PICTU´RA
PICTU´RA (
γραφή,
γραφική,
ζῳγραφία),
painting.
1. Definition of terms.
The word
γράφω originally implies the
engraving of signs of any kind, and from this it came to be used both
for painting and writing: as in Greece the art of painting was known
long before the introduction of writing, it is probable that the second
meaning was derived from the first, the pictorial origin of writing
being an obvious connexion. The same double usage was applied to
γραφὴ and
γράμμα: while
γραφικὴ
indicated painting as art in the abstract. As the representation of the
living thing is the farthest removed from the mere signs which
constitute writing, painting as distinguished from writing came to be
called
ζῳγραφία (
ζῷα γράφειν) or
ζωγραφική: with special names for the various branches of
the art, as
μεγαλογραφία, for large
subjects;
ῥωπογραφία, for trivial or
miniature subjects;
εἰκονογραφία,
portraiture; and
σκηνογραφία,
scene-painting. In Latin we have not these distinctive terms,
pingere and its derivatives (originally applied
to embroidery) doing duty for all requirements.
It is evident that the rooted idea of the word
γράφω includes both the elements of
drawing and also that of colouring: of the two it seems
natural to suppose that drawing is the earlier in point of origin,
seeing that it forms the basis of painting: and this abstract idea is
probably what we are intended to understand by the ancient legends of
the origin of painting in
[p. 2.390]Greece. These
legends, to which we shall presently refer, seem to suggest that the
earliest “paintings” were really only outline drawings,--a
fact which is, however, not borne out by the evidence of the monuments.
It has been suggested that what Pliny (
35.15) alludes to as the earliest form of
art,--“Monochrome painting,”
monochromaton,--consisted in the filling in of
such outline drawings with colour, and thus forming a silhouette,
similar in idea to the paintings on the earliest vases. Donner, on the
other hand, suggests that the art of writing preceded that of drawing;
tablets of wax,
pugillares, and the
stilus may be traced, he says, back to
the time of Homer. Pliny states (21.85) that the wax was coloured black
with paper ash, and red with
anchusa. From
writing on these tablets people took to drawing: this, in Donner's view,
is the explanation of the earliest form of art, Pliny's
monochromaton. This explanation is obviously
untenable: for one thing we have no evidence to show that such red and
black drawings existed in early times: the theory that writing preceded
drawing is contrary to all our preconceived notions of development; and,
besides, another statement of Pliny (
33.117;
35.64) proves that in
his time
monochromata meant something quite
different, the pictures being executed in various tones of the same
colour. Blümner suggests that the mere outline drawings should
rather be called
monogrammata, because
μονόγραμμος is the term for a very lean man.
Another word which indicates outline rather than complete drawing is
περιγραφή: and since outline must
to a certain extent be said to underlie all design, it is further called
διαγραφή, ὑπογραφή. Pollux gives
σκιαγραφία, but in such terms as to
leave it in doubt as to whether the word implies the actual shadow, or
merely the outline of a shadow: in some instances it means certainly the
outline of a shadow; more usually, when referring to the art of a good
period, it applies to painting in strong light and shade, or is another
expression for
σκηνογραφία. A special
word for a hasty, inefficient shadow outline or sketch is
σκιαριφησμός. What we in painting call the
“drawing” as opposed to the “colouring,”
the Greeks called
γραμμή: hence
γραμμὰς ἑλκύειν, ἀποτίνειν,
&c. (Blümner, iv. pp. 414-24).
The importance of deciding the exact application of these various terms
will be seen when we approach the question of the early history of
painting as given in the ancient authorities: where, as we shall see,
there is good reason for supposing that the various stages of
development as described by Pliny are partly at least based on his
interpretations of the terms used in the Greek authorities which formed
his sources of information.
In Latin, the art of drawing in the abstract was
graphica, and the practice of it
adumbrare or
delineare: what we call
outlining was
circumscribere. The outline
of a picture, or even the drawing, was
linea (hence
lineas ducere,
lineamenta); outline drawing,
linearis
pictura.
For the practice of drawing, various materials were used: the most
general would be the tablet of wood, which was covered with wax, and the
stilus,
γραφὶς or
γραφεῖον:
γραφὶς was
also used for a fine brush, the
penicillus,
which was employed either on wood, such as box or cedar, or on
parchment: the silver point seems alluded to in Pliny (
33.98); and the usage of red pencil and
of charcoal is likewise attested.
By the addition of
colour, drawing becomes
painting. For colouring matter, the ancients spoke of
φάρμακον,
medicamentum, pigmentum, as distinguished
from
χρῶμα,
color, the actual colour prepared for use.
Pollux speaks further of
ἄνθη, χρώματα
ἀνθηρά: a further distinction is made in the art writers
between
colores floridi and
colores austeri. The laying on of colour is
χρώζειν, χραίνειν (with
compounds); also
ἄνθεσι φαιδρύνειν.
In a bad sense of “daubing,”
καταποικίλλειν and
ἐναλείφειν,
inlinere: the Latin word, however, need not
always signify the derogatory sense.
Circumlinere is the
working--up of the background from which the subject stands out.
For shading, Pollux gives
σκίαν
ὑποτυπώσασθαι or
σκιάζειν.
In artistic criticism we find
lumen et
umbra used in the modern sense:
splendor, probably for strong gleaming lights or reflexion:
τόνος, the “assistance of
light and shade, perhaps the general ground tone of the picture:”
ἁρμογή,
commissurae et transitus colorum, the
toning of one colour into another. These terms will give some idea of
the kind of effects which an ancient art-critic would probably have had
principally in his mind.
2. Technique.
With a view to a clearer understanding of the usage of terms in the
descriptions which follow, it will be well to define first of all those
terms mentioned in connexion with the various classes of ancient
painting; to describe the technical processes which distinguish these
classes; and to enumerate the materials used, as far as they can be
identified either from ancient literature or from the actual monuments.
The most convenient division of the subject is that which depends on the
ground upon which the painting is laid: the principal headings will be
as follows, viz.
Wall Painting, Easel Painting, and
Encaustic. Of these the first two may be treated
together, inasmuch as in both we have the employment of water-colour and
the brush. The subject of encaustic, in which wax and a metal tool, the
cestrum, are the distinguishing
materials, involves numerous difficult and complicated questions, and
will be best treated separately in connexion with the monuments which
illustrate this branch of art.
For wall and easel painting the materials of the artist in antiquity were
very much the same as those of a modern painter: of brushes,
γραφεῖον, γραφίς,
penicillus (or--
um), he would have every variety at his disposal, the coarser ones
made of bristles,
saeta, the finer of a
close-textured sponge; a larger piece of sponge would serve to erase
errors or wash out the brush: a palette, or set of palettes, of which
the existence is proved by numerous representations of ancient studios,
but of which the ancient name is not known; and lastly, an easel
precisely similar to those of to-day, called
ὀκρίβας or
κιλλίβας:
the Latin equivalent is
machina, but this
word is also applied to the scaffold on which the fresco-painter
worked.
3. Wall Painting.
The practice of decorating walls with coloured designs in fresco obtained
in Greece long before the time at which actual
[p. 2.391]authentic records may be said to begin. The excavations at Tiryns and
Mycenae, which illustrate a civilisation of origin probably considerably
earlier than the poems of Homer, have brought to light specimens of
wall-painting which show us that at that period, whenever it was,
artists on these sites were working in a technique very similar to that
of the Egyptians. The walls were plastered with clay, and covered with a
coating of lime; over this a design in spirited freehand has been drawn
al fresco. In the Tiryns specimens five
colours were used, as against six which are found in Egyptian art; but
the omission of the green may here be merely accidental, and in point of
fact the use of green seems to be indicated in the specimens found more
recently at Mycenae. Of fresco-painting in Greece proper we hear nothing
further until the time of Polygnotos: that it was kept up, however, in
Italy at least, we know from the wall-paintings of the tombs in some of
the early Etruscan sites, such as Veii, which must date from the end of
the seventh century B.C.: some of these
paintings show a decided connexion with Mycenaean art, both in the style
and in the character of their ornamentation. It was not until the fifth
century that the great historical compositions of Polygnotos and his
contemporaries raised this art to its highest level; so that in this era
we hear very little of any other kind of painting. In the fourth
century, the work of the greater artists, such as Zeuxis and Parrhasios,
lay almost entirely in the execution of easel pictures, and henceforward
wall-decoration was reduced to a subordinate position, from which it
never again rose.
In the literary accounts of ancient pictures it is often extremely
difficult to decide whether the description refers to a wall-or an
easel-picture, because the writers have no system of terminology to
distinguish the two methods. The words
πίναξ and
tabula, which
originally applied to an easel-painting on wood, came in course of time
to be loosely applied to the general meaning of “picture,”
without distinction of species; and to increase the difficulty, we know
that the ancients both hung pictures on, and also let them into, their
walls: so that
γράφειν ἐπὶ τοίχου or
ἐπὶ τοίχῳ can and certainly does
mean any of these methods; on the other hand, it seems probable that
τοιχογραφία is strictly only
applied to fresco. The real distinction between fresco and other methods
is in reality the fact that fresco demands a “fresh” or wet
surface; and this is indicated by the expression
ἐφ᾽ ὑγροῖς ζωγραφεῖν,
udo (
tectorio）
pingere or
illinere.
The following account of the preparation of the wall and of the method of
fresco-painting is taken from Blümner (iv. p. 432).
The groundwork for fresco-painting is formed by a wet stucco,
κονίαμα or
tectorium, laid on the wall. This stucco for fresco was
specially prepared: both ancient literature and modern research show
that the ancients expended greater care on this than we do in modern
times. Pliny says that three layers of sand mortar and two of marble
stucco were employed; but Vitruvius gives the process in fuller detail.
The wall is first treated with a rough-cast of coarse mortar; then
follow three layers of sand mortar, so arranged that with the aid of
ruler, plummet, and square, the due level is preserved; each fresh layer
being put on when the lower one is dry. On these three layers of sand
mortar follow three of marble mortar (i. e. mortar mixed with pounded
marble in such a way as to detach freely from the trowel), varying in
degree from coarse to fine. This is pressed down and smoothed with wood;
special care being taken that it should be durable and not liable to
crack, and, above all things, that the colours laid on it while wet
should bind firmly with the lime. For the adhesion of these colours
depends on a chemical process, in which the water of the water-colours,
combining with that already existing in the mortar, releases a part of
the hydrate of lime (into which the lime in the mortar has changed by
slaking); and pressing through all the layers of colour, after an
interval returns to the surface; here it attracts to itself carbonic
acid from the air, changes again into carbonic acid lime, and is
deposited over the colours in the form of a thin crystal skin, which is
hard to dissolve, and strengthens and protects them in such a way that
washing (without friction) causes no injury.
The thickness of the mortar has yet another advantage. The modern
fresco-painter, who works on a much thinner layer of mortar, is obliged
every morning to have only just so much fresh mortar laid on as he
expects to cover in the day: when he breaks off his work, he cuts away
all that he has not painted on, and next morning the mason must bring
his new mortar up to this mark. This system involves all sorts of
inconveniences: the artist cannot work so freely as on a large space;
the seams remain visible, and the new stucco has never the same surface
as the old. The ancient method avoided these difficulties, since the
thick mortar lasted damp much longer. The researches into the
wall-paintings of Pompeii, where fresco is certainly used, show that the
walls there are not made with so much care as Vitruvius prescribes; but
they are nevertheless generally thicker and more carefully constructed
than the modern examples.
On this surface the painting was laid with a brush and water-colours.
Certain colours, however, do not suit the fresco method; in such cases,
a binding medium was necessary which was otherwise not employed in
fresco, such as milk or gum: thus, for
purpurissum it is expressly stated that the ground must be
painted
al fresco with red sandyx or blue, and
the purpurissum is laid on this with egg as a binding,
a tempera. Another special process for cinnabar,
which readily sets up chemical action and changes colour in sunlight,
was the
καῦσις, which will be described
under
Encaustic. In Pompeii the cinnabar does not seem to
have undergone this treatment, and consequently changes colour rapidly
in the sunlight. A peculiar process, which has not been rightly
understood, is attributed by Pliny to Panaenus: in the decoration of the
temple of Athene at Elis he is said to have mixed the stucco ground with
milk and saffron; but whether the saffron had also binding properties
does not appear.
4. Easel Pictures.
The generality of easel pictures (excluding of course those painted in
the encaustic method) were probably executed on a
[p. 2.392]dry ground
a tempera in
water-colours. The materials for this ground were various: the most
usual was a thin slab of wood (
πίναξ,
πινάκιον, sometimes
σανίς,
