5IO On the Art cf Painting 



Observations on the Art of Painting ; among 

 //&f Ancients ; ^j Thomas Cooper, ^^. 



READ DECEMBER 21, I785. 



PART I. 



MR. KERSHAW, in his ingenious paper 

 on the comparative Merit of the Anci- 

 ents and Moderns with refpeft to the imitative 

 Arts, is of opinion that the ancients were infe- 

 rior to the moderns in point of colouring, be- 

 caufe the former having only four colours^ black, 

 ■white, red, and yellow, could not polTibly from 

 thefe produce the variety of tints necelTary even 

 to a moderate colourift. 



This opinion of the paucity of colours in ufe 

 among the ancient painters, though a com- 

 mon one, and countenanced by authors of re- 

 pute on the fubjed of painting,* is certainly 



erroneous 



• Thus De Piles fays, Pliny writes that *' the mailers 

 *' of the art of painting in his time made ufe of but four 

 ** capital colours, out of which they produced all others.'* 

 Art of Painting. Life of Protogenes. In faft Pliny fays 

 no fuch thing, but directly tke contrary, as will be feen 

 hereafter. 



" Another 



