Da Mimese À Abstração j.ctvbj7g5b.27

Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa
Chapter Title: The Limits of Greek Painting: From Mimēsis to Abstraction

Chapter Author(s): Jorge Tomás García
Book Title: The Many Faces of Mimesis

Book Subtitle: Selected Essays from the 2017 Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of
Western Greece
Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid, Jeremy C. DeLong
Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa. (2018)
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Jorge Tomás García1
The Limits of Greek Painting:
From Mimēsis to Abstraction
The main objective of this work is to define the limits of mimēsis

in the pictorial culture of ancient Greece. The variety of styles,
techniques, and different ways of interpreting nature allows us to
review the meaning of mimēsis for Greek painters. To successfully
carry out this analysis, we will focus our research on three distinct
interpretations of mimēsis: σκιαγραφία, χρηστογραφία, and pictorial
abstraction. In order to focus our arguments on a particular moment
of Greek culture, the painting school of Sikyon will be the starting
point of many of the texts discussed below. This school of painting is
a perfect case study for our work due to its presence in classical
sources and the importance of the mimēsis of nature in the creation of
a pictorial. In addition, the testimonies of Plato and Aristotle on
mimēsis in relation to painting will be interpreted in the light of
Sicyon's painting school.
Light, shadows and mimēsis: σκιαγραφία
Painting in Antiquity is uniformly defined as mimēsis. The
various translations of this Greek term (“representation,” or
“imitation”) show that the quality of mimēsis, a real criterion for the
appreciation of pictorial performances for the ancient Greeks—has a
different status according to different authors. The concept of mimēsis
is at the heart of Platonic philosophy, because it is articulated on the
opposition between the intelligible world and the sensible world—
with the latter being only the copy of the former, and consequently
having a lesser degree of reality. In many dialogues, Plato compares
the philosophical concept of deceptive appearance with a common
practice of his time: skiagraphia, or more precisely, the “painting of
shadows.” This of course refers to the technique of shading; but this
term has a special meaning in the text of Plato, especially in relation
to the allegory of the cave (Rep. VII, 514a-517a). In both cases—
painting and Platonic philosophy—the shadow is associated with the
illusory. This explains the translation of skiagraphia as “trompe-l'oeil
painting.” If the philosopher looks at pictorial art in general with
distrust, his most virulent criticism concerns skiagraphia, since it uses
325
more illusionistic processes than the old-style of painting, in order to
obtain an optical illusion.
Although the origin of skiagraphia has never become clear,
according to Pliny, Apollodorus was the first painter to methodically
represent appearances (Nat. 35. 58-60).2 In the work of Aristotle, it is
possible to determine the presence of σκιαγραφία (Metaph.1024b21).
Aristotle refers to the false and the true, in relation to things that are
not, or that produce an image of what is not, as σκιαγραφία. These
types of works were based on the use of light and shadow to offer
perspective and distortion of the image, according to the viewer´s
point of contemplation of the work, producing a deformative plastic
impression—an artistic resource criticized with priority by Plato. The
painters of Sicyon, from the first generation of Eupompos, and later
with Pamphilus, devised ways of painting these illusions that
approached the art and the science of measurement.3 Thus, according
to the aesthetics of Plato, the conception of painting in Sicyon could
be criticized due to the scientific methods used by these painters; but
the artistic reality of the school could not be criticized, as it did not
make paintings with the perspective and novelty of σκιαγραφία.4
The most representative work of this form of mimēsis was
realized by Pausias of Sicyon, especially in his immolatio boum (Plin,
Nat. 35.125). This painting had repercussions on later Roman art (as
exhibited in the Porticus of Pompey), facilitating important advances
in the procedures of perspective and spatial depth. The greatest
novelty is that it introduced a new dimension in painting. Pausias
decided to paint the ox not from side, but the front, so that the true
dimensions of the animal stood out much more. To finish the
painting, he used a continuous layer of black to achieve volume in
the shade from the same color, without the contrast of different
colors (Plin. Nat. 35.126).5 This technical skill allowed him to work
and innovate with the effects of chiaroscuro—which highlights the
volume of one form with respect to the luminosity of another figure,
by graduating the color, and using the application of light.
Pictorial resources like these were the ones that made the
painting of Sicyon the greatest aesthetic enemy for Plato. The effects
of lights or shadows, variety in the use of colors and nuances, and the
play of volumes introduced by Pausias, are not only aesthetically but,
more importantly, epistemologically distant from the Platonic ideal.
326
It is a kind of painting that does not hesitate to use the scientific
innovations of its time, always respecting nature as its main guide, to
innovate its pictorial style. Plato refers to how ἐσκιαγραφημένα
(“shaded paintings”) deceive visual perception (Pl. Rep. 523c1). The
lacunariae of Pausias also had to resort to this visual effect, since
when paintings are viewed from a lower position, the painter must
play with the distance and visual perception of the viewer.
While the problem of chiaroscuro was faced for the first time by
Apollodorus (c. 430 BCE), Quintilian points to Zeuxis as the first to
handle this technique (XII, 10. 4). For the Latin author, Apollodorus's
pictorial method was a two-dimensional reading of the painting in
the plane; but the advance of Zeuxis was greater, since it delivered a
three-dimensional perspective to the parts of the painting that the
spectator did not perceive in the first print. The position of
Apollodorus is defended by Pliny (Nat. 35. 60-62). In the case of
skiagraphia, it is the result of the effect of its colour-mixture.6 Plato
then found in the technique of skiagraphia and in its colour mixture
(apochrainomenais) a most appropriate metaphor to address poetry
and its impact on the audience: deceptive pleasure overall, and a
confusion of opposites. Elsewhere in the Republic, Plato links colors
(chrōmata) with the beauty of poetry and music, and argues that if
divested of them, poetry “looks” ugly (601a-b).7
One of the most successful Greek painters in the time of
Augustus and Tiberius was Nikias of Athens. For Gombrich,
skiagraphia was perfected in Plato's time (first half of the 4th century
BCE), and Nikias was probably among the first to excel in the use of
figures through shadows and optical illusion. He emphasized this by
his way of painting women, more precise than harmonious in style
(Plin. Nat. 35.130). He paid special attention to the representation of
light and shadow, and was particularly interested in placing the
main themes of his works in the background of the paintings.
Tiberius had placed in the cella of the Temple of the Divine August
the famous “Hyacinth” of Nikias (Plin. Nat. 35.131), a choice that
reflects Tiberius’s taste as a collector of Greek art. Plato (Criti. 107c-d)
describes “illusionistic painting” as “unclear and deceptive”
(σκιαγραφίᾳ ἀσαφεῖ καὶ ἀπατηλῷ), claiming that it is tolerable
when the subjects are landscapes, but that precision of likeness is
demanded when painting the human form. In other passages as well,
327
Plato uses σκιαγραφία —probably a term for trompe-l’oeil painting
— as a metaphor for appearance in opposition to truth (R. 365c, 602d;
Phd. 69b).8
Four centuries after Plato, in De architectura, Vitruvius worries
about the evolution of mural painting; which, in his time, neglects
the rules of verisimilitude in favor of fancy ornamentations. His
criticism is therefore significantly different from that of Plato.
Though both refer to “old models,” for Plato, the ancients are
Egyptians, and for Vitruvius, they are the painters of Plato’s time.
Vitruvius also denounces painting that distances itself from truth,
but on another level: he does not question mimēsis itself as an artistic
mechanism, designed to deceive the viewer; but he requires this type
of imitation to respect the rules of verisimilitude when depicting
nature, as necessary for the process of educational learning, or
παιδεία.9 Hence when Vitruvius (5.6.8) discusses three different
kinds of setting for the theater, he does not use the word skiagraphia,
but rather describes the decoration of the scaena.10
Mimēsis, method and nature in Sicyon: χρηστογραφία
The most important concept needed to understand the aesthetics
of Sicyonian painting in relation to mimēsis is χρηστογραφία. The
relation between the art theory of Sicyon and nature was essential.
This relationship was not based on a ratio of mechanical copying of
the model imitated. Artists, from the scientific observation of reality,
created an image that completed nature, in the Aristotelian sense.
While Pamphilus was an extensively educated figure, and Pausias
demonstrated the most varied painting techniques, Melanthius was
an exalted representative of the method known as χρηστογραφία, or
“good/perfect/right painting.”11 This type of painting was based on
the symmetry of forms, the balance of the composition. Therefore,
teaching painting and drawing had a great importance in Sicyonian
society. The importance of the school in antiquity is well attested in
literary sources, as Polemon notes in a treatise entiteld Περί τῶν ἐν
Σικυῶνι πινάκων (Ath. XII, 567b).
The painters of Sicyon were rulers of a τέχνη that allowed them
to combine their natural talent for painting with a scientific method.
Their source of knowledge came from experience, similar to the
painting technique of χρηστογραφία. The exact meaning of the term
328
has now been lost, but it probably referred to a quality of painting
especially useful in this technique. We can only imagine how this
painting would have looked, but all signs indicate that it might be
related to paintings on boxwood, which under the mastery of
Pamphilus, had become a pictorial fashion at the time.
Χρηστογραφία was therefore treated by painters as the most avant-
garde way of painting.
Sicyon was also home to some of the most prominent theorists of
art in Antiquity. Above them all stands Xenocrates (fl.ca. 280 BC), a
sculptor of the 3rd century BCE, and a master of bronze casting. He
was a native of Athens, although he admired the artistic side of
Sicyon. His work, just as Lyssipos proved, was based on naturalism,
and was one of the main sources for Pliny’s Natural History. The
relevance that Pliny the Elder concedes to the school of Sicyon was
partly influenced by the views of Xenocrates. Most of the texts of
Xenocrates have been lost, and what we know about him is the fruit
of the Quellenforschung (“research sources”) of the 19th century. The
legacy of this sculptor of the third century BCE is primarily his
writings on painting and sculpture, which make him, according to B.
Schweitzer, the “father of Art History.”12 Starting from an analysis of
the artist’s personality, he goes beyond the biographical field to
perform the work of a normative theoretician. While mimēsis—the
most perfect imitation of nature—remains the primary criterion of
judgment for works he also introduces additional criteria.13
The first of Sicyon's masters to practice χρηστογραφία was
Eupompos, who is practically unknown to us. We have received the
title of a painting by Pliny, a “winner in the gymnastic competition
holding the palm,” Eupompus victor est tenens certamine gymnico
palmam (Plin. Nat. 35.75). One of Eupompo's most innovative
disciples was Pamphilus of Amphipolis, who wrote theoretical
treatises, including Περὶ γραφικής καὶ ζωγραφῶν. His work must
have been known in Athens, for he is present in an Aristophanean
play that premiered in 388 BCE (Ar. Pl. 385). This data is
fundamental to the problem of Greek painting. Plato was in Athens,
at his full intellectual maturity, when Aristophanes presented his
plays. The Sicyonian school was known in Athens, and therefore,
Plato knew the methods of Eupompos and Pamphilus. Pamphilus
and his disciples did not use geometry for this kind of painting, and
329
Plato was a clear opponent to this illusionistic design of painting (Pl.
Sph. 232c).14 Pamphilus's painting should be a fair compromise
between the Egyptian ideal of Plato and the σκιαγραφία of
Apollodorus. His painting was dominated by the concept of ratio
(Quint. Inst. X, 10.6). He shared this concept with Melanthius, and it
would become one of the highest aesthetic ideals. Ratio symbolized a
taste for art based on the method of rational observation. His art was
scientific, using optics and perspective, with variations of colors and
shadows.15 Pliny says that he was the first cultivated painter, primus
in pictura omnibus litteris eruditus (Plin. Nat. 35.76).
Despite the limited information that has come from literary
sources, it is possible to define χρηστογραφία as “good painting,”
conceived from an ideal of beauty perceived by the senses, which
always implies a ratio (Quint. Inst. X 10.6). According to the
information that we have received on the theoretical work of
Melanthius, considered one of the greatest exponents of this method,
χρηστογραφία was based on symmetry. Melanthius wrote a treatise
on symmetry (Vitruv. VII praef. 14), and he was opposed to arrogance
and hardness (DL 4, 18.1- 4). This concept was still present at time of
Plutarch, Ἢνθει γὰρ ἒτι δόξα τῆς Σικυωνίας μούσης καὶ
χρηστογραφίας, ὡς μόνης ἀδιάφθορον ἐχούσης τὸ καλόν (Plut.
Arat. 13.1). From Eupompos until the last painters of the school, the
rule of χρηστογραφία was still used. For these reasons, Plato cannot
be directly criticizing the painters of Sicyon when he directly attacks
the creators of φαντάσματα (Pl. Sph. 234c6; Prt. 312c4).
The member of Sicyon’s school of painting that left the most
written testimonies on painting was Melanthius, who wrote treatises
on painting just like his master Pamphilus. We know the existence of
a treatise on painting, Περὶ ζωγραφικῆς (D.L. 4, 18.1-4), and a treaty
on symmetry, Praecepta symmetriarum conscripserunt (Vitruv. VII praef.
14). From the first, Περὶ ζωγραφικῆς, we have been fortunate to
retain a fragment in which he asserts the need to curb arrogance and
hardness, both in works and in customs: δεῖν αὐθάδειάν τινα καὶ
ξηρότητα τοῖς ἒργοις ἐπιτρέχειν, ὁμοίως δὲ κἀν τοῖς ἢθεσιν (D.L.
4, 18.1-5). The style of Melanthius was described as clear, balanced,
and symmetrical. The work of Melanthius was considered the ratio
paradigm by Pamphilus in Quintilian's time, ratione ac Melanthius
Pamphilus (Quint. Inst. X 10.6), and according to Pliny, Apelles was
330
overtaken by Melanthius in the arrangement of figures, Melanthius
disposition cedebat (Plin. Nat. 35.80). Thus, the χρηστογραφία of
Sicyon and Melanthius was presented as painting, based on
geometry and symmetry, while opposed to the artifices that make
painting look arrogant by avoiding the simplicity of nature.16 The
importance of color in the work of Melanthius was maximal, since for
the Presocratics, each color had a special meaning and connotation.
The painter with colors was like a man with a mirror, that shows the
world around him mimetically (Pl. R. 596c).17
The last mimetic experience: abstraction in Greek painting
To conclude with the analysis of the mimetic experiences in
Greek painting, we propose to review the testimonies we have about
the practice of abstraction. Surely this was the most avant-garde
attempt by Greek painting in Classical times. Although it is not
appropriate to use terms typical of modern art to analyze the
pictorial practices of antiquity, in this particular case, the use of the
concept of “abstraction” is more than apt. Abstract painting utilizes
pure color, shape, and form to express its meaning; without getting
bogged down in the storylines carried by objects and scenery.
Without a doubt, the Greek artistic culture also practiced this type of
painting, and the school of Sicyon was a fundamental agent in this
pictorial style.
The main painter of this type is Apelles of Kos, verum omnes prius
genitos futuroque postea superavit Apelles Cous (Plin. Nat. 35.79), who
became a model of classicism for Renaissance artists. He was master
of semplicitas and benignitas. He combined the technical subtlety of
the school of Sicyon with the imaginative vigor of the Theban-Attic
school—in a manner similiar to that used by Lysippos—combining
together both traditional with novel artistic styles. He took 12 years
of compulsory drawing in Sicyon, where he was a disciple of
Pamphilus; and from the subjects taught in this school, he developed
a taste for design and the line as fundamental elements of painting,
as well as thoroughness of work and polychromy. Without the
mastery of Pamphilus, Apelles would not have developed his taste
for well-finished painting, for scholarly work, or for technical skill.
After these formative years, Apelles traveled throughout Greece,
working on the most important pictorial commissions, achieving his
331
floruit with his portraits of Alexander of Macedon.18 His recovery in
Renaissance painting must also be the recovery of the type of
painting taught in Sicyon from the 5th century BCE.
Among the anecdotes reported by Pliny about Apelles is the
following (Nat. 35.81-83). Apelles sailed to Rhodes in eagerness to see
the paintings of Protogenes, previously known to him only by
reputation. When he arrived at Protogenes’s workshop, he found the
artist absent, but a large blank panel fixed to the easel, ready for
painting. The old woman who watched over the workshop informed
him that Protogenes was not there, and inquired who she should say
had been looking for him. “From this,” answered Apelles, and taking
up a brush he painted a colored line of extreme thinness on the panel.
When Protogenes returned, he contemplated the exactness of the line
and announced that it was Apelles who had arrived, because no
other painter could produce so perfect a work. He then painted an
even thinner line in another color on the first one; and as he was
going away, again bid the old woman to show the line to Apelles if
he returned, and to add that this was the person Apelles was looking
for. Apelles did return, and in embarrassment at being beaten, he
placed another line in a third color on top of the first two, so that
there was no more room for a display of precision. Protogenes then
confessed his defeat and flew to the harbor to find Apelles. He
decided that the panel should be preserved for posterity just as it
was, to serve as a source of special amazement not just for anybody,
but for artists.
Apelles based his claim to supremacy among painters on the
quality of χάρις. Pliny seems to allude to the Protogenes anecdote in
asserting that Apelles, while admiring the great painters of his age,
thought they lacked the “graceful charm” that marked his own
paintings, a quality called χάρις in Greek (Nat. 35.79-80).19 Apelles
apparently associated his χάρις with natural talent. Quintilian
translates Apelles’s χάρις as ingenium et gratia (Inst. 12.10.6), and as
Aelian’s version of the anecdote reveals, it can be achieved only
through τύχη. Libanius (Prog. 12.30.4) speaks of Apelles “attributing”
(ἐπιγραφέτω) the Graces to Tyche; or, to translate the pun, “painting
the Graces upon Tyche.”20 In his discussion of ancient painting, Pliny
reports that famous painters, such as Apelles, never painted on house
332
walls, which would likely be destroyed in fire, but only on panels
(pinakēs: Nat. 35.118).21
Pliny confirms Protogenes’s judgment by adding that, before the
painting was destroyed in the burning of Caesar’s palace on the
Palatine, it had been admired because it contained nothing but
almost invisible lines, and appeared like a blank space among the
other paintings. Apelles was not just a master artist; he was also a
theorist. He studied with the Sicyonian painter Pamphilus, who
believed that knowledge of arithmetic and geometry was essential to
artistic excellence (Plin. Nat. 35.76), and Apelles supplemented his
numerous technical innovations with his own volumes on painting
(Plin. Nat. 35.79). As Gutzwiller has explained, “he seems to have
been acutely aware, from the conceptual perspective of ancient art
theory, of what might be called the ecphrastic paradox, the
interrelationship of the verbal and the visual.”22 The ancient
anecdotes about Apelles have served the role of authenticating
narratives for the theory and practice of painting since the
Renaissance. Alberti’s seminal De Pictura (1435) drew on Pliny to
praise Apelles as a lost theorist of painting,23 and drew on Lucian’s
description for his invitation to painters to reinvent Apelles’s
Calumny.24
Conclusion
Data from Greek and Latin show texts show us the importance
of the Sicyonian school of painting in Antiquity. From a very early
period (first half of the 4th century BCE), painting and drawing were
taught in Sicyon as potentially teachable, scientific subjects in the
educational program. In this cultural context, north of the
Peloponnese (Sicyon and Corinthus especially), some of the greatest
artists of the Greek world—Apelles, Lysippus, Pamphilus, and
Pausias—emerged. Their interest in the theoretical reflection upon,
and methodical teaching of, painting has allowed us to analyze the
variants of mimēsis. All the perspectival approaches discussed
(σκιαγραφία, χρηστογραφία and pictorial abstraction), share a
common interest in defining nature (φύσις) as artistic paradigma
(παράδειγμα), and for recognizing the creative, inventive and
autonomous capacity of painters. The Sicyonian legacy was long-
333
lasting, with their works displayed in Rome as paradigms of Greek
art, and their theoretical contributions influencing the Renaissance.
1 Jorge Tomás García is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the The Foundation

for Science and Technology (Portugal), associated with the Art History
Institute (FCSH/NOVA Lisboa), and developing a project entitled "Visual
Culture in Rome and Ancient Lusitania." In that same center, he has been
coordinator of the research line "Cultural Transfers" since July 2017. To
date, he has published 5 monographs with various publishers [British
Archaeological Reports (Oxford), Giorgio Bretschneider Editore (Rome),
Signifer Libros (Madrid)], as well as 2 books as scientific editor (Adolf M.
Kakkert, Amsterdam). He has also authored 17 papers, of which 8 were
published in international peer-reviewed journals indexed by Web of
Science or SCOPUS, and 5 in journals indexed by the European
Reference Index for Humanities. This work is funded by national funds
through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the project
SFRH/BPD/99633/2014, in the context of “Grupo de Investigación de
Excelencia Estudios Visuales (Fundación Séneca, 19905/GERM/15).
2 According to Plutarch (De Gloria Atheniensium 2 [Mor. 346A]), the
technique was developed by Apollodorus of Athens in the latter part of

the 5th century BCE, and was for this reason called skiagraphos: Scoliast
on Iliad 10.265, s.v. πῖλος ἀρήρει; Hesychius, s.v. σκιά: ἐπιφάνεια τοῦ
χρώματος ἀντίμορφος; Photius s.v. σκιαγράφος; RE s.v. ‘Apollodorus’
no. 77. In addition, see: Johannes Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen zur
Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen (Leipzig, 1868), 1641-1647.
Skiagraphia is a highly contested technique. See: Eva Keuls, “Skiagraphia
Once Again,” AJA 79 (1975): 1-16; Elizabeth Pemberton, “A Note on
Skiagraphia,” AJA 80 (1976): 82-84; Ernst Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der
Griechen (Munich, 1923), 12-28. See Also: R. Steven “Plato and the Art of
his Time,” CQ 27 (1933): 149–155; Jerome Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek
Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (Yale University Press, 1974);
Wesley Trimpi, “The early metaphorical uses of ΣΚΙΑΓΡΑΦΙΑ and
ΣΚΗΝΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ,” Traditio 34 (1978): 403-413.
3 Jorge Tomás García, “Estética, técnica y didáctica de la pictura de Sición,”
ArcheoArte 2 (2013): 97-103.

4 Hariclia Brecoulaki, “Greek Painting and the Challenge of Mimēsis,” A
Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, eds. Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray

(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 218-236.
334
5 Testimonies about black color in antiquity: Hom. Il. XIV, 191; Hom. Od. XI,
93; Virg. Aen. VI, 134, 237, 267.
6 On the use of white color in the 5th century technique of skiagraphia, Bruno
observes that for the ancient painters, white would have been the
equivalent of light. Vincent Bruno, Form and colour in Greek painting
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 58-59.
7 The skiagraphia uses mixture of color and requires distant viewing. In the
Parmenides, the technique is used as a metaphor for “the unreal divisions

of the one.” Thus, what appears to be “one” from afar (ἀποστάντι μὲν
ἓν πάντα φαινόμενα) soon turns into “many,” “different,” and
“dissimilar” (προσελθόντι δε γε πολλὰ καὶ ἕτερα καὶ τῷ τοῦ ἑτέρου
φαντάσματι ἑτεροῖα καὶ ἀνόμοια ἑαυτοῖς). These three dialogues aside,
Plato uses this art metaphor in the Phaedo, the Republic, and the Laws, to
discuss the vexed concepts of pleasure and justice.
8 See Jerome Pollitt, op.cit. 392-397, on linea (γραμμή), or “line,” and
lineamenta (γράμματα), or “drawn figures.” On the difficulty of

distinguishing precisely between the colores austeri and colores floridi, see:
Agnès Rouveret, Histoire et imaginaire de la peinture ancienne (Rome: École
française de Rome, 1989) 255-265; Hariclia Brécoulaki, “Considérations
sur les peintres tétrachromatistes et les colores austeri et fl oridi” Couleurs
et matières dans l’antiquité: Textes, techniques et pratiques, eds. Agnès
Rouveret, Sandrine Dubel, and Valérie Naas (Paris, Éditions Rue d’Ulm,
2006), 29-42. The Rape of Persephone at Vergina provides an example of
rapid, somewhat impressionistic painting from this era. See: Manolis
Andronikos, Vergina II: The “Tomb of Persephone” (Athens: Archaeological
Society, 1994). On the Plato passages, see Agnès Rouveret, op.cit. 50-59.
9 Stephen Halliwell, “Plato and Painting,” Word and Image In Ancient Greece
eds. Keith Rutter and Brian Sparkes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Scholarship,

2000), 99-116.
10 Pliny (Nat. 35.37) maintains the same distinction when he mentions
“Serapio [who] painted stages [scaenae] well, but could not paint a
person. As “scene painting,” see: Plutarch, Life of Aratus 15.2; Sextus
Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.88; Heliodorus 7.7.7; Heliodorus
10.38.3; and Diogenes Laertius 2.125.
11 The Greek adjective χρηστός can be understood as “good, honest,
virtuous,” related to a positive connotation of what it designates.

12 Bernhard Schweitzer, “Xenocrates von Athen,” in Zur Kunst der Antike.
Ausgewählte Schriften Bd. I (Tübingen, 1963), 105–127. v

13 Agnés Rouveret, op. cit. 436-440.
335
14 Pierre-Maxime Schuhl, Plato and the Art of his Time (Paris: PUF, 1952). On
the question, see also: Ernst Cassirer, “Eidos and eidolon. The Problem of
Beauty and Art in the Dialogues of Plato” Writings on Art, ed. C. Berner
(Paris: Editions du Cerf, [1924], 1995), 27-52; Erwin Panofsky, Idea.
Contribution to the history of the concept of the old theory of art, (Paris:
Gallimard, [1924], 1984), 17-48. Before Schuhl, Panofsky posed the
problem of Plato's contribution to the history of art, but still
insufficiently. Both established an opposition between eidos and eidolon
within the Platonic thought, which did not allow them to see all the
nuances of the more specific one between eikon and eidolon, thus making
Plato a critic of art and mimēsis tout court.
15 Jacques André, Étude sur les termes de couleur dans la langue latine (Paris:
Klincksieck, 1949), 372. The transcription of the colors by the Latin poets
is based on translations of the Greek, established by fixed equivalents,
based on a semantic foundation. As a general norm, the poet imitated a
concrete passage, although the translation could be based on a fixed
formula repeated in more than one text. Some of the most common
transcripts are γλαυκός as glaucus, χρυσοῦς as aureus, or χλοερός as
pallidus. For a thorough study on γλαυκός see: Maxwell-Stuart, Studies
in Greek Colour Terminology. Volume I. GLAUKOS (Leiden: Brill, 1981).
16 It highlights the relationship between the concepts of χρώς and χρῶμα,
which evidence the manifestation of color as the boundary of a defined
body. See: Sophie Descamps-Lequime, Peinture et couleur dans le monde
Grec Antique (Paris: Musee du Louvre, 2007), 73.
17 Poikilia (colour diversity) traces its origins both back to Homer, and to the
Pre-Socratics. In the art context, it is linked with music, painting, and
embroidery. In Plato it also refers to the vivid and diverse colourfulness
of our sense perceptive world, which can deceive the intellect (e.g. Rep.
529d-e). Note that in Pheadrus 247c, true reality is presented as colourless.
On Plato’s view of the concept of poikilia in philosophy, see: Robert
Wallace, “Plato, Poikilia, and New Music in Athens,” Poikilia. Variazioni
sul tema, eds. Elisabetta Berardi, Francisco Lisi and Dina Micalella (Rome:
Bonanno Editore, 2009), 201-213. See also extensive discussion in:
Zacharoula Petraki, The Poetics of Philosophical Language: Plato, Poets and
Presocratics in the Republic (Berlin: De Gruyter: 2011), 15-16, n. 28-29; 177-
214. With regard to poikilia in poetry and music, see: Barbara Fowler,
“The Archaic Aesthetic,” AJP 105 (1984): 119-149; Andrew Barker,
“Heterophonia and Poikilia: Accompaniments to Greek Melody,”
Mousikē. Metrica, ritmica e musica Greca in memoria di Giovanni Comotti ,”
336
eds. Bruno Gentili and Franca Perusino (Pisa-Roma: Istituti editoriali e
poligrafici internazionali, 1995), 41-60; Eckhard Roch, Chroma, Color,
Farbe: Ursprung und Funktion der Farbmetapher in der antiken Musiktheorie
(Mainz: Schott, 2001); Eleonora Rocconi, “Colours in Music: Metaphoric
Musical Language in Greek Antiquity,” Music-Archaeological Sources:
Excavated Finds, Oral Transmission, Written Evidence, eds. Ellen Hickmann
and Ricardo Eichmann (Rahden/Westfalen, 2004), 29-34; and Pauline
LeVen, “The Colors of Sound: Poikilia and Its Aesthetic Contexts,” Greek
and Roman Musical Studies 1 (2013), 229-242.
18 Andrew Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 360-362.
19 References in later authors (e.g., Cic. Orat. 96, De Orat. 2.188; Dion. Hal.
Comp. 23.12; Demetr. Eloc. 128-186; Quint. Inst. 10.1.79) to charis, or its
Latin equivalent, as a mark of literary or rhetorical style, particularly the
polished or middle style, reflect a stylistic system probably formed in the
period roughly contemporary with Apelles.
20 In addition, Apelles produced a painting of Tyche, about which we know
only that she was sitting; because, as the painter said, “she is always in
motion” (Strob. 4.41.60).
21 Elena Walter-Karydi, The Greek House: The Rise of Noble Houses in Late
Classical Times (Athens: Archaeological Society at Athens Library, 1998),
n. 17150–51.
22 Kathryn Gutzwiller, “Apelles and the Painting of Language,” Revue de
philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes 83:1 (2009): 43.
23 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting and On Sculpture, trans. C. Grayson
(London: Phaidon, 1972), 26.
24 For the influence of this allegory, see: David Cast, The Calumny of Apelles
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). For the paintings that resulted
see: Jean Michel Massing, Du Texte à l’image (Strasbourg: Presses
Universitaires de Strasbourg, 1990); “A Few More Calumnies: Lucian
and the Visual Arts”, Lucian of Samosata Vivus et Redivivus eds.
Christopher Ligota and Letizia Panizza (London: The Warburg Institute,
2007), 135-144. For the interaction between Alberti’s ecphrastic
description and the Renaissance paintings, see: James Heffernan,
Cultivating Picturacy: Visual Art and Verbal Interventions (Texas: Baylor
University Press, 2006), 69-82. Another example is: Ernst Gombrich, The
Heritage of Apelles: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (Ithaca: Phaidon,
1976) 3-18. Grombrich notes that Pliny’s anecdote about the triple lines
serves as evidence that Apelles perfected the technique of highlighting.
337
The best source for anecdotes about Apelles remains: Johannes
Overbeck, op. cit., sections 1833-1906.
338

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Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa

Chapter Title: The Limits of Greek Painting: From Mimēsis to Abstraction

Book Title: The Many Faces of Mimesis

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-

The main objective of this work is to define the limits of mimēsis

1 Jorge Tomás García is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the The Foundation

technique was developed by Apollodorus of Athens in the latter part of

ArcheoArte 2 (2013): 97-103.

Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, eds. Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray

Parmenides, the technique is used as a metaphor for “the unreal divisions

lineamenta (γράμματα), or “drawn figures.” On the difficulty of

eds. Keith Rutter and Brian Sparkes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Scholarship,

virtuous,” related to a positive connotation of what it designates.

Ausgewählte Schriften Bd. I (Tübingen, 1963), 105–127. v

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