Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXXV. AN ACCOUNT OF PAINTINGS AND COLOURS., CHAP. 5.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE ART OF PAINTING. MO- NOCHROME PAINTINGS. THE EARLIEST PAINTERS.

Home Collections/Texts Perseus Catalog Research Grants Open Source About Help

Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:

This text is part of:

Greek and Roman Materials

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View text chunked by:

book : chapter

CHAP. 5.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE ART OF PAINTING. MO- NOCHROME PAINTINGS. THE EARLIEST PAINTERS.

We have no certain knowledge as to the commencement of the art of painting, nor does this enquiry fall under our consideration. The Egyptians assert that it was invented among themselves, six thousand years before it passed into Greece; a vain boast, it is very evident.¹ As to the Greeks, some say that it was invented at Sicyon, others at Corinth; but they all agree that it originated in tracing lines round the human shadow.² The first stage of the art, they say, was this, the second stage being the employment of single colours; a process known as "monochromaton,"³ after it had become more complicated, and which is still in use at the present day. The invention of line-drawing has been assigned to Philocles, the Egyptian, or to Cleanthes⁴ of Corinth. The first who practised this line-drawing were Aridices, the Corinthian, and Telephanes, the Sicyonian, artists who, without making use of any colours, shaded the interior of the outline by drawing lines;⁵ hence, it was the custom with them to add to the picture the name of the person represented. Ecphantus, the Corinthian, was the first to employ colours upon these pictures, made, it is said, of broken earthenware, reduced to powder. We shall show on a future⁶ occasion, that it was a different artist of the same name, who, according to Cornelius Nepos, came to Italy with Demaratus, the father of the Roman king, Tarquinius Priscus, on his flight from Corinth to escape the violence of the tyrant Cypselus.

1 This period for the invention of painting by the Egyptians is evidently incorrect; but still there is sufficient reason for concluding that there now exist specimens of Egyptian art, which were in existence previous to the time of the earliest Grecian painters of whom we have any certain account.—B.

2 All the ancients who have treated of the history of the art agree, that the first attempt at what may be considered the formation of a picture, consisted in tracing the shadow of a human head or some other object on the wall, the interior being filled up with one uniform shade of colour.—B.

3 From the Greek μονοχρώματον "single colouring."—B.

4 He is mentioned also by Athenagoras, Strabo, and Athenæus.

5 Called "graphis," by the Greeks, and somewhat similar, probably, to our pen and ink drawings.

6 In Chapter 43 of this Book.—B.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

Cross-references to this page (9):
- Harper's, Monogrammăta
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), ATHLE´TAE
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), CERO´MA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CORINTHUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ROMA
- Smith's Bio, A'rdices
- Smith's Bio, Are'gon
- Smith's Bio, Cleanthes
- Smith's Bio, Cleophantus
Cross-references in notes to this page (1):
- Strabo, Geography, Strab. 6.2
Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (5):
- LSJ, κήρ-ωμα
- Lewis & Short, cērōma
- Lewis & Short, īcas
- Lewis & Short, vīcēsĭmus
- Lewis & Short, vultus

Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar:

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

This text is part of:

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View text chunked by:

Table of Contents:

CHAP. 5.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE ART OF PAINTING. MO- NOCHROME PAINTINGS. THE EARLIEST PAINTERS.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

This text is part of:

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View text chunked by:

Table of Contents:

CHAP. 5.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE ART OF PAINTING. MO- NOCHROME PAINTINGS. THE EARLIEST PAINTERS.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.