By Mr. T. Gambier Parry. 47 
that what the architect had left broad and flat should be maintained 
so by the painter, by diapers, flat and conventional patterns, and 
bold simple bands of colour. Of higher art, figure and subject 
painting there is only the evidence of books. The paintings on 
ancient vases and the remains at Pompeii are valuable indirect 
evidences of what the course of classic art had been. Those vases 
represent to us the perfect idea of Greek wall painting. The com- 
position of subjects on those vases are commonly much too fine to 
have originated with artists employed in a business comparatively 
low. The inference is a fair one that those compositions are re- 
peated from the works of the greatest artists on the temple walls. 
The system of flat composition in wall painting was then universal. 
There is a description by Pausanias of a work by Polygnotus, 
painted about 450 B.C., in which the figures of a great subject 
were in distinct groups one above the other. On the Greek and 
Etruscan vases, the system of wall painting is admirably illustrated. 
‘The most beautiful and expressive groups are there made subservient 
to the architecturai purpose. If those inferior works on mere pottery 
were so fine, the great originals must have been admirable. The 
system of painting was one of sufficient relief to satisfy the eye, 
“but not enough to disturb the dignity of the architecture. This 
Polygnotus is said to have painted men better than they were, ‘.e. 
“he idealised his figures. And let it be remembered that the date 
of Polygnotus was the date also of Phidias and of Ictinus, the 
sculptor and the architect of the temples at Phigalea and at Athens, 
the age of the zenith of Greek art, and themselves its greatest ex- 
“ponents. — 
_ An artist is not to be measured by the high finish of his works. 
‘The age of high finish and high relief in painting was the 
turning point of classicart. Painting then asserted its individuality. 
It was still admirable, but only for itself and by itself. By this 
_yery assertion of individuality it dissevered itself from architecture. 
[rue architectural ornamentation, whether by decorative design or 
by high art figure painting, was at an end; and the abuse of the 
of wall painting culminated in a certain Roman, Ludius, 
rho painted market scenes and stables, and cobbler’s stalls, and 





