A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

464 IPOLYGNOTUS. POLYGNOTUS.
article Painting in the Diclionary of Greek and else of the painters or statuaries is ethic." In the
Roman Antiquities. I Poetic, Aristotle goes on to explain his distinction
The improvements which Polygnotus effected in by reference to various imitative arts, and espepainting are described by Pliny very briefly and cially poetry,.in which, he says,' "Homer repleunsatisfactorily. (II. N. xxxv. 9. s. 35.) Among sented characters better than ordinary men, but
these improvements were, opening the mouth, Cleophon like ordinary men, but Hegemon, who
showing the teeth, and varying the expression of first composed parodies, and Nicochares, the author
the countenance from its ancient stiffness. He of the Delias, worse;" he then quotes Timotheus
was the first who painted women with brilliant i and Philoxenus as examples of the same thing in
(or transparent) drapery (lucida veste), and with the dithyramb, and adds the very important revariegated head-dresses (mitris versicoloribus); and, mark that " this is the very difference which
generally, he was the first who contributed much makes the distinction between tragedy and coto the advancement of painting (plurimumque medy; for the one purposes to imitate men worse,
picturae prinus contulit). Lucian also selects his but the other better, than men as they now acfigures as models of excellence for the beauty of tually are." (Comp. Hermann's Notes, and Lesthe eye-brows, the blush upon the cheeks (as in sing's Hambmurgische Dramaturgice.)
his Cassandra in the Lesche at Delphi), and the The parallel which Aristotle thus draws between
gracefulness of the draperies. (De Imag. 7, vol. ii. Polygnotus and Homer (and the poets of Homer's
p. 465). These statements of Pliny amount to spirit) seems, from all we know of Polygnotus, to
saying that Polygnotus gave great expression to be an exact illustration, both of his subjects and
both face and figure, and great elegance and va- of his mode of treating them. It should never be
riety to the drapery. How these matters were forgotten that Grecian art was founded upon
treated before his time we may judge from many Grecian poetry, and took from it both its subjects
of the ancient vases, where the figures are in the and its character. Pheidias and Polyginotus were
most constrained attitudes, the ftces hard profiles, the Homers of their respective arts; they imitated
with closed lips and fixed eyes, often looking side- the personages and the subjects of the old mythoways, and the draperies standing, rather than logy, and they treated them in an epic spirit, while
hanging, in rigid parallel lines. That the expres- Lysippus and Apelles were essentially dramatic:
sion which Polygnotus gave to his figures was the former artists strove to express character and
something more, however, than a successful imi- repose, the latter action and emotion; the former
tation of real life, and that it had an ideal cha- exhibited ideal personages, the latter real ones;
racter, may be inferred from the manner in which the men of the former are godlike, the gods of the
Aristotle speaks of the artist. Thus he calls him latter are ordinary men; Pheidias derived the
an ethic painter (ypape&s aOcKods), a good etho- image of his Zeus from the sublimest verses of
grapher (ayaOMs,i0o'ypapos), terms which denote Homer, Apelles painted his Venus from a courtehis power of expressing, not passion and emotion zan, and Zeuxis could find no higher model for
only, but also ideal character. (Polit. viii. 5. p. 267, the queen of Olympus than a selection from real
ed. GiJttling, Post. vi. 5, ed. Herm., 11, ed. Ritter.) and living beauties. The limits of this article do
Il the second of these passages he contrasts him not permit any further exposition of this essential
with Zeuxis, whose painting, he says, has no j0os and fundamental point of aesthetic science. We
at all; and his meaning is further shown by what must not, however, omit to state a fact, in illushe says on the subject, of which these allusions to tration of the parallel between Homer and Polypainting are in illustration, namely eos in poetry. gnotus, namely, that the painter's works in the
" Tragedy," he says, " could not exist without Lesche at Delphi were commonly known as the
action, but it could without ideal characters (740oev); Iliad and Odyssey of Polygnotus; though it must
for the tragedies of most of the recent poets are be admitted that most of those who used that
without character (alrOEls), and, in general, there phrase were thinking of the subjects of the paintare many poets of this kind;" words thoroughly ings, and little or nothing of their character, and
exemplified in some of the tragedies of Euripides, that very few had any notion of the sense in
and in the account we have of others of the later which Polygnotus is placed beside Homer by the
tragedians and dithyrambic poets, where the ex- great philosopher, who is rightly regarded as the
pression of ideal character is sacrificed to the father of aesthetic science. The subjects of the
exhibition of mere emotion, to the energy and pictures of Polyglnotus were almost invariably
complication of dramatic action, or even to lower taken from Homer and the other poets of the epic
sources of interest. In another well-known pas- cycle.
sage, which forms a sort of landmark in the history'With respect to the more technical and meof art (Po'd. 2), he says: " But since those who chanical improvements which Polygnotus iiltroimitate, imitate men in action, and it is necessary duced into painting, the statement of Pliny conthat these be either good or bad (for characters, cerning his female draperies is admirably illustrated
0in, almost always follow these distinctions alone: by B1ittiger, to whose section on Polygnotus, in
for all men differ in their characters by vice and his Ideen znr Geschichte der Archlioloyie der Alavirtue), they imitate persons either better than lerei, we here refer once for all, as one of the chief
ordinary men (i KaO' AUms), or worse, or such as aufthorities for the present subject, and as one of
men really are, just as the painters do: for Poly- the most valuable contributions to the history of
gnotus represented men as better than they are; ancient art. Bittiger (pp. 263-265) remarks
Pauson worse thlan they are; and Dionysius like that the descriptions of Polygnotus's paintings
ordinary Imen." And so, in the passage respecting prove that female figures were introduced by him
i10i7, first quoted from the Politic (where the far more freely than we have any reason to supwhole context deserves careful reading), he says pose them to have appeared in earlier works of
that "the young ought not to'study the works of art; and that he thus gained the opportunity of
Pauson, but those of Polygnotus, and whoever iselivening his pictures with the varied and brilliant