Pliny
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Apelles - the greatest painter of antiquity
Apelles
was early Hellenistic Greek painter whose work was held in such high esteem
by Pliny the Elder and other ancient writers on art that he continues to
be regarded, even though none of his work survives, as the greatest painter
of antiquity. He was appointed as court painter of Philip II and Alexander
III of Macedon. Descriptions of his works, inspired Italian Renaissance
artists to emulate them; Boticelli, etc.
He was
of Ionian origin from Cos. He became a student at the celebrated Dorian
school of Sicyon in southern Greece, where he worked under the painter
Pamphilus. His works are said to have combined Dorian thoroughness with
Ionic grace.
He has
used only four colours and avoided detailed perspective. Apelles' art reflects
simplicity of composition, beauty of line, and graceful charm of expression.
Apelles
was also noted for improvements in painting techniques. He used a dark
glaze, called
atramentum, that served both to preserve his paintings
and to soften their colour. He certanly was one of the boldest and most
imponent of artists of the Hellenistic and Roman times.
Apelles: flglio di Pytheas, di Efeso (Suid. Strab.
Luk. Herond.); La denominazione “Cous” (P1. Ovid.) derivò, con ogni
probabilità, da questi modi di dire: ‘Apelles quel di Coo’; “Apelles,
quello che ha fatto il quadro di Anadyomene a Coo”. Ebbe come maestro in
patria Ephoros di Efeso; da Sicione giunse in Macedonia, nella patria cioè
del suo maestro sicionio Pamphilos, non più tardi del 340; Alessandro
lo condusse poi seco in Asia, dove si fermò in Efeso; mori, pare,
a Coo (PFUHL, p. 736). Non può dirsi fondatore o anche soltanto
rappresentante di una scuola pittorica ionica, ma neanche esser considerato
come puro sicionio. L’essenza storica di A. è già ben còlta
e condensata in due osservazioni antiche, le quali potranno ben risalire
agli scrittori tecnici del III secolo, ma che a ogni modo riassumevano
il sentimento e il giudizio dei Greci su Apelles; quella di Plutarco (Arat.
13), secondo Ia quale egli cercö a Sicione piuttosto la fama che la
techne (…); e quella di Quintiliano (12, 10, 6; cfr. PLUT. Dem. 22): <ingenio
et gratia... praestantissimus>. I1 suo ingegno naturale - di individuo
e di razza - era assai diverso e, in ogni modo, di gran lunga più
ampio e ampiveggente delle regole della scuola egli, con quello spirito
di adattamento e di assimilazione che contraddistingue spesso il genio,
accostô e adattô la sua esuberanza e graziosa leggiadria ioniche
entro la cornice razionalistica, intellettuale, scientifica dei Sicionii,
senza rinunziare a nessuna delle caratteristiche naturali, e senza respinger
nessuna delle leggi della Sofistica applicata alle arti. Puô dirsi
pertanto che A. cercö di rivivere artisticamente ed assommare tutte
le tendenze e tutti gli elementi dell’arte greca (PFUHL, p. 735). Apelles
scrisse al suo scolaro Perseus intorno at. la pittura; probabilmente la
pittura sua, i suoi c~noni artistici contrapposti a quelli degli altri
pittori (35, 111); da quest’opera possiamo pensar derivati i giudizi su
Protogenes Melanthios Asklepiodoros di 80. Meno attendibile e l’ipotesi
che anche gli aneddoti ne derivino; questi, ripetuti a sazietà per
Apelles e per tanti altri, in vane epoche e in ambienti varii, o furon
raccolti e coordinati da Duride Samio e di li poi passarono nelle opere
di Antigonos Caristio, o facevan parte della tradizione artigiana e si
trasmettevano oralmente di bottega in bottega (KALKMANN, Quellen, 154 sgg.;
PFuHL, p. 738, 744). — Illam suam Venerem: anche in greco (..) LuK. Scyth.
11; queste frasi e quelle del paragrafo seguente possono considerarsi frammenti
della sua opera; Plutarco (Demelr. 22) adopera. quasi le stesse parole
della fonte di Plinio: (..)(Ov. 1921).
It was Apelles of Cos who surpassed all the painters that preceded
and all who were to come after him; he dates in the 112th Olympiad. He
singly contributed almost more to painting than allthe other artists put
together, also publishing volumes containing the principles of painting.
His art was unrivalled for graceful charm, although other very great painters
were his contemporaries. Although he admired their works and gave
high praise to all of them, he used to say that they lacked the glamour
that his work possessed, the quality denoted by the Greek word charis,
and
that although they had every other merit, in that alone no one was his
rival. He also asserted another claim to distinctiontion when he
expressed his admiration for the immensely laborious and infinitely meticulous
work of Protogenes; for he said that in all respects hi achievements and
those of Protogenes were on level, or those of Protogenes were superior,
but tha in one respect he stood higher, that he knew when to take his hand
away from a picture a noteworthy warning of the frequently evil effects
of excessive diligence. The candour of Apelles was however equal to his
artistic skill he used to acknowledge his inferiority to Melanthius in
grouping, and to Asclepiodorus in nicety of measurement, that is in the
proper space to be left between one object and another.
Protogenes and Apelles
A
clever incident took place between Protogenes and Apelles. Protogenes
lived at Rhodes and Apelles made the voyage there from a desire to make
himself acquainted with Protogenes’s works as that artist was hitherto
only known to him by reputation. He went at once to his studio. The artist
was not there but there was a panel of considerable size on the easel prepared
for painting, which was in the charge of a single old woman. In
answer to his enquiry, she told him that Protogenes was no at home, and
asked who it was she should report a having wished to see him. “Say it
was this person”, said Apelles, and taking up a brush he painted incolour
across the panel an extremely fine line and when Protogenes returned the
old woman showed him what had taken place. The story goes that the artist,
after looking closely at the finish of this, said that the new arrival
was Apelles, as s perfect a piece of work tallied with nobody else and
he himself, using another colour, drew a still finer line exactly on the
top of the first one, am leaving the room told the attendant to show it
to the visitor if he returned and add that this was the person he was in
search of; and so it happened; for Apelles came back, and, ashamed to be
beaten, cut, i.e. drew a yet finer line on the top of the other two lines
with another in a third color, leaving no room for any further display
of minute work. Hereupon Protogenes admitted he was defeated, and flew
down to the harbor to look for the visitor; and he decided that the panel
should be handed on to posterity as it was, to be admired as a marvel by
everybody, but particularly by artists. I am informed that it was burnt
in the first fire which occurred in Caesar’s palace on the Palatine; it
had A.D. 4.
been previously much admired by us, on its vast surface
containing nothing else than the almost invisible lines, so that among
the outstanding works of many artists it looked like a blank space, and
by that very fact attracted attention and was more esteemed than any masterpiece.
Moreover
it was a regular custom with Apelles never to let a day of business to
be so fully occupied that lie did not practise his art by drawing a line,
(i.e. probably an outline of some object) which has passed from him into
a proverb: Nulla dies sine linea.
The shoemaker
Another
habit of his was when he had finished his works to place them in a gallery
in the view of passers by, and he himself stood out of sight behind the
picture and listened to hear what faults were noticed, rating the public
as a more observant critic than himself. And it is said that he was found
fault with by a shoemaker because in drawing a subject’s sandals he
had represented the loops in them as one too few, and the next day the
same critic was so proud of the artist’s correcting the fault indicated
by his previous objection that he found fault with the leg, but Apelles
indignantly looked out from behind the picture and rebuked him, saying
that a shoemaker in his criticism must not go beyond the sandal - a remark
that has also passed into a proverb: Ne sutor ultra carpidam!
Alexander the Great
In
fact he also possessed great courtesy of manners, which made him more agreeable
to Alexander the Great, who frequently visited his studio - for, as we
have said, Alexander had published an edict forbidding any other artist
to paint his portrait; but in the studio Alexander used to talk a great
deal about painting without any real knowledge of it, and Apelles would
politely advise him to drop the subject, saying that the boys engaged in
grinding the colors were laughing at him : so much power did his authority
exercise over a King who was otherwise of an irascible temper.
Pancaspe
- Aphrodite Anadyomene
And yet Alexander conferred honor on him
in a most conspicuous instance; he had such an admiration for the beauty
of his favorite mistress, named Pancaspe, that he gave orders that
she should be painted in the nude by Apelles, and then discovering that
the artist while executing the commission had fallen in love with the woman,
he presented her to him, greatminded as he was and still greater owing
to his control of himself, and of a greatness proved by this action as
much as by any other victory: because he conquered himself, and presented
not only his bedmate but his affection also to the artist, and was not
even influenced by regard for the feelings of his favorite in having been
recently the mistress of a monarch and now belonged to a painter. Some
persons believe that she was the model from which the Aphrodite Anadyomene
(Rising from the Sea) was painted. It was Apelles also who, kindly
among his rivals, first established the reputation of Protogenes at Rhodes.
Protogenes was held in low esteem by his fellow-countrymen, as is usual
with home products, and, when Apelles asked him what price he set on some
works he had finished, he had mentioned some small sum, but Apellcs made
him an offer of fifty talents for them, and spread it about that he was
buying them with the intention of selling them as works of his own. This
device aroused the people of Rhodes to appreciate the artist, and Apelles
only parted with the pictures to them at an enhanced price.
He
also painted portraits so absolutely lifelike that, incredible as it sounds,
the grammarian Apio has left it on record that one of those persons called
‘physiognomists,’
(metoposkopoz)
who
prophesy people’s future by their countenance, pronounced from their portraits
either the year of the subjects’ deaths hereafter or the number of years
they had already lived.
Ptolemy and Antigonus
Apelles
had been on bad terms with Ptolemy in Alexander’s retinue. When this Ptolemy
was King of Egypt, Apelles on a voyage had been driven by a violent storm
into Alexandria. His rivals maliciously suborned the King’s jester to convey
to him an invitation to dinner, to which he came. Ptolemy was very indignant,
and paraded his hospitality-stewards for Apelles to say which of them had
given him the invitation. Apelles picked up a piece of extinguished charcoal
from the hearth and drew a likeness on the wall, the King recognizing the
features of the jester as soon as he began the sketch. He also painted
a portrait of King Antigonus (382 –301BC) who was blind in one eye, and
devised an original method of concealing the defect, for he did the likeness
in ‘threequarter,’ so that the feature that was lacking in the subject
might be thought instead to be absent in the picture, and he only showed
the part of the face which lie was able to display as unmutilated.
Famous paintings
Among his works there are also pictures of persons at the point of
death. But it is not easy to say which of his productions are of the highest
rank. His Aphrodite emerging from the Sea was dedicated by his late
lamented Majesty Augustus in the Shrine of his father Caesar; it is known
as the
Anadyomene; this like other works is eclipsed a yet made
famous by the Greek verses which sing its praises; the lower part of the
picture having become damaged nobody could be found to restore it, but
the actual injury contributed to the glory of the artist. This picture
however suffered from age and rot, and Nero when emperor substituted
another for it, a work by
Dorotheus. Apelles had also begun on another
Aphrodite
at Cos, which was to surpass even his famous earlier one; but death grudged
him the work when only partly finished, nor could anybody be found to carry
on the task, in conformity with the outlines of the sketches prepared.
He also painted
Alexander the Great holding a Thunderbolt, in the
temple of Artemis at Ephesus, for a fee of twenty talents in gold.
The fingers have the appearance of projecting from the surface and the
thunderbolt seems to stand out from the picture - readers must remember
-
that
all these effects were produced by four colours; the artist received the
price of this picture in gold coin measured by weight of the panel not
counted. He also painted a ‘Procession of the Magabyzus’, the priest
of Artemis of Ephesus, a ‘Clitus with Horse’ hastening into
battle; and an armour-bearer handing someone a helmet at his command. How
many times he painted Alexander and
Philip it would be superfluous
to recount. His ‘Habron at Samos’ is much admired, as is his Menander,
King
of Caria, at Rhodes, likewise his Antaeus, and at Alexandria
his Gorgosthenes the Tragic Actor, and at Rome his Castor and
Pollux with Victory and Alexander the Great, and also his figure of
War with the Hands Tied behind, with Alexander riding in Triumph in
his Chariot. 130th of these pictures his late lamented Majesty Augustus
with restrained good taste had dedicated in the most frequented parts of
his forum; the emperor Claudius however thought it more advisable to cut
out the face of Alexander from both works and substitute portraits of Augustus.
The Heracles with Face Averted in the temple of Diana is also believed
to be by his hand—so drawn that the picture more truly displays Heracles’
face than merely suggests it to the imagination - a very difficult achievement.
He also painted a ‘Nude Hero’, a picture with which he challenged
Nature herself. There is, or was, a picture of a Horse by him, painted
in a competition, by which he carried his appeal for judgement from mankind
to the dumb quadrupeds; for perceiving that his rivals were getting the
better of him by intrigue, he had some horses brought and showed them their
pictures one by one; and the horses only began to neigh when they saw the
horse painted by Apelles; and this always happened subsequently, showing
it to be a sound test of artistic skill. He also did a ‘Neoptolemus
on Horseback fighting against the Persians’, an ‘Archelaus with
his Wife and Daughter’, and an ‘Antigonus with a Breastplate
marching with his horse at his side’. Connoisseurs put at the
head of all his works the portrait of the same king seated on horseback,
and his ‘Artemis in the midst of a band of Maidens offering a Sacrifice’,
a work by which he may be thought to have surpassed Homer’s verses (Odyssey,
VI, 102) describing the same subject. He even painted things
that cannot be represented in pictures - thunder, lightning and thunderbolts,
the pictures known respectively under the Greek titles of Bronte, Astrape
and Ceraunobolia.
inventions in the art
His
inventions in the art of painting have been useful to all other painters
as well, but there was one which nobody was able to imitate: when his works
were finished he used to cover them over with a black varnish of such thinness
that its very presence, while its reflexion threw up the brilliance of
all the colours and preserved them from dust and dirt, was only visible
to anyone who looked at it close up, but also employing great calculation
of lights, so that the brilliance of the colours should not offend the
sight when people looked at them as if through museovy-glass and so that
the same device from a distance might invisibly give sombreness to colours
that were too brilliant.