Chap. 3G.] ABTISTS WHO PAINTED WITH THE PENCIL. 263 



cuirass on, and his horse led by his side. Connoisseurs in the 

 art give the preference, before all other works of his, to liis 

 paintings of King Archeliius on horseback, and of Diana 

 in the midst of a throng of Virgins performing a sacri- 

 fice ; a work in which he Avould appear to have surpassed 

 the lines'^'* of Homer descriptive of the same subject. He 

 also portrayed some things, which in reality do not admit 

 of being portrayed — thunder, lightning, and thunderbolts, in 

 pictures which are known by the respective names of Bronte, 

 Astrape, and Ceraunobolia. 



His inventions, too, in the art of painting, have been highly 

 serviceable to others ; but one thing there was in which no one 

 could imitate him. Wlien his works were finished, he used to 

 cover them with a black varnish, of such remarkable thinness, 

 that while by the reflection it gave more vivacity to the colours, 

 and preserved them from the contact of dust and dirt, its 

 existence could only be detected by a person when close enough 

 to touch it."^ In addition to this, there was also tliis other 

 great advantage attending it : the brightness of the colours 

 was softened thereby, and harmonized to the sight, looking as 

 though they had been viewed from a distance, and through a 

 medium of specular-stone ;^ the contrivance, by some indescri- 

 bable means, giving a sombreness to colours which would other- 

 wise have been too florid. 



One of the contemporaries of Apellcs was Aristides*'' of 

 Thebes ; the first of all the painters to give full expression to 

 the mind*^** and passions of man, known to the Greeks as ^dr}, 

 as well as to the mental perturbations which we experience : 

 he was somewhat harsh, liowever, in his colours. There is a 

 picture by him of a Captured City, in which is represented an 

 infant crawling toward the breast of its wounded mother, who, 



8* Odyss. B.vi. 1. 102, ct soq. 



85 Sir Joshua Reynolds discovers in the account here given ** an artist- 

 like description of the effect of glazing, or scumbling, such as was practised 

 by Titian und tlie rest of the Venetian painters." — lioics to Du Fresnoy. 



8^ " Lapis specularis." See B, xxxvi. c. 45. 



^7 He was son of Aristodemus, and brother aud pupil of Nicomachus, 

 in addition to Euxenidas, already mentioned in this Chapter. He, Pau- 

 sanias, and Nicophanes, excelled, as we learn from Athenajus, B. xiii., in the 

 portraits of courtesans ; hence their name, Tropvoypacpoi, 



^^ It has been well remarked by Wornum, in the article so often quoted, 

 that ** expression of the feehngs and passions cannot be denied to Polyg- 

 notus, Apollodorus, Parrhasius, Timauthes, and many others." 



