230 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST AKTS. 



tree." Shortly after this time, Cimon, the Cleonian, is mentioned 

 as being able to paint the sexes so that they could be distin- 

 guished, and faces looking side ways or up or down, and could 

 make folds in drapery, and show the veins and muscles. He was 

 the first one apparently who could dispense with the labels on 

 his works. 



Then followed Paneenus, the brother of the great sculptor 

 Phidias, who painted the battle of Marathon, and introduced the 

 portraits of the chief leaders on both sides, so well executed that 

 they could be recognized by those who had ever seen them 

 living. 



Polygnotus was the first who painted w r ith more than one 

 color. He used four, red, yellow, blue and black. He flourished 

 about 450 B. C. ; and his great triumph was that he put expres- 

 sion in the face, and kindled up the fire of life and passion in 

 the human form. He was the Prometheus of art. Under his 

 hand the bright smile of beauty, and the lovely form of woman, 

 veiled with flowing or transparent drapery, first appeared on the 

 painter's tablets. 



We have now reached the time when the famous pictures of 

 antiquity began to be produced. We will mention and describe 

 some of them, in order to show the high advance in art. 



Apollodorus painted Ajax defying the lightning. On the 

 night of the downfall of Troy, Cassandra, priestess and daughter 

 of Priam, fled for protection to the temple of Minerva. But 

 despite the sacredness of the place, she was there exposed to the 

 brutality of Ajax, the boldest and the rudest of the Grecian 

 chieftains. To punish him for this sacrilege, Minerva borrowed 

 the thunderbolts of Jupiter, and pursued him returning to his 

 home. His vessel was wrecked in one of the wildest of storms ; 

 but he swam to a solitary rock in the sea, and there in his wrath 

 defied all the lightnings of Heaven. Minerva carried him off in 

 a whirlwind. We are told, and may well believe, that this was a 

 magnificent painting. 



Zeuxis painted the infant Hercules strangling the serpents. 

 This valorous demi-god was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena. 

 Juno, always jealous of these side issues, sent two serpents to 



