By means of polychromy, the Greeks endeavored to add elegance to their buildings, without detracting from their majesty, knowing well that this exquisite system of coloring, when applied under their pure sky, illuminated by brilliant sunshine, and encompassed by gorgeous vegetation, would bring artificial beauty into complete unison with the richness of nature. Thus colored statuary harmonized with mural historic painting, and this looked out from broad panels of beauty through tinted colonnades upon the sky, the groves, fields, and sparkling seas. By this combination, Athenian structures were rendered most worthy of admiration, because in them works which, taken separately, might move through single attractions, or approach the sublime, were so happily combined, as instantly to evoke a sentiment of perfection and delight such as no other monuments ever possessed. Colors were so graduated that the temple they vitalized was made to resemble and reflect the charming vicissitudes of a lovely Grecian day: cool in the morning, dazzling at noon, and at evening burned with all the glowing gorgeousness of the setting sun. Euphranor and Micon, to excite the emulation of compatriots, depicted the exploits of heroes in the Porticoes; Protogenes and Olbiades drew the portraits of renowned legislators in the Curia; the Odeia were decorated with the pictorial forms of poets, and with the Graces, their inseparable companions; the Gymnasia exhibited the godlike champions in the contests of Mars and the Muses; and even the Propylæa became more famous for the precious works of the painters than for the marbles out of which its structural grandeur was formed. But Phidias alone excepted, Polygnotus was perhaps the greatest public genius in the greatest artistic age. The pictures painted by him as votive offerings of the Cnidians were much admired, and the whole nation honored him for other monumental works. The Lesche, filled with the splendors of his skill, was the grand glyptothek of Athens, and first picture-gallery of the Grecian world.