272 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



or panel-pictures (" tabulae"). Those on walls were generally 

 the work of inferior artists, who scarcely rose above the rank 

 of house-decorators ; and neither Ludius, nor any other wall- 

 painter, was of any great renown. Nor were his subjects of the 

 most elevated kind ; and Pliny says that Ludius took them 

 from common life, according to the taste of Ms customers ; 

 sometimes painting land or sea views (very similar to those 

 still repeated by the Greeks in Turkish houses) ; sometimes 

 presenting pic-nic parties approaching villas on asses, or 

 in carriages ; as well as fishing, vintage, and similar, scenes. 

 Thus, says Pliny, " there were no paintings on Apelles' house, 

 nor was it then customary to paint whole walls." Panel-pic- 

 tures had also this recommendation, that they could be easily 

 removed to some other place, or sold if their owners wished to 

 part with them, and might be rescued from fire. It was from 

 their being moveable that in after times, when Greece was 

 conquered by the Eomans, its valuable pictures were carried 

 away to Italy ; which, as Raoul-Eochette observes, accounts for 

 Pausanias saying so little of pictures in Greece ; the walls in 

 his time being left bare in consequence of that spoliation by 

 the conquerors. This sufficiently shows how little we can 

 judge of ancient Greek painters from the few frescoes which 

 remain, or from the works of late and inferior artists at 

 Pompeii ; and as the Greeks thought their painting equal to 

 their sculpture, we can only conclude that such good judges 

 of art did not form an erroneous estimate of the works of 

 their own great masters. 



Long before the destruction of Pompeii, painting had fallen 

 from its high position ; and house decoration had been spoilt 

 by the introduction of extravagant ornament. Already in 

 the Augustan age Vitruvius complained of the reeds for 

 columns, buildings standing on candelabra, and the masses of 

 red colour used in painting walls ; and we have seen what 

 was the' style of decoration at the same period adopted by 



