PAINTING—ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY.

BY WILLIAM WALCUTT.

There is no doubt of painting being coeval with written language, or it may be said, that the simple representation of figures, on tablets prepared for the purpose, were the first means used by men to record particular events, actions, and so forth, and may therefore be dated back farther than any written language; and, indeed, may be considered the foundation from which it sprung, it being not improbable, because it is so natural, that the very first dwellers on the earth may have recorded their young history by means of representations of corporeal objects.

Many will say that such rude delineations were not painting, but everything has its beginning. From these simple lines has the perfection of painting sprung, what Artist does not remember the feeble attempts he made at representations when but a child; does he not remember them with pleasure, and did he not then, and does he not now, consider them, feeble as they were, paintings? The first efforts at delineation were painting, without regard to color, or without regard to their truth in delineation. The origin of what may now be called painting, as an art instructive or decorative, is altogether involved in obscurity—authorities differing widely on the subject. Pliny dates its invention to a period antecedent to the siege of Troy, and other writers after. The Egyptians boasted of possessing the art six thousand years before the Greeks, but this has always been doubted. They certainly practised painting at a very early period, and Cambyses destroyed all the monuments of art he found in Egypt, as much as was in his power, which is some argument in favor of the statement; and hence all such monuments as display specimens of the art, must be posterior to his invasion. The remains of Egyptian painting, now extant, are but poor representations of the human, and other figures, showing a meagre advance in the art, being weakly and falsely drawn with no natural grouping or attempts at sentiment. The Phœnicians were an early cultivated people, and have the credit of first inventing letters, and therefore may, by the best authority, lay claim to the invention of painting. King Solomon, one thousand years before Christ, held their ingenuity in such high regard, that he employed them as the master workmen in building his temple, and the scriptures describe the magnificence of the columns and their capitals, and the borders and cornishes and the doors, besides the great brazen sea, supported by twelve oxen. The coins also of this people, that have come down to us, show in design, and execution, a good condition in the arts.

The scriptures abound in references to the arts. When Jacob took away the daughter of Laban, she stole and secreted from search some of her father's household gods. One of the great commandments, is that the children of Israel shall "not make unto themselves any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth." As before mentioned, the temple of Solomon appears to have been richly and elaborately decorated with works of art; and the IV chapter Ezekiel commences with these words: "Thou also son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem." And in the XXIII chapter, 14 verse, it is written thus: "For when she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles about their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads." Also in the VII chapter, 10 verse: "So I went in and saw and beheld every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about." Also in Numbers XXXIII chapter and 52 verse: "Then he shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images."

The Persians, the Arabians, and the Parthians, from their peculiar education, have no claims whatever to the art of painting, a rude representation of the human figure, with them, was considered as vulgar as the appearance of a naked person. Their figures are almost invariably clothed in clumsy draperies, profusely painted. They were worshippers of fire, and used no representations of their deity; and it is a curious fact, that, in their successful invasion of Egypt, they carried away with them no taste for the arts, or imbibed any of the religious principles of that polytheistic country.

The art of painting appears to have remained in the same state in China, without any particular change from time immemorial. They have never attempted anything beyond mere imitation, and that entirely devoid of taste or truth. The human figure, with them, is a ludicrous deformity, and their perspective is gained, by piling one object above another, until the picture as all ground and no sky. Invention and Imagination were never known among them; and, although the elaborateness of many of their works is astonishing, yet with such a people, it would be useless to look for the origin and progress of art.

The arts of the Etruscans are famous for the vases they produced. Etruria, in its ancient state, was one of the most powerful and civilized countries in Italy. Though the history of this nation is involved in obscurity, as the Romans tried every means in their power to destroy all its claims to refinement, yet there are sufficient proofs remaining of the height and perfection to which they carried the fine arts. Near the town of Civita Vecchia stood the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia, near which are found numbers of sepulchral grottoes, many of which are decorated with paintings and figures much in the style of those on the Etruscan vases. Some of the pictures represent combats, and others dances of females, executed with considerable spirit. The pottery before mentioned, however, affords the greatest number of their specimens of the art of design; the forms displayed in the contour of the vases, no less than the paintings with which they are decorated, show the wonderful attainment in elegance of design, purity of form, and ingenuity of delineation. The power over line, and the facility of execution they reached, may be easily conceived from the absorbent nature of the material upon which they wrought. No retouching was possible; but the whole must have been completely arranged in the mind of the artist before it could be struck off. Pliny states, that in his day, the town of Ardea, an ancient city of Etruria, contained some paintings which he ascribes to a period anterior to the founding of Rome, and mentions with surprise their then perfect state of preservation. At Lacurium also, he describes some pictures of Atalanta and Helen, which were simply painted on the wall, and exhibited great merit in execution. These Caligulo, after a fruitless attempt, failed in removing. Cere, another Etruscan city, boasted some paintings of an early date. All these specimens, although of remote date, have no positive clue by which to ascertain anything positive as to the origin of the art of painting. And we are obliged to turn to Greece for the foundation from whence sprung works still the admiration of the world.

Religion was the motive of Greek art; it was, therefore, natural that they should endeavor to invest their own authors, for they considered themselves of divine origin, with the most perfect forms; and as man possessed that exclusively, they completely and thoroughly studied the elements of his constitution. The climate was favorable to the development of that form, and the establishment of exercises by their civil and political institutions, created models in nature, which elevated Greek art to the highest excellence.

The next step of the art was the monogram, which is the outline of figures without light or shade, with the addition, however, of parts within the outline. From this the monochrom, or painting with a single color, and a white ground, then covered with punic wax, first amalgamated with a resinous pigment generally of a red, sometimes of a dark brown or black color, was the next advance. Through this inky ground, the outlines were traced with a firm though plyant style, called a cestrum: the line could be altered by the finger or a sponge, and easily replaced by a new one. When the whole was settled, it was suffered to dry, and covered with a brown encaustic varnish; the lights were worked over again, and rendered more brilliant with a more delicate point, according to the gradual advance from mere outline to some indication; and at last to masses of light and shade—thence to the superinduction of different colors, or the invention of polychrom, which, by the addition of the pencil to the style, raised the stained drawing to a legitimate picture, and at length produced that vaunted harmony—"the magic scale of Grecian color."

The period at which the pencil supplanted the cestrum cannot be ascertained. Apollodorus in the 93d Olympiad, and Zeuxis, in the 94th, are said to have used it with freedom and power. Parrhasins painted the battle of the Lapithtæ and centaurs on the shield of Minerva for Phidias, to enable Mys to chase it. It was nearly a century after this that Appelles and Protogenes had a competition in drawing lines with the pencil, in which "delicacy and evanescent subtlety being the characteristic, some notion of their mechanical skill may be formed."

Encaustic painting was accomplished by using the colors in wax, as they are used now in oil, drying them by a fire, and polishing the surface by dry friction.

Polygnotus is the first great name that appears in history, that any satisfactory data of the arts may be commenced from. He lived about 400 years B. C. So great was his success in the Pœcile at Athens, and the Desche, or public hall at Delphi, that in a great council of the Amphyctons, it was solemnly decreed "that his expenses, whenever he travelled in Greece, should be borne at the public charge." His pictures were admired by Pliny, at the distance of six hundred years.

The first painting on record is the battle of Magnete, by Balarchus, and purchased by Candaules, King of Lydia, for its weight in gold, or, as some say, a quantity of gold coins equal to its surface.

After Aglaophon, Phidias, Panenus, Colotes, and Evenor, the father of Parrhasins, came Apollodorus, the Athenian. This painter applied the essential principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species, by investigating the leading forms that discriminate the different classes of human qualities and passions. The acuteness of his taste led him to discover, that, as all men were connected by one general form, so were they separated by some peculiar individuality. Pliny and Plutarch considered Apollodorus as the first colorist of his age, and it is very probable, by their descriptions, that he was the inventor of local color and tone. Zeuxis succeeded to Apollodorus, and by uniting in one figure the most perfect parts of many models, produced an ideal form, which, in his opinion, constituted the supreme degree of human beauty. Lucian describes a picture he exhibited at the Olympic Games as remarkable for its invention. It represented a female centaur, suckling her young. It was carried off from Athens by Sylla, but lost on the voyage to Italy.

Parrhasins, a native of Ephesus, but a citizen of Athens, was the son of a disciple of Evenor, and contemporary of Zeuxis. By his subtle examination of outline, "he established that standard of divine and heroic form, which raised him to the authority of a legislator, from whose decisions there was no appeal." He was a thorough master of allegory, from the fact of his embodying by signs, universally understood, the Athenian people. In a competition with Timanthes, he had the mortification of being declared, by a majority of votes, inferior to him. The subject for competition, was the contest of Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles.

The sacrifice of Iphigenia in Aulis, by Timanthes, acquired the greatest celebrity of all the ancient pictures. Quintilian says that it was painted in contest with Colotes of Teos—an artist from the school of Phidias, and crowned with victory at its rival exhibition. This picture, which has been the subject of unlimited praise by the ancient critics, has been in modern times objected to, from the circumstance of Timanthes hiding the face of Agamemnon, the father of the victim, to be immolated in his mantle, unable, as it was supposed by his art, to express the entire agony of his grief. Sir Joshua Reynolds observes thus: "If difficulties overcome make a great part of the merit of art, difficulties evaded can deserve but little commendation." The French critic Falconet, has also condemned the artifice. But Fuseli answers these objections very reasonably by saying,—"The subject of Timanthes was the immolation of Sphigenia. Sphigenia was the principal figure, and her form, her resignation, or her anguish, was the painter's principal task; the figure of Agamemnon, however important, is merely accessary, and no more necessary to make the subject completely tragic, than that of Dytemnestra, the mother—no more than that of Priam, to impress us with sympathy at the death of Polyxenia." Again, "they ascribe to impotence what was the forbearance of judgment." Timanthes felt like a father; he did not hide the face of Agamemnon, because it was beyond the power of his art—not because it was beyond the possibility, but because it was beyond the dignity of expression—because the inspiring feature of paternal affection at that moment, and the action which of necessity must have accompanied it, would either have destroyed the grandeur of the character, and the solemnity of the scene, or subject the painter, with the majority of his judges, to the imputation of insensibility. The same expedient was resorted to by M. Angelo, in the figure of Abijam, and by Raphael in the expulsion from paradise.

These were the artists who formed the second school of art, and established its end and limits. On it was founded the third period of style, in which refinement induced a grace and beauty not to be surpassed. The masters of this period were—Appelles, Protogenes, Aristides, Euphranor, Pausius, and the pupils of Pamphilius, and his master Eupompus. The last named artist was of Sicyon; and his authority was so great, that out of the Asiatic and Grecian chords of painting he formed a third, by dividing the last into the attic and Sicyonian. Pliny says that, when consulted by Zysippus on a standard of imitation in art, he pointed to the crowd passing by—observing that nature, not an artist, should be the object of imitation. Pamphilius, a Macedonian, the master of Appelles, adopted the doctrines of Eupompus. To the art of painting, he joined the study of mathematics, and held, that, without the aid of geometry, no artist could arrive at any perfection. In Appelles, we are told by Pliny, unrivalled excellence was found. Grace was his powerful and peculiar faculty, in which he surpassed all his predecessors. His Venus Anadyomene, which was long after purchased by Augustus for one hundred talents, or £20,000 sterling, was esteemed the most faultless creation of the Grecian pencil, the most perfect example of that simple yet unapproachable grace of expression, of symmetry of form, and exquisite finish, in which may be summed up the distinctive beauties of his genius. Hotogenes was next to him in merit. The most celebrated of his works was his figure of Jalysus, with his dog, which occupied him seven years. Aristides, of Theles, and cotemporary of Appelles, was the first, who, by the rules of art, obtained a perfect knowledge of expressing the passions and affections of the mind. In one figure, he expressed the anguish of maternal affection, and the pangs of death. Euphranor, the Isthmian, and pupil of Aristides, is said to have carried this refinement of expression still further. Skilled in Sculpture, as well as in Painting, his conceptions were noble and elevated; his style masculine and bold; and he was the first who distinguished himself, by imparting majesty to his heroes.

Asclepiodorus, the Athenian sculptor, as well as painter, was as the latter, celebrated for the beauties of a correct style, and the truth of his proportions. Appelles allowed himself to be, in these respects, as much his inferior to this artist as he was to Amphion on the good ordering and disposition of his figures. About this period appeared Nichomachus, Nichophanes, Pyreicas and others. Nichias, an Athenian, 322 B. C., was in great repute for the great variety and noble choice of his subjects, for the mode of distributing his lights and shadows, and for great skill in the representation of animals. In Rome, 300 B. C., Fabius, a noble Roman, painted the Temple of Health, and gloried so much in the art, that he assumed the name of Pictor. Without a further enumeration of masters, for a long period after the reigns of Vespasian and his son Titus, painting, as well as sculpture, continued to flourish in Italy. Even under their successors Domitian, Nerva and Trojan, they met with as much encouragement as they did in the most palmy days of Greece, although painting was used in mere ornamental decorations—that is, to a great extent, and artists had sunk, for the most part, to the standard of mere mechanics. Under Adrian, Antonine, Alexander Severns, Constantine, and Valentinian, the art of painting continued to be an object of interest; but at length, in the reign of Phocus, with the fall of the Empire, with the rest of the noble arts and sciences, it was involved in the common heap of ruins.

(To be continued.)