5i8 On the Art of Painting 



colouring, and not fo merely from necelTity, at 

 leaft about the time of Zeuxis and Apelles : for 

 the former could not have painted grapes fo 

 naturally as he is faid to have done* with the 

 four colours only fo often mentioned. Neither 

 would it have been the praflice of Apelles to 

 have varnifhed his frefh paintings with brown 

 varnifh,f if he had not poffefled a true tafte 

 in this part of painting, and purpofely avoided 

 the meretricious glare with which the Roman 

 artifts were afterwards captivated. Nor is it at 

 all ftrange, that a judicious eye fhould rejedt, 

 as much as poflible, fuch cold unmellow tints 

 as blues and greens. Thefe obfervations are 

 alfo confirmed by the rebuke given by Apelles J 

 to one of his fcholars, who having painted 

 a Helen very gaudily, " young man," fays 

 Apelles, ** not being able to make her beauti- 

 ful, you have made her rich." 



I think it highly probable therefore, that 

 among the fuperior painters in the more early 

 flages of the art, no more than four colours were 

 employed, at leall in portraits, and till the time 



*• their lights and ftiades, trufting their efFeft to the 

 "multitude of their coldurs. " In Ifaeo, p. 167, edit. 

 Oxon. Webb on Painting and Poetry, p. 83. 



* Plin. Hift. Nat. XXXV. 36. Senec. controv. lib. X. 

 contr. 5. 



t Plin. Hift. Nat. XXXV. 36. 



X Clerc. Alexand.Paedag. Lib. If. cap. 12. Plin. XXXV. 3. 



of 



