ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 231 



destroy the infant while he was yet in his cradle. But nothing 

 daunted, the child seized them in both his hands, and squeezed 

 them to. death. The terror of the mother and the fright of the 

 attendants, contrasted with the fearlessness of the infant prodigy, 

 made this a long noted painting. Zeuxis also represented 

 Jupiter seated on his Olympian throne, and all the other gods 

 doing him reverence. It was as grand a subject as some of the 

 gorgeous scenes of Paul Veronese. A Helen, a Penelope, and 

 an Alcmena, were some of the minor works of this same master. 



There was once a contest between him and Parrhasius, which 

 should produce the most life-like picture. The two brought 

 their productions Zeuxis, a vine and some clusters of grapes, so 

 perfectly natural that when exposed the birds flew and pecked at 

 them for genuine fruit. Elated with his success, he called to his 

 rival to remove the curtain from before his picture. But when 

 lie found that this curtain was only a painting, he acknowledged 

 himself fairly beaten; for. he had only deceived the birds, 

 whereas Parrhasius had deceived an experienced artist. 



Zeuxis once painted a boy carrying a basket of grapes. The 

 birds also in this instance, when they saw it, flew to the basket 

 for the fruit. The painter, exulting in his triumph, was however 

 a good deal mortified when his rivals reminded him that the boy 

 had not deceived the birds, else they never would have dared to 

 fly to his basket. 



Parrhasius is acknowledged to have made notable advances in 

 what was always the great aim and strife of the classic painters 

 and sculptors, that is to endow the forms of their gods with such 

 a perfection of human excellence, each in some one direction of 

 development, as clearly to show them superhuman. He it was 

 who could prescribe the limits of variation from the ordinary 

 type of mortals, that heros and gods might take on both in 

 picture and statue. His canon of proportions was the law for 

 all subsequent artists. As one instance, it is mentioned that he 

 gave to Jupiter that peculiar inclination of the head, a certain 

 higher elevation of the neck behind, a bolder protrusion of the 

 front, and an increased perpendicular of the. profile, so that he 

 seemed actually to be giving the awful nod which shook the uni- 

 verse, and made gods and men alike to tremble. 



