390 



PAINTING. 



the works of these nations in oilier arts, and by lite j 

 testimony of classic authors. Yet learned archaeo- 

 logists seem to acknowledge universally that the art 

 of painting in antiquity always remained behind 

 sculpture, as well in respect to the degree of its em- 

 ployment as of its perfection. Hence the well known 

 opinion that painting was then more plastic. In con- 

 sequence of a number of causes, both intellectual and 

 physical, sculpture was more cultivated with the 

 Greeks; and painting was influenced by this circum- 

 stance. The form, even in painting, predominated 

 over the charm of colouring, and the expression 

 which it conveys. The contour and the local colours 

 seem to have been perfected in a great degree ; the 

 perspective much less. Some, indeed, have doubted 

 whether the ancients had any knowledge of perspec- 

 tive ; but, as perspective is not to be dispensed with 

 in any representation on a plane surface, and as the 

 ancients were well acquainted with geometry and 

 optics, we must suppose them to have possessed, in 

 some limited degree, the use of perspective. It is 

 more certain that they were ignorant of chiaro-scuro. 

 Their art of painting, indeed, was limited chiefly to 

 the representation of historical situations and of ani- 

 mals ; but landscape painting remained compara- 

 tively uncultivated, because this branch depends 

 more than the others upon the perfection of colour- 

 ing and the charm of chiaro-scuro. 



For the history of the ancient art of painting, see, 

 among other works, Junius De Pictura Feterum 

 (edit. Graevius, Rotterdam, 1694) ; Durand's His- 

 toire de la Peinture ancienne (after Pliny, London, 

 1725) ; Turnbull's Treatise on Ancient Painture, 

 &c. (London, 1740) ; Vine. Requeno's Saggi sul 

 Ristabilimento dell 1 antica Arte de'' Greci e rf<?' Ro- 

 mani Pittori (new edition, Parma, 1787, 2 vols.) ; 

 A ndr. Riem, Ueber die Malerei der Alten (Berlin, 

 1787, 4to) ; Grund, Ueber die Malerei der Griechen 

 (Dresden, 1810, 1811, 2 vols.); and Bottiger's works 

 above-mentioned. Respecting the materials, and the 

 technical part of painting among the Greeks and 

 Italians, see Hirt, in the Transactions of the Berlin 

 Academy, from 1798 to 1803, and Stieglitz, Ueber die 

 Malerfarben der Griechen und Romer (Leipsic, 1817). 

 Copies of antique pictures, particularly Roman ones, 

 are found in the works of Bartoli and Bellori (e. g. 

 Recueil des Peintures antiques, Paris, 1757 and 1784), 

 in which several fresco paintings (e. g. those found 

 in the casa di Pito) are described and copied ; also 

 in Carletti's and Pance's descriptions of the baths of 

 Titus, and in the collection of the antiquities of Her- 

 culaneum, and Millingen's Peintures antiques (Rome, 

 1813). 



The art of painting attained a greater perfection 

 after the introduction of Christianity ; nay, it became 

 predominant over the plastic art. In Christian or 

 modern times, sentiment, feeling, became a prominent 

 feature of works of art; and these can be expressed 

 much more easily and much more perfectly by colours 

 than by the rigid forms of sculpture. For this reason 

 the modern or Christian period has, in respect to the 

 line arts, been termed romantic, in contradistinction to 

 classic (q. v.) ; and for the same reason the art of 

 painting is called pre-eminently romantic, as is also 

 the modern art of music. The baron de Rumohr 

 maintains that the first application of the art of paint- 

 ing to Christian subjects took place in sepulchres. 

 The later Grecian school of art is generally con- 

 s' ilered as the common parent of the whole modern 

 art of painting in Europe. Properly speaking, it is 

 Uie transition from ancient to modern art. With 

 Constantine, modern art travelled to Constantinople, 

 which he founded on the site of the ancient Byzan- 

 tium (A. D. 330), and many pictures and statues 

 accompanied liim. (See Heyne in the Comment. Soc. 



Getting., vol. xi.) In the later period of paganism, 

 Greek and Roman art were so blended that no dif- 

 ference existed between them, until the conquest of 

 Italy by the Lombards. In the pictures of the time 

 of Justinian, the mechanical skill of forriier times was 

 preserved, though the art, in its higher requisites, 

 had deteriorated. (See Byzantine Art.) We often 

 find mention in this period of works in mosaic, and 

 encaustic painting seems still to have been in vogue. 

 (See Fiorillo's History of Painting, vol. L, p. 30.) 

 In the fourth century, and still more in the fifth, the 

 custom of placing pictures of saints in the churches 

 became more and more common, both in the Eastern 

 and Western church. This custom inspired the art- 

 ists with a new zeal, and the Christian religion, or, to 

 speak more properly, the Christian worship, became 

 the field in which the modern art grew and flour- 

 ished. Not unfrequently the art contributed to the 

 propagation of the religion. It suffered much, how- 

 ever, under the sway of barbarous tribes ; but it 

 never ceased entirely, and was fostered by the 

 popes and bishops. Pictures of a religious kind 

 were esteemed, particularly in the West, and 

 many legends of their supernatural origin were dif- 

 fused among the credulous. But from 726 the ico- 

 noclasts (q. v.) arose, and many Greek artists emi- 

 grated to Italy. Here the art was chiefly nourished ; 

 yet the painters diminished in number from the ninth 

 century. In the thirteenth century began a new 

 period of the art in Italy. The representatives of 

 the Italian school are Michel Angelo, Correggio, 

 Raphael, Titian, &c. Their endeavour was to pre- 

 sent the beautiful in the noblest forms, and to trans- 

 fer the ideal of the antique to the art of painting. 

 (See Italian Art.) Another branch of the Byzantine 

 art was the Rhenish or old Cologne school, which 

 extends from the fourteenth century to the fifteenth. 

 Its works have the decided stamp of the Byzantine 

 school, which ceases with the brothers Eyck, who 

 imitated nature. Their example was followed and 

 improved upon by Hemling, Meckenem, Michel 

 Wolgemuth, Martin Schon, and the painters of the 

 sixteenth century, Luke of Leyden, Alb. Diirer, 

 Schoreel, Mabuse, Bernard of Orley, &c. Some 

 maintain, that there are but two schools essentially 

 different,- the Italian and the Netherlandish,. while 

 the German, French, and British artists belong to 

 the one or the other, according to the character of 

 their works. (For the Netherlandish school, which 

 again was divided into the Dutch and Flemish, 

 see Netherlandish School; see also German and 

 French Art, in the articles Germany, and France.) 

 The true creator of modern landscape painting 

 was Giorgione, born 1477. The Flemish painter, 

 Mathew Brill, who is generally considered the founder 

 of this branch, painted landscapes seventy years later. 

 See Deperthes's Histoire de I' Art de Paysage de* 

 puis la Renaissance des Beaux Arts jusqu? au Xl'mc 

 Siecle (Paris, 1822), and Theorie du Paysage, by the 

 same. 



The endeavours of more recent times do not 

 form so connected a whole as the Greek art. For 

 some time the art of painting had sunk from its highest 

 destination ; landscape and portrait prevailed, and in 

 many countries continue to do so, while engravings 

 multiplied the master pieces of former ages. In 

 France, the revolution, and afterwards the warlike 

 period of Napoleon, gave birth to several great his- 

 torical paintings, some of which contain uncommon 

 beauties, though in general the style is not popular 

 out of France. The theory of painting has been 

 much developed in its technical parts, i. e. drawing, 

 perspective, colouring, c. more than in its higher de- 

 partments, which may be found treated of in the 

 works of Cennini, Leonardo da Vinci. Mengs, Alga- 



