Process of Egyptian painting. It reached considerable excellence in England: of this, the windows of York Minster, the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, and the collegiate chapels and halls of Oxford, executed by native artists, afford sufficient proof. During the fifteenth cen tury it made great progress under Albert Durer, Lucas Van Leyden, and other eminent artists of that era. Among the celebrated works of this period, are the beautifully painted windo vs of the church of Gonda, by Dirk and Wonter Crabeth. declined in the sixteenth century, owing to the taste for fresco and oil-colours. But it was much used as a decoration for town-halls, the castles of the nobility, and heraldic emblazonry, &c. It was almost lost in the seventeenth, revived in a degree in the eighteenth, while about the beginning of the present century it was restored, with much of its pristine lustre, in Germany and France. Within a few years it has been cultivated in Great Britain and the United States Ancient Painting. EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL PAINTING. WE find the earliest traces of this art in Egypt. Egyptian painting seldom, if ever, attempts more than an outline of the object as seen in profile, such as would be obtained by its shadow. To this rude draught, colours are applied, simply, and without mixture, or blending, or the slightest indication of light and shade. The process seems to have been; first, the preparation Oriental specimens.-Earliest Greek school.-Homeric times. of the ground in white; next, the outline was firmly traced in black; and lastly, the flat colours were applied. The Egyptian artists employed six pigments, mixed with a gummy liquid— namely: white, black, red, blue, yellow, and green; the first always earthy, the remaining vegetable, or, at least, frequently transparent. The specimens from which we derive these facts, are the painted shrouds and cases of mummies, and the still more frequent examples on the walls of the tombs. It can furnish no evidence of extraordinary experience or practice, that these paintings still retain their colour, clear and fresh; the circumstance merely shows the aridity of the climate, and that the colouring matters were applied without admixture. In Hindoostan, Persia, and other oriental countries, the brilliancy and variety of the colours are the only recommendation of their specimens of this art. GRECIAN PAINTING. We find the oldest Greek school of painting on the coast of Asia Minor and the islands. Fortunate circumstances here gave an early impulse to the art, the rudiments of which we find, even in the Homeric times, in the coloured carpets and weavings. Homer speaks of painting as being part of the employment of the beauteous Helen, at the time of the siege of Troy, as well as the art of embroidery: "Meantime, to beauteous Helen, from the skies, The various goddess of the rainbow flies. Her in the palace at her loom she found: The golden web her own sad story crown'd, The Trojan wars the weaved, (herself the prize,) Materials. Form.-Colour.-Perspective. If Helen could draw the representation of a battle, it is probabls she knew how to fill up the outline with colours, and the exist ence of the rich tints of Tyre and Sidon proves, that they not only had a splendid variety of colours, but were also acquainted with their preparations. Single pieces of painting were usually executed by the ancients upon wood, and therefore called tabular. The wood of the larch-tree was preferred, on account of its durability, and its not being liable to warp. They painted more rarely upon linen, as in the colossal picture of Nero, mentioned by Pliny. The most cominon kind of painting was that upon plaster, which is now called Fresco painting. Drawing or painting on ivory or marble, was less common. Fresco painting was executed upon a moist, as well as a dry ground. In this last mode of painting, the colours were laid on with a peculiar sort of glue or size, since. in many pieces of this kind, they are so well fixed that a wet sponge may be passed over them without injury. The necessities of that idolatrous religion by which the Greeks were controlled, might, indeed, have alone required the exertion of all the talents the country could produce. In no other way is that immense advance to be explained which sculpture achieved before the art of painting, which was greatly influenced by this circumstance. Form predominated over the accuracy of colouring, and the expression which it conveys. The contour, and the local colours, seem to have been perfected in a great degree; the perspective, much less. Some, indeed, have doubted whether the ancients had any knowledge of perspective; but, as it is not to be dispensed with in any representation on a plane surface, and as the ancients were well acquainted with geometry and optics, we must suppose them to have possessed, in some limited degree, the use of perspective. It is more certain that they were Chiaroscuro.-Four periods of Grecian painting. ignorant of chiaroscuro, at least, until the time of Apollodorus. Landscape painting remained comparatively uncultivated. This branch depends, more than the others, on the rules of perspective, the perfection of colouring, and the charm of chiaroscuro. Pliny allows the ancients the use of but four colours, and yet, at other times, makes allusions which imply that their means were far more extensive. Their colours were, at least, both vivid and enduring. They employed a sort of varnish, called atramentum, to secure their paintings from the influence of the atmosphere. Their paintings were either moveable, or on the ceilings or compartments of buildings. Among the antiquities of Hercu laneum, are four paintings on white marble. The history of painting, among the Greeks, may be divided into four periods. The first terminated with Bularchus, the second period extends to Apollodorus, about 400 B. C. The third epoch ends with Apelles, who reached the acme of the art. The fourth period is dated from his time, and witnessed the decline of the art. FIRST PERIOD. In Pliny, we find an allusion to an artist, of the name of Daurius, who practised the earliest stage of the art. Cleanthes of Corinth, is, however, said to have been the inventor of drawing in outline. Ardices of the same city, and Telephon of Sicyon, the first who presented something more than the outline, and indicated light and shade. Charmades, the first who made a distinction in painting between light and shade. Subsequently came Eumanus, the Athenian, and Cymon of Cleonea, who advanced the art by giving a variety of attitude, attending to the folds of frapery, and marking the veins, joints, &c. Bularchus.-Second period.-Prizes. A representation of the defeat of the Magnesians, (790 B. C.,) by Bularchus, is the first considerable picture of which there is any record, yet the accounts which we have of it are, probably, exaggerated It was purchased by Candaules, king of Lydia, for its weight in gold. Bularchus appears to have been the first who employed various colours in his pictures. SECOND PERIOD. There seems to have been a great gap or chasm in the history of painting after the time of Bularchus, and the next allusion to the art seems to have been made by Anacreon, who, to express the abilities of any successful painter, said, "He is sovereign in the art which they cultivate at Rhodes." Hence we learn that the art must have flourished at Rhodes, in that era-about five hundred years before Christ. Phidias, the celebrated sculptor, is also cited by Pliny as eminent in the sister art of painting, and he flourished 445 years before our era. The brother of this illustrious ancient, Panænus, (or, according to others, Pannænsis,) acquired great reputation as a painter. He represented, in the temple of Jupiter Olympus, the subject of Atlas supporting the heaven and the earth, and Hercules offering to relieve him of his burden; and another of Greece and Salamis (an island in the neighbourhood of Athens) personified; together with many other pictures, the most famous of which was the Battle of Marathon, wherein, according to Pliny, the portraits of several generals, such as Miltiades, Callimachus, &c., might be recognized. We may observe that, even at this early period, prizes were contended for among the painters, Panænus having disputed, both at Corinth and at Delphos, with Timagorus of Chalsis. |