on the Colours used in Vaintingly the Ancients, 421 



of the baths of Titus, where only outlines or spots remain, or 

 shades of ochre, it is probable that vegetable or animal colours, 

 such as indigo and the different dyed clays, were used*. 



Plinv speaks of the celebrated Greek painters as employing 

 only four colours. " Quatuor coloribus solis imniortalia ilia 

 opera fecere : ex albis Melino, ex siiaceis Attico, ex rubris Sino- 

 pide Pontica, ex nigris atramento, Apelles, Echion, Melanthius, 

 Nicomachus, clarissimi pictoresf : " but as far as Apelles and 

 Niconiachus are concerned, this is a mistake; and it is not un- 

 likely that Pliny was misled by an imperfect recollection of a 

 passage in Cicero, who describes the earlier Greek school as 

 xising only four colours, but the later Greek painters as perfect 

 masters in all the resources of colouring. " Similis in pictura 

 ratio est : in qua Zeuxim, et Polygnotum, et Timantem, et eorum, 

 qui non sunt usi plus quam quatuor coloriijus, formas et linea- 

 menta laudamus : at in Aetione, Niconiacho, Protogeue, y\pelle, 

 jam perfecta sunt omnia." Cicero, Brutus, seu de claris ora- 

 toribus, c. 18. Pliny himself describes Avith enthusiasm the 

 Venus dvai'jofLsvri of Apelles: and in this picture the sea was re- 

 presented, which required azure. 



The great Greek painters, like the most illustrious artists of 

 the Roman and Venetian school, were probably, however, sparing 

 in the use of the more florid tints in historical and moral paint- 

 ing, and produced their effects rather by the contrasts of colouring 

 in those parts of the picture where a deep and uniform tint might 

 be u'-ed, than by brilliant drapery. 



If red and yellow ochres, blacks and whites, were the colours 

 most employed by Protogenes and Apelles^ so they arc likewise 

 the colours most employed by Raphael and Titian in their best 

 style. The St. John and the Venus, in the tribune of the Gal- 

 lery at Florence, offer striking examples of pictures in which all 

 the deeper tints are evidently produced by red and yellow ochres, 

 and carbonaceous substances. 



As far as colours are concerned, these works are prepared for 

 that immortality which thev deserve ; but unfortunately the oil 

 and the canvass are vegetable materials, and liable to decomposi- 

 tion, and the last is less durable than even the wood on which 

 the Greek artists painted their celebrated pictures. 



It is unfortunate that the materials for receiving those works 

 which are worthy of passing down to posterity as eternal monu- 

 ments of genius, taste, and industry, are not imperishable mar- 



* Sonic excellent pictures have suflferccl very much in modern times from 

 the same cuuse; the lakes in the frescos of the Vatican have lost much of 

 • he brilliancy which they must liave possessed orij^inally. 'Iheblutsju 

 many pictures of Paul V^croncsc are becoine muddy. 



t Lib. XXXV. c. 32. 



D d 3 ble 



