PAINTING. 
2D8 
of the piece ; the outlines of the figure are traced with 
black ftrokes, and the colours are four in number; namely, 
blue, red, yellow, and green, laid on without any mix¬ 
ture or (hading. The red and blue" prevail mod ; and 
thofe colours feem to have been prepared in the coarfeft 
manner. The light is formed by leaving thofe parts of 
the ground where it is neceffary covered with the white- 
lead, as it is formed by the whitepaper in fome of our 
drawings. 
In Upper Egypt there feems to have exifted a kind of 
colofi'al painting, which has never been examined except 
by travellers who were no great critics in the art. Win- 
klemann had fome reafon to exprefs a defire that thofe re¬ 
mains of antiquity, with regard to the manner of work¬ 
ing, the ftyle, and the character, had been accurately ex¬ 
plored. Walls of twenty-four feet in height, and pillars 
of thirty-two feet in circumference, are wholly covered 
with thofe colofi'al figures. According to Norden, they 
are coloured in the fame manner wdth the mummies: the 
colours are applied to a ground prepared in manner of 
frefco; and they have retained their frefhnefs for many 
thoufand years. Winklemann adds, that all the efforts 
of human lkill and induftry could make as little impref- 
fion on them as the injuries of time. 
It appears that the chief employment of the Egyptian 
painters was on earthen vefi’els, on drinking cups, in or¬ 
namenting barges, and in covering with figures the chefts 
of mummies. They painted alfo on cloth ; and Pliny in¬ 
forms us that they likewife painted the precious metals; 
that is to fay, they varnifhed or enamelled them. It is 
doubtful what this art was, but mod probably it confifted 
in covering gold or filver with a fingle colour. 
But, in Egypt, the knowledge of what is mod definable 
in art, fele6lion, never appears to have operated Car. When 
a fpecific form of character was once adopted, there it 
remained, and was repeated unchanged for generations. 
Little action was given to figures, and no attempt at all 
at exprefiion. Pliny fays, that the ftatues made by the 
Egyptians in his time differed in no refpefl from thofe 
made by them a thoufand years before. Of their painting, 
a few figures remain to us ; but their date is by no means 
clear. Two of them, feen at Thebes, and defcribed by 
Bruce, are fuppofed by him to be of the time of Sefoflris, 
(about 700 years B.C.) who is faid to have beautified 
and reftored that city ; but this is mere conjefture. Of 
thefe paintings, he remarks, that they may be compared 
with good (ign-paintings of his day. 
The Perfians were fo far from excelling in the arts, that 
the paintings of Egypt were highly efteemed among them, 
after they had conquered that country. The carpets of Per- 
fiawere of great valueinGreece, even in thetimeof Alex¬ 
ander the Great, and thefe were adorned with various 
figures ; but this is no proof that they were well executed, 
anymore than a demand for feveralof the Chinefe pro- 
dufilions is at prefent a proof of the tafte of that people 
in the arts. It was the fabrication of the filk, and not the 
truth of the reprefentation, which made the Greeks ad¬ 
mire the carpets of the Perfians. 
The Perfians as well as the Arabians had fome know¬ 
ledge of mofaic-work. This is only valuable when it 
copies, in a manner that cannot be deftroyed, the works 
of a great mailer; but, if the Perfians had no good pic¬ 
tures to copy into mofaic, it was of no confequen.ce to be 
able to arrange in a folid manner pieces of flint one be- 
fide another. There is only one Perfian painter whofe 
name has defeended to pofterity ; and he is preferved, not 
becaufe he was a painter, but becaufe he accommodated 
the an cient dodlrine of the two principles to the Chriftian 
religion. Befides, it is doubted whether Munes was a 
Perfian or a Greek, and it is ftill lefs known whether he 
was a painter. He is praifed in Afia for drawing ftraight 
lines without a ruler. 
In the reign of Ninus and Semiramis, king and queen 
of Aflyria, about aooo years before the commencement 
of the Chriftian era, we have but a glimpfe of the art; 
and are then immerfed in the fame obfeurity as before, 
where nought but conjefilure, and arguments drawn from 
fubfequent events, are the guides. Diodorus Siculus re¬ 
lates, (lib. ii.) “ that Semiramis, having thrown a bridge 
over the Euphrates at Babylon, erefiled a caftle at each 
end of it, and enclofed them by three walls of confidera- 
ble height, with towers upon them thefe were built of 
brick, painted and burnt. Thefe paintings exhibit a 
very great advance in the arts for that early period; for 
he (ays, “ the bricks werepainted before they underwent 
the fire;”(fo that, if this account be correct, here was ena¬ 
mel as well as painting;) “and that not only there were fin¬ 
gle figures of animals reprefented in colours, but they 
were alfo combined in groups ; one, a hunting-piece of 
confiderable length, wherein the queen herfelf was repre¬ 
fented on horfeback, throwing her dart at a panther ; and 
near her Ninus (Irikinga lion to the earth with his fpear.” 
They were of great extent, covering walls, and towers at¬ 
tached to them. One other mention of painting is found 
in the fame author, concerning the fame period, and un¬ 
der the guidance of Semiramis ; and that is, of paintings 
in. the temple dedicated to Belus, and founded by her. 
In them were reprefented monftrous figures, exhibiting 
hermaphrodites and centaurs, or unnatural combina¬ 
tions, probably allufive to the idolatry of the time. 
Diodorus alfo mentions the fituation of the arts in Egypt 
at about the fame period, where probably they had at¬ 
tained nearly the fame degree of cultivation ; fculpture, 
as bed ferving religious purpofes, being in both countries 
carried much farther than the filler art of painting. 
From Egypt the arts were fuppofed to,have been tranf- 
planted to Greece, where a more genial culture awaited 
them; where they had not to druggie with fuch impedi¬ 
ments asarofe from the government and habits of Egypt; 
and where alone, in the more early period of the world, 
they are found to have been fully brought into afilion. In 
othercountries, where any trace is vifibie of them wrought 
before the Greeks had exhibited their power, the bed ex¬ 
emplars are little better than hieroglyphics; and, mod pro¬ 
bably, they never far exceeded the efforts of youthful 
learners of the prefent day. 
Itis, doubtleis, to the Greeks alone we are indebted for 
the highed cultivation which the imitative arts have 
known. In fculpture they attained fo high a pitch of ex¬ 
cellence, as to remain unrivalled to this moment; and it 
is probable that, as far as relates to the perfefl imitation 
of a fingle figure, in tade, in exprefiion, and in execution, 
the fame may be faid of their painting : but there is much 
reafon to conclude that, in many branches of that art, 
they are furpafled by the moderns. 
Pliny, after fmiling at the claims of the Egyptians, who 
faid that the art had been known and praftifed in Egypt 
6000 years before it was introduced into Greece, fays, 
that it was not prafilifed in Greece till after the fiege of 
Troy; a circumftance certainly not credible, if the dory 
above related of Semiramis be true; and if Homer be 
corre£l in imputing fo much of fculpture as he does to 
the artids of that period ; or the amufements of Penelope, 
of Andromache, and of Helen, at their looms, be at all 
founded in fa 61 . It is not probable that fo much of other 
arts, particularly of vveavingcoloured defigns, fliould exift, 
without fome advance being made at the only fource 
whence it is natural to imagine they could arife. It is 
vain to difeufs the point ; nor is it of much confequence 
whether it were at Corinth or at Sicyon that the pra6lice 
of drawing firft attradled particular notice. But, as Mr. 
Fufeli has beautifully obferved, in his firft lefilure, “if 
ever legend deferved our belief, the amorous tale of the 
Corinthian maid, who traced the (hadow of her depart¬ 
ing lover by the fecret lamp, appeals to our fympathy to 
grant it.” 
The firft eflays, then, of this delightful art, were merely 
outlines of a (hade, fuch as are ftill made ufe of in that 
agent of the fcience of phyfiognomy termed a filhouette; 
with no line within, no (hade, or colour ; and they were 
therefore 
