among the Ancients* 545 



Upon the whole therefore, I think, with refpedl 

 to colouring, as- employed upon fingle figures^ 

 that as the ancients were fully as competent to 

 judge of excellence herein as the moderns; as 

 the expreflions of the ancient connoifleurs are 

 very warm in praife of the colouring of many of 

 their painters; as they appear alfo to have at- 

 tended very much to the art of colouring; and 

 moreover, as probable evidence will be adduced 

 that they attended to miniature painting, a con- 

 fiderable degree of merit may be allowed them in 

 the ufe of the colours they poiTefTed. 



The duration of the art among the ancients 

 and moderns feems nearly equal : in number, 

 the modern artifts I think are fuperior. Some 

 advantage however both in the preparation 

 and the number of the modern colours, and 

 (perhaps*) the introdudion of oil painting 

 may poflibly have enabled the moderns to excel 

 their predeceflbrs in fome fmall degree ;-f- but 



I think 



* The ancient colours in frefque feem to ftand better 

 than the modern oil colours. Plutarch, in his life oi 

 Ariftides, mentions the paintings in the temple of 

 Minerva, which in his time (between five and fix hundred 

 years afterwards) retained their full luftre. Montfaucon, 

 in a paffage already nociced, mentions the colours of an 

 ancient ceiling, painted in frefque, which continued en 

 grande <vi'vacit}. So alfo does the grand painting in frefque 

 of the battle between Conftantine and Maxentius, defigned 

 by Raphael, and painted by Julio Romano. 



•f- The principal advantage of oil painting feems to be 



that, in confequence of not drying fo faft, it enables the 



Vol. III. N n arlift 



