By Mr. T. Gambier Parry. 



47 



that what the architect had left broad and flat should be maintained 

 so by the painter, by diapers, flat and conventional patterns, and 

 bold simple bands of colour. Of higher art, figure and subject 

 painting there is only the evidence of books. The paintings on 

 ancient vases and the remains at Pompeii are valuable indirect 

 evidences of what the course of classic art had been. Those vases 

 represent to us the perfect idea of Greek wall painting. The com- 

 position of subjects on those vases are commonly much too fine to 

 have originated with artists employed in a business comparatively 

 low. The inference is a fair one that those compositions are re- 

 peated from the works of the greatest artists on the temple walls. 

 The system of flat composition in wall painting was then universal. 

 There is a description by Pausanias of a work by Polygnotus, 

 painted about 450 B.C., in which the figures of a great subject 

 were in distinct groups one above the other. On the Greek and 

 Etruscan vases, the system of wall painting is admirably illustrated. 

 The most beautiful and expressive groups are there made subservient 

 to the architectural purpose. If those inferior works on mere pottery 

 were so fine, the great originals must have been admirable. The 

 system of painting was one of sufficient relief to satisfy the eye, 

 but not enough to disturb the dignity of the architecture. This 

 Polygnotus is said to have painted men better than they were, i.e. 

 he idealised his figures. And let it be remembered that the date 

 of Polygnotus was the date also of Phidias and of Ictinus, the 

 sculptor and the architect of the temples at Phigalea and at Athens, 

 the age of the zenith of Greek art, and themselves its greatest ex- 

 ponents. 



An artist is not to be measured by the high finish of his works. 

 The age of high finish and high relief in painting was the 

 turning point of classic art. Painting then asserted its individuality. 

 It was still admirable, but only for itself and by itself. By this 

 very assertion of individuality it dissevered itself from architecture. 

 True architectural ornamentation, whether by decorative design or 

 by high art figure painting, was at an end ; and the abuse of the 

 art of wall painting culminated in a certain Roman, Ludius, 

 who painted market scenes and stables, and cobbler's stalls, and 



