The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 6 (of 6)Pliny, the Elder
History
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 6 (of 6)
Pliny, the Elder
Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
In the ninetieth Olympiad lived Aglaophon,[1961] Cephisodorus, Erillus,
and Evenor, the father of Parrhasius, one of the greatest of painters,
and of whom we shall have to speak when we come to the period at which
he flourished. All these were artists of note, but not sufficiently
so to detain us by any further details, in our haste to arrive at the
luminaries of the art; first among whom shone Apollodorus of Athens,
in the ninety-third Olympiad. He was the first to paint objects as
they really appeared; the first too, we may justly say, to confer
glory[1962] by the aid of the pencil.[1963] Of this artist there is a
Priest in Adoration, and an Ajax struck by Lightning, a work to be seen
at Pergamus at the present day: before him, there is no painting of any
artist now to be seen which has the power of rivetting the eye.
The gates of art being now thrown open by Apollodorus, Zeuxis of
Heraclea[1964] entered upon the scene, in the fourth year of the
ninety-fifth Olympiad, destined to lead the pencil—for it is of the
pencil that we are still speaking—a pencil for which there was nothing
too arduous, to a very high pitch of glory. By some writers he is
erroneously placed in the eighty-ninth Olympiad, a date that must of
necessity be reserved for Demophilus of Himera and Neseus of Thasos,
of one of whom, it is uncertain which, Zeuxis was the pupil. It was in
reference to him that Apollodorus, above-mentioned, wrote a verse to
the effect, that Zeuxis had stolen the art from others and had taken
it all to himself.[1965] Zeuxis also acquired such a vast amount of
wealth, that, in a spirit of ostentation, he went so far as to parade
himself at Olympia with his name embroidered on the checked pattern of
his garments in letters of gold. At a later period, he came to the
determination to give away his works, there being no price high enough
to pay for them, he said. Thus, for instance, he gave an Alcmena to the
people of Agrigentum, and a Pan to Archelaüs.[1966] He also painted a
Penelope, in which the peculiar character of that matron appears to be
delineated to the very life; and a figure of an athlete, with which
he was so highly pleased, that he wrote beneath it the line which has
since become so famous, to the effect that it would be easier to find
fault with him than to imitate him.[1967] His Jupiter seated on the
throne, with the other Deities standing around him, is a magnificent
production: the same, too, with his Infant Hercules strangling the
Dragons, in presence of Amphitryon and his mother Alcmena, who is
struck with horror. Still, however, Zeuxis is generally censured for
making the heads and articulations of his figures out of proportion.
And yet, so scrupulously careful was he, that on one occasion, when he
was about to execute a painting for the people of Agrigentum,[1968] to
be consecrated in the Temple of the Lacinian Juno there, he had the
young maidens of the place stripped for examination, and selected five
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