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on the colours used in painting by the Ancients. 
Vespasiano Augusto restituenti,” and it is not improbable, that 
these artists had a share in executing, or directing the execu- 
tion of the paintings and ornaments in the baths of Titus ; and 
at this period the works of Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Timanthes, 
Apelles, and Protagoras were exhibited in Rome, and must 
have guided the taste of the artists. The decorations of the 
baths were intended to be seen by torch light, and many of 
them at a considerable elevation, so that the colours were 
brilliant and the contrast strong ; yet still these works are 
regarded by connoisseurs as performances of considerable 
excellence: the minor ornaments of them have led to the 
foundation of a style in painting which might with much 
more propriety be called Romanesque than Arabesque : and 
no greater eulogy can be bestowed upon them than the use 
to which they have been applied by the greatest painter of 
modern times, in his exquisite performances in the Vatican. 
In these and in other works of the same age, the effect 
of the ancient models is obvious ; and the various copies 
and imitations that have been made of these remains of anti- 
quity have transferred their spirit into modern art, and left 
little to be desired as to those results which the skill of the 
painter can command. There remains, however, another use 
to which they may be applied, that of making us acquainted 
with the nature and chemical composition of the colours used by 
the Greek and Roman artists. The works of Theophrastus, 
Dioscorides, Vitruvius, and Pliny, contain descriptions of 
the substances used by the ancients as pigments ; but hitherto, 
I believe, no experimental attempt has been made to identify 
them, or to imitate such of them as are peculiar.* In the 
* In the 70th Volume of the Annales de Chinrie, page 22, M. Chaptal has 
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