5jO Experiments and Olservations 



either by accident, by time, or by barbarian conquerors at tli<? 

 period of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 



The subjects of many of these pictures are described in 

 ancient authors, and some idea of the manner and style of the 

 Greek artists may be gained from the designs on the vases, im- 

 properly called Etruscan, which were executed by artists of 

 Magna Graecia, and many of which are probably copies from 

 celebrated works : and some faint notion of their execution and 

 colouring may be gained from the paintings in fresco found at 

 Rome, Herculaneiun, and Pompeii. 



These paintings, it is true, are not properly Greek ; yet, what- 

 ever may be said of the early existence of painting in Italy as a 

 native art, we are certain that, at the period when Rome was 

 the metropolis of the world, the fine arts were cultivated in 

 that city exclusively by Greek artists, or by artists of the Greek 

 schools. By comparing the descriptions of Vitruvius* and 

 Pliny with those of Theophrastusf, we learn that the same 

 materials for colouring were employed at Rome and at Athens ; 

 and of thirty great painters that Pliny mentions whose work* 

 -vs'ere known to the Romans, two only are expressly mentioned 

 as born in Italy, and the rest were Greeks. Ornamental fresco 

 painting was indeed generally exercised by inferior artists ; and 

 the designs on the walls of the houses of Herculaneum and Pom- 

 peii, towns of the third or fourth order, can hardly be supposed to 

 offer fair specimens of excellence, even in this department of the 

 art : but in Rome, in the time of her full glory, and in the orna- 

 ments of the imperial palace of the first Caesars, all the resources 

 of the distinguished artists of that age were probably employed. 

 Pliny names Cornelius Pinus and Accius Priscus as the two artists 

 of the greatest merit in his own time, and states that they painted 

 the Temple of Honour and Virtue J, " Impcratori Vespasiano 

 Augusto restituenti ;" and it is not improbable that these artists 

 had a share in executing, or directing the execution of, the 

 paintings and ornaments in the baths of Titus ; and at this pe- 

 liod the works of Zeuxis, Panhasius, Timanthes, Apelles, and 

 Protagoras were exhibited in Rome, and nmst have guided the 

 taste of the artists. The decorations of the baths were intended 

 to be seen by torch-light, and many of them at a considerable 

 elevation, so that the coloms were brilliant and the contrast 

 strong ; yet still these works are regarded by connoisseurs as 

 performances of considerable excellence: the minor ornaments 

 of them have led to the foundation of a style in painting which 

 l?iight with much more propriety be called Romanesque than 

 Arabesque : and no greater eulogy can be bestowed upon them 



* De Architectura, lib. vii. cap. 5. f De Lapidibus. 



I riin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv. cap. 57. 



than 



