zeuxis was not the only famous painter at this time; he and his adversary, Parrhasius, were said to be the two best painters of the fourth century BC .

The pair were not only known for their artistic talents but also for their vanity.

Parrhasius, apparently, wore a golden crown while Zeuxis appeared at the Olympic Games with his name embroidered with golden letters on his clothes and  both painters boasted about being the best painter of all times.

Pliny (Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher (AD 23/24–79), in his book, Naturalis Historia, explains to us, how the two artists took part in a contest to decided who was the better painter, Zeuxis or Parrhasius.

Both artists were given a section of wall, each was to paint a mural, neither one could see what the other was painting.

 Zeuxis forte was realism, he used the tricks of what today we call trompe-l’oeil, to bring his paintings to life.

 

 

Parrhasius, a little understated in his technique, maybe had the upper hand; his works were intricately thought out and took time.

Who would win, Zeus with his element of surprise, or, Parrhasius, with his wily ways?

Zeuxis, hidden behind a curtain (it was important that the onlookers saw his work of art suddenly, in a flash, so to speak), painted a bowl of grapes; so life-like, you could taste their sweetness in your mouth.

 

 

As the crowd were admiring the luscious-looking bowl of grapes, a bird suddenly swooped down and thinking they were real, tried to peck at the grapes depicted on the painting.

The crowd gazed on open-mouthed; the poor bird had been a victim of illusion.

 

 

Zeuxis, sure he had won the contest, smirked at Parrhasius and said, ‘let us see your contribution to the contest’.

Parrhasius, faced the crowd, bowed and then turned to face his section of the wall and with a sweep of his arm, said ‘behold, I give you my masterpiece’.

The crowd waited, Zeuxis, becoming impatient, asked Parrhasius to draw back the curtain and reveal his painting.

‘I’m sorry’, Parrhasius replied, ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Oh come on, don’t be shy, I’m sure your work is worth having a quick look at, pull back the curtain Parrhasius, there’s a good chap’ retorted Zeuxis.

Parrhasius was silent for a moment, then, he looked at Zeuxis, smirked, and said:

‘You’re looking at it’

Zeuxis stepped forward to inspect the wall; he was looking at a painting of a curtain.

 

 

Zeuxis had deluded a bird, where as Parrhasius had deluded a man and a fellow artist to boot!

I’ll leave it to you to decide who won the contest!

 

The death of Zeuxis

 

The death of Zeuxis was one of most bizarre deaths of ancient Greece, he died laughing; literally, he laughed himself to death over a painting he had made of Aphrodite, commissioned by an old woman, who insisted she be the model for the young, beautiful and sexy Aphrodite.

Zeuxis agreed but on seeing the finished result of Aphrodite personified as an old crone, burst out laughing, choked and died!

The finale to Zeuxis’ life became the inspiration for the self-portraits of two esteemed Dutch painters: Aert de Gelder and Rembrandt.

 

 

In the self-portrait of Aert de Gelder, above, he is clearly seen to be consumed with laughter over the image of the old woman in the painting.

In this famous self-portrait of Rembrandt, below, it’s not so easy to understand the connection with Zeuxis, until you look closely and spot the old woman deep in the background on the left.

 

 

 5. Parrhasius

5th century BC

 

Parrhasius, born in Ephesus (Turkey) during the fifth century BC, made his living in Athens and was one of the greatest painters of Greece; a rival of Zeuxis (see the section on Zeuxis, above, painter number four on my list of ten).

 Parrhasius, who is acknowledged for his accomplished drawing of outlines and in making his figures appear to stand out from the background, is maybe more well- known for his contest with Zeuxis, to ascertain who was the better painter, which was the talk of the town at the time, when Zeuxis painted grapes so realistically birds attempted to eat them and Parrhasius, curtains, which were so life-like that Zeuxis tried to pull them apart.

 

 

Pliny (a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher), says Parrhasius was the first to give symmetry to painting and animation to faces and had the ability to portray psychological states and emotions.

 

 

 A recorded conversation between Parrhasius and the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, who praised Parrhasius’s ability to give not only physical appearances but emotional and psychological states, did as much, if not more, than his talent, to shoot Parrhasius to fame in a remarkably short space of time.

Parrhasius’s passion for capturing emotions was so intense, he is said to have bought a slave, tied him up and tortured him, in order to catch the accurate expression of pain on the face of the enslaved Prometheus, or his painting at the Parthenon in Athens.

 

 

Parrhasius’s painting of Theseus took pride of place in the Capitol, Rome and his picture of the Demos, the personified people of Athens, was particularly famous.

None of his works have survived and, as with all ancient Greek painters, are known only through descriptions by classical writers.

 

6. Polygnotos

Middle of the 5th century BC

 

 

Polygnotus, a Greek painter of the 5th century BC, born in Thasos, was the son of Aglaophon, also a painter and as was the tradition in those times; he followed in his father’s footsteps.

Polygnotus was famed for his large wall paintings which he executed in a simple and severe Classical style, using only a few simple colours; black, white, red, and ochre.

 Along with his fellow painter; Mikon, Polygnotus was the most appreciated painter of classical Greece, nicknamed the ‘ethographos’, meaning, one who captures the mood and character of his subjects.

The historian Pliny the Elder( first century AD), considered Polygnotus to be the first to paint women wearing colourful headdresses and adorned in transparent garments which revealed their shapely bodies.

Polygnotus was a painter who gave a freer, more natural look to human faces, sometimes frowning and sometimes with open mouths, something which painters before him had not tried their hand at.

He gave depth to his paintings by being the first to place the most distant figures on a higher level than those in the foreground, the ones closest to the viewer.

A good example of this innovative type of scene panting by Polygnotus can be seen on the Niobid Krater, a vase painted by The Niobid Painter, an ancient Athenian vase painter in the red figure style, active from approximately 470 to 450 BC.

 

 

Polygnotus’s most famous paintings are; the ‘Ἰλίου πέρσις, Iliou persis’ –  ‘The Siege of Ilium’, also known as ‘The Siege of Troy’ and the’ Nekyia’ (visit of Ulysses to the underworld), both depicted lif-sized figures.

 

 

 

The frescos were situated at the The Lesche of the Cnidians (the club or meeting place for the people of Cnidus), at the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi, one of the most renowned buildings of Delphi, built in the second quarter of the 5th century, today, only relics remain, it was excavated in 1894 but there was no trace of the paintings.

 

 

As a result of his superb work, Polygnotus was granted Athenian citizenship. (Ancient Greece wasn’t a single country or empire united under a single government, it was made up of a number of city-states).

Polygnotus became one of the most successful and respected painters in the history of Athens.

 

7. Protogenes

4th century BC

 

 

Protogenes, born in born in Caunus, on the coast of Caria, (Modern day Turkey) but living on the Greek island of Rhodes, during the fourth century BC, was a prominent Greek painter, second only to Apelles, who is said to have discovered Protogenes when he was already fifty years old and known only as a decorator of ships but was held in high regard for the intricacies  of his detailed work.

Protogenes also did a bit of sculpting on the side and made a few bronze statues of athletes, warriors and hunters, there are also records of him as a portrait painter and as the author of two books on painting.

 

 

From the historian Pliny, we know the anecdote of Apelles, who placed great significance to drawing the perfect line.

Challenging his friend and rival painter, Protogenes, to a contest to see who could create a finer, steadier line, Apelles had the steadier hand!

When it came to Protogenes and painting, it was a case of slow and steady wins the race, he liked to take his time: he spent from seven to ten years on ‘The Lalysus’, his patience paid off, it became his most famous painting.

Despite the fame of Protogenes’ painting ‘The Lalysus’, it was lost and not much is known about the subject of the painting apart from it represented the ‘Ialysus’, hero-guardian of a town on Rhodes of the same name.

 (The painting,‘The Lalysus’, remained in Rhodes for around two hundred years and was then taken by Vespasian to Rome, where it perished in the burning of the Temple of Peace.)

 

 

Protogenes showed just as much tenacity whilst painting his equally famous painting, ‘The Resting Satyr’ which he worked on continuously, in his garden, during the Siege of Rhodes, which was orchestrated by Demetrius Poliorcetes, even though he garden was in the middle of the enemy’s camp!

Legend would have it that Demetrius was so touched by Protogenes’ dedication, he took precautions to protect both him and his work and when he was told that ‘The Lalysus’  was in a part of the town under assault, Demetrius even changed his plan of operations.

 

 

 ‘The Resting Satyr’, showed  a satyr, lazily leaning against a pillar, atop which sat a figure of a partridge; so life-like, that it was the only thing people noticed in the picture, which angered Protogenes so much, he erased it from the painting.

This painting of the satyr was probably one of his last paintings as he must have been about seventy years of age at the time.

 

 8. Apelles

4th century BC

 

 

Apelles of Kos, an ancient Greek painter (4th century BC), was referred to by Pliny, Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher (AD 23/24–79), in his book, Naturalis Historia, as the greatest artist in the world.

Renown throughout ancient Greece and Rome as a painter with control over the proportion, symmetry and placement of figures; Apelles had a talent for drawing human faces and loved nothing more than to add a little sarcasm to his drawings by the way of allegory and avatars.

One anecdote Pliny tells us about Apelles’ skill at drawing the human face, concerns Ptolemy I, ruler of Egypt after the death of Alexander, who had a dislike of Apelles.

While at sea, Apelles was caught in a sudden storm, forcing him to land in Egypt, where Ptolemy’s jester, encouraged by Apelles’ rivals, presented him with a fake invitation, inviting him to dinner with Ptolemy.

Furious at Appelles’ unexpected arrival, Ptolemy demanded to know who had given him the invitation, in answer; Apelles grabbed piece of charcoal from the fireplace and drew a sketch on the wall, which Ptolemy immediately recognized as his jester after only the first few strokes.

One painter said of Apelles, using the words of Horace, Roman lyric poet; ‘as is painting so is poetry’; ‘his paintings are as poetry; he paints stories and takes the viewer to another place’.

 

 

Apelles placed great significance to drawing the perfect line; it’s said he even challenged his rival painter, Protogenes, to a contest to see who could create a finer, steadier line, I don’t think I need to tell you that Apelles won!

Apelles studied art for 12 years in the Sicyon Art School, along with many other great painters of that era, under Pamphilus, a painter in his own right, who believed that knowledge of arithmetic and geometry was essential to artistic excellence.

Said to have been court artist to Alexander the Great, his picture of Alexander holding a thunderbolt, rated with many as Alexander with the spear of the sculptor Lysippus.

 

 

Another story from Pliny tells us that Alexander the Great asked Apelles to paint a portrait his favorite concubine; Campaspe.

Whilst painting Campaspe’s picture, Apelles fell madly in love with her, Alexander, in appreciation of the artists skills, gave Campaspe to Appelles.

 

 

 

Aphrodite Anadyomene

 

It is said Campaspe inspired Apelles’ famous painting: Aphrodite Anadyomene (Aphrodite Rising from the Sea) but according to Athenaeus, a Greek rhetorician (Late second century AD), Aphrodite Rising from the Sea was inspired by Phryne, who during the time of the festivals of the Eleusinia and Poseidonia swam nude in the sea.

Phryne is thought to have been the model and lover of Praxiteles, the sculptor of the original Knidos Aphrodite (Venus), the first naked female Greek statue, which has also said to have been the inspiration behind Apelles’s Aphrodite Anadyomene .

 

 

 

 

 

The painting Aphrodite Anadyomene was also thought to be the inspiration behind Botticelli’s

‘Birth of Venus’.

 

 

Apelles’ last painting was of Aphrodite of Kos but he died before completing it, no other painter was deemed capable to finish it and so the painting remained unfinished.

Regretfully, none of Apelles works survive today, many once hung in the house of Julius Caesar, on Palatine Hill but were lost, along with the house, in a fire.

According to Pliny, of all Apelles’ useful innovations to the art of painting, his recipe for a black varnish, called by Pliny atramentum, which both preserved his paintings and softened their colour, was one of the most important but Apelles kept the recipe close to his chest and it died with him.

The simplicity of his paintings, the perfection of the lines and the captivating expressions on the faces, have mesmerized art lovers the world over.

Many Italian Renaissance artists including Botticelli and Tiepolo pay tribute to Apelles, the one they considered the greatest painter who ever lived.

 

 

Thanks to written descriptions in classical writings such as Pliny’s, who mentions Apelles extraordinary talent and painting techniques and many paintings, mostly from the Italian Renaissance, depicting Apelles at work, more often than not painting Campaspe, we know today that Apelles was a great Master who was regarded in the 15th and 16th centuries as the prime example of ancient Greek painters.

 

 

Raphael may have painted himself as Apelles in The School of Athens and Sandro Botticelli fashioned two paintings; The Birth of Venus and Calumny of Apelles, on the works of Apelles.

 

 

In 1334, Giotto was appointed to work on of the bell tower of the Duomo, in Florence, Italy, after his death, in 1337, he was succeeded by the sculptor Andrea Pisano who was putting the finishing touches to the first set of Baptistery Doors.

At the base of the bell tower is a set of 54 reliefs, one of which shows Apelles, at work, painting, there is some deliberation, amongst scholars, as to who was the sculptor, Giotto or Pisano, the majority lean towards Pisano.

 

 

The classical scholar Percy Gardner writes, in the Encyclopedia Britannica:

‘Few things are more hopeless than the attempt to realize the style of a painter whose works have vanished. But a great wealth of stories, true or invented, clung to Apelles in antiquity; and modern archaeologists have naturally tried to discover what they indicate’.

 

  9. Pausias

First half of the 4th century BC

 

 

Pausias is yet one more ancient Greek painter, of the first half of the 4th century BC, who perfected his artist talents under Pamphilus, at the school of Sicyon, near Corinth, Peloponnese.

Again, as with other Ancient Greek painters, of whom, sadly, works no longer exist, we garner knowledge from the observations of Pliny, (AD 23/24–79), a Roman author, naturalist and philosopher.

Pliny informs us, that Pausias, a whiz kid with a paint brush, who could start and finish a painting in a Day ( although he did prefer small paintings).

He introduced the practice of painting coffered ceilings (Coffer: a decorative sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle or octagon in a ceiling, dome, or vault.).

 

 

Pliny said of Pausias’s most famous painting; that of a bull called ‘A Sacrifice’, with a frontal view of a bull, was exceptional for how light reflects from the bull’s body:

‘Many imitated it but none equaled it’

Pausias’s most outstanding skill was the ability to ‘foreshorten’, an effect of perspective said to have been invented by Cimon of Clenoe, to show something as being  closer than it is or as having less depth or distance.

It’s worth adding here, what Libby had to say about how Pausias managed to create such an incredible image of the bull:

‘Wishing to display the length of the bull’s body, he painted it from the front, not in profile, and yet fully indicated its measure.

 Again, while others fill in with white the highlights and paint in black what is less salient, he painted the whole bull of dark colour and gave substance to the shadow out of the shadow itself, with great skill making his figures stand out from a flat background, and indicating their shape when foreshortened.’

Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer of the second century AD, describes, in his ‘Descriptions of Greece’ a ten-volume, eye-witness account of Greece at that time, two wall paintings or frescos, created by the agile hand of Pausias, which adorned the walls of the Tholos (a round building) at Epidaurus, site of the ancient theatre.

One painting showed Eros (Cupid), setting down his bow and arrow, in order to pick up his lyre.

The other painting showed a drunken woman drinking wine from a glass, of which through, her face was visible, this was the personification of Methe, Greek for drunkenness or intoxication.

 

 

The portrait of his lover, Glycera, a flower girl, known in Pliny‘s time as The Stephaneplocos (garland-weaver) or Stephanepolis (garland-seller), earned Pausias the reputation as an astute painter of flowers.

 

 

 It’s rumoured that a copy of Pausias’ portrait of Glycera, was bought by Lucullus (118 – 57/56 BC) a politician of the late Roman Republic, at the Dionysia of Athens for an astronomical sum.

 

 

Pausias’s main contribution to the world of art was his introduction of the technique of Encaustic painting; encaustic from the Greek; ἐγκαίειν (enkaíein), to burn in, or heat up, which entails using beeswax as a binder for the pigment.

The colour emulsion of pigment and beeswax, was applied either cold or warm and fused with the surface by heating, which gave a brilliant effect as well as some degree of durability and allowed greater scope for expressive brushwork.

The present-day technique of Encaustic painting has remained similar to how it was all those thousands of years ago.

 

 10. Echion

 Mid 4th century to the early 3rd century BC

 

What we know about the ancient Greek painter Echion, sometimes referred to as Aetion, comes from what Lucian of Samosata (125 – after 180), an Assyrian satirist and rhetorician, known for his sarcastic style, tells us about one of his paintings which shows the wedding of Alexander the Great and Roxana, a painting which reveals that Echion had an unequalled style of mixing and building up colours.

The painting of Alexander the Great and Roxana was exhibited at the ancient Olympic Games, this was a great honour for Echion, as he was the first Greek painter ever to have his work exhibited at the games.

 

 

Echion’s panting of Alexander and Roxana’s marriage was a great hit, in fact, it impressed Proxenidas, one of the judges at the Olympic games, so much, overwhelmed by emotion brought on by the beauty of Echion’s work, he offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Although Echion’s painting no longer exists, we gain some insight into its appearance from Botticelli and Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, who were greatly inspired by Echion.

Sandro Botticelli, Italian Renaissance painter, after reading Lucien’s praise for Echion’s painting, was motivated to paint  his famous; Venus and Mars, said to represent the marriage of Venus, goddess of love (Greek Aphrodite) and Mars (Greek Aries), god of war which shows cherubs playing with what is  thought to be Alexander’s lance, and wearing his helmet and breastplate.

 

 

‘Art has no end but its own perfection‘

Plato

 

Ancient Greece has given so much beauty to the world through art, the works of the great Greek ancient painters may be now lost but we can still appreciate the elegance and allurement of it, it lives on, in ancient ruins, on delicately painted vases and in ancient Greek architecture.

We see it reflected in the works of in the works of Italian Renaissance painters and later we learnt about Greek art from ‘The Grand tour’, a tradition started in around 1660, coming to a head at the turn of the 19^th century, which saw young aristocrats touring Europe, for months, sometimes years at a time rather like a modern gap-year, giving them a chance to see, and get to know, first-hand, the wonders of Greece.

Once home, they revealed to us what they had discovered by writing books, bringing visions to life by painting pictures; replicas, of what they had observed.

 

 

Most of all though, I think we have to thank the many Ancient Greek and roman historians from the first century onwards, who with their ‘ekphrasis’, which comes from the Greek for the description of a work of art, taught us about the ancient Greek painters, the techniques they discovered, still being used to day, still influencing and inspiring today’s painters.

 

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