DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0223
XII
GREEK PAINTING
203
We are told that Polygnotus used but four colours — white,
yellow, red, and black. But if this were the case, how could
he be praised for the mitrae versicolores which adorned his
women's heads ? J. Lange 1 is almost certainly right in his
view that it was in representing the nude human body that he
confined himself to these colours. For alike in architecture,
sculpture and painting, green, blue and brown were used long
before the time of Polygnotus, and one cannot understand why
he should have abstained, for instance, from using green for
the representation of trees. But, doubtless, painters like
Zeuxis and Apelles were much freer than he in their variety
of colouring.
The colouring of Polygnotus must have been flat and uni-
form, without much light and shade. The full introduction of
this enormously important element into painting was largely
the work of the Athenian Apollodorus, who thus embarked on
a great sea of discoveries. He is described as seeking after
illusion in painting, — doubtless a very primitive illusion, —
but the attempt was frowned on by some of the stricter spirits
of the time, among others by Plato. Of light and shade in an-
cient painting we can judge only from the frescoes of the Roman
age. Pausias, a contemporary of Apelles, is said to have greatly
succeeded with perspective and foreshortening.
There are two other ways, neither of them quite satisfactory,
by which we can approach the painting of the later fifth and
fourth century masters. In the first place we can make the
best of such fragmentary remains of paintings of this period
as have come down to us; and in the second place we can
feel our way back, with great caution, from the mural paint-
ings of Rome and Pompeii to an earlier and nobler stage of art.
I will mention a few of the most important extant remains
1 Die menschliche Gestalt in der Geschichte der Kunst, p. 66. This is a work
full of genial and interesting observations.
GREEK PAINTING
203
We are told that Polygnotus used but four colours — white,
yellow, red, and black. But if this were the case, how could
he be praised for the mitrae versicolores which adorned his
women's heads ? J. Lange 1 is almost certainly right in his
view that it was in representing the nude human body that he
confined himself to these colours. For alike in architecture,
sculpture and painting, green, blue and brown were used long
before the time of Polygnotus, and one cannot understand why
he should have abstained, for instance, from using green for
the representation of trees. But, doubtless, painters like
Zeuxis and Apelles were much freer than he in their variety
of colouring.
The colouring of Polygnotus must have been flat and uni-
form, without much light and shade. The full introduction of
this enormously important element into painting was largely
the work of the Athenian Apollodorus, who thus embarked on
a great sea of discoveries. He is described as seeking after
illusion in painting, — doubtless a very primitive illusion, —
but the attempt was frowned on by some of the stricter spirits
of the time, among others by Plato. Of light and shade in an-
cient painting we can judge only from the frescoes of the Roman
age. Pausias, a contemporary of Apelles, is said to have greatly
succeeded with perspective and foreshortening.
There are two other ways, neither of them quite satisfactory,
by which we can approach the painting of the later fifth and
fourth century masters. In the first place we can make the
best of such fragmentary remains of paintings of this period
as have come down to us; and in the second place we can
feel our way back, with great caution, from the mural paint-
ings of Rome and Pompeii to an earlier and nobler stage of art.
I will mention a few of the most important extant remains
1 Die menschliche Gestalt in der Geschichte der Kunst, p. 66. This is a work
full of genial and interesting observations.