PLATO, who lived 400 years before the Chrif tian era, informs us, that painting had been prac. tifed in Egypt for 10,000 years. Without regard ing Plato's Egyptian chronology, we may confider it as an indeterminate period, which carries us back to very remote antiquity.

The monuments of EGYPTIAN painting with which we are beft acquainted (fays WINCKELMAN) are the chefts of mummies. These works have refifted the injuries of time, and are still submitted to the examination of the curious. The white, made of white lead, is fpread over the ground of the piece; the outlines of the figure are traced with black ftrokes, and the colours are 4, viz. blue, red, yellow, and green, laid on without any mixture or fhading. The red and blue prevail moft; and these colours feem to have been prepared in the coarfelt manner. The light is formed by leaving those parts of the ground where it is neceffary, covered with the white lead, as it is formed by the white paper in fome of our drawings. This defcription is fufficient to convince us that the whole art of painting in Egypt confifted in colouring; but every perfon knows, that with out tints and the mixture of colours, painting can never arrive at great perfection.

PLINY informs us that the Egyptian artifts -painted the precious metals; that is, they varnished or enamelled them. It is doubtful what this art was, but most probably it contifted in covering gold or filver with a tingle colour. The Egyptians are fuppofed to have continued this coarfe ftyle till the reign of the Ptolemies.

The ancient PERSIANS were fo far from excelling in the arts, that the paintings of Egypt were highly esteemed among them after they had conquered that country. The only ancient painter of Perfia, whofe name is preferved is MANES; and he is more celebrated for his attempt to accommodate the Perfian theology of two first principles to the Chriftian fyftem, than for his fkill as a painter. He was famed, however, for drawing ftraight lines without a ruler.

The modern Perfians have made no progrefs in the arts. The emperor fchah ABBAS, withing to be inftructed in drawing, was obliged to have recourse to a Dutch painter, who happened to be in his dominions. The modern Peiliaus paint on cloth, and the artists in India are their rivals in this branch of industry; but their paintings are merely capricious. They reprefent plants and flowers which have no exiftence in nature; and their only merit confits in the brightneís and ftrength of their colours..

The art in INDIA feems to be confined to monftrous figures connected with their religion. See POLYTHEISM.

The paintings of THIBET are remarkable for the fineness of their ftrokes; but in this confifts their only merit.

The CHINESE feem not to have the leaft idea of the fine arts; and they have not the fmalleft conception of perspective. Their landscapes have no plan, no variety in the appearance of the clouds, and no diminishing of the objects in proportion to their diftance; and their reprefentations of human beings are caricatures upon the human figure.

The ancient inhabitants of ETRURIA, were the first who connected the arts with the ftudy of na ture. In fome of their monuments which ftill remain, there is to be observed a firft ftyle, which fhows the art in its infancy; and a fecond, which, like the works of the Florentine artifts, shows more of greatness and exaggeration in the character than precision or beauty. Pliny fays that painting was carried to great pertection in Italy before the foundation of Rome; but it appears that even in his time the painters of Etruria were held in great reputation. The only Etrurian paintings which remain, have been found in the tombs of the Tarquins. They confift of long painted frizes, and pilafters adorned with huge figures, which occupied the whole fpace from the bafe to the cornice. Thefe paintings are executed on a ground of thick mortar, and many of them are in a ftate of high preservation.

WINCKELMAN is of opinion, that the Greek colonies eftablished at NAPLES and Nola, had at a very early period cultivated the imitative arts, and taught them to the Campanians eftablished in that country. He confiders as works purely Campanian certain medals of Capua and Tean, cities of Campania into which the Greek colonies never penetrated.

"But there have been discovered (adds he) a great number of Campanian vafes covered with painting. The defign of the greatest part of thefe vafes (lays he) is fuch, that the figures might occupy a diftinguished place in the works of Raphael. Thole vafes, when we confider that this kind of work admits of no correction, and that the stroke which forms the outline must remain as it is originally traced, are wonderful proofs of the perfection of the art among the ancients." But the Count de CAYLUS is perfuaded that the Campanian vafes are of Greek origin.

Although the hiftory of Greek painting be more fully known, than that of the fame art among the barbarous nations, it is nevertheless involved in much obfcurity. It is reafonable to conclude, that what is called lineary painting was practised long before the time of HOMER. POLYGNOTE of Thafos, who live about the goth Olympiad, or A. A. C. 420, was the firit painter of any eminence in Greece. Pliny informs us, that he was the firit who clothed his female figures, who varied the colours of the different parts of their drefs, or who opened their mouths in fuch a manper as to thew their teeth. But the art of painting may be still confidered in its infancy in Greece, till about A. A. C. 400, when ZEUXIS and PARRHASIUS flourished. By APELLES, PROTOGENES, and EUPHRANOR, the art was carried to the greatest height of pertection. Grace, fymmetry, proportion, and illution, were now added by the greatest matters to the nobleft objects of nature.

The arts were early introduced into Latium; but whether that country employed its own artists or thofe of Etruria is uncertain.

In A. R. 259, and A. A. C. 494, Appius Claudius confecrated a number of fhields in the temple of Bellona, which contained in basso relievo the portraits of his family. This example was followed; and in procefs of time it was common among the Romans to place thofe images in priIiii2

vate

vate houses. The execution in baffo relievo is a proof that they had an idea of painting, at least with one colour. As long as the Romans employed artists of other nations, they had little defire to cultivate the arts; but about the year of Rome 450, and 303 years before Chrift, one of the FABII employed himself in painting. He painted the temple of Safety; and his works remained till that temple was burnt, in the reign of Claudius. This fame FABIUS was the first painter and the firft hiftorian in this country.

The example of Fabius, furnamed PICTOR from his profeffion, did not excite his fellow citizens to imitation. A century and a half elapfed before the tragic poet PACUVIUS, nephew of Ennius, painted the temple of Hercules in the forum boarium. The glory which he had acquired by his dramatic works fhed fome luftre on the art which he exercised; but did not confer on it that refpect which could recommend it to general practice. The paintings of Fabius were the recreations of his youth; those of Pacuvius, the amufements of his old age; but painting is a difficult art, which requires a man's whole time and attention to be folely devoted to it.

fame nature with the terras now used in mortar, required to keep out wet, about one finger thick; the next of ground marble or alabafter, and fometimes of pure lime or ftucco, in thickness about one third of the former. Upon this they appear to have laid a coat of black, and then another of red paint; on which last the subject itself was executed. Such seems to have been their method of painting on walls; but in their moveable pictures, and in the performance of their first artists, and where the effects of fhade and light were neceffary, they doubtless used, white.

The colours employed, they feem tɔ have mixed up with fize, of which they preferred that made by boiling the ears and genitals of bulls. This appears to have made the colours fo durable and adhesive, that the ancient paintings lately found bear washing with a foft cloth and water; and fometimes even diluted aquafortis is employed to clean their paintings on frefco. Pliny fays, that glue, diffolved in vinegar and then dried, is not again soluble.

What the ENCAUSTIC PAINTING of the an. cients was, has been much difputed. From the works of Vitruvius and Pliny, it appears evidently, that it was of three kinds. 1. Where a picture painted in the common way was covered with a varnish of wax melted, diluted with a little oil, and laid on warm with a brush. 2. Where the colours themselves were mixed up with melted wax, and the mixture used while warm. And, 5. Where a painting was executed on ivory by means of the ceftrum or viriculum.

The paintings of the ancient artifts were either moveable, or on the ceilings or compartments of buildings. Another to Pliny, the most eminent were thofe who painted moveable pictures. The latter were either on fir wood, larch, boxwood, or canvas, fometimes on marble. When they employed wood, they laid on firft a white ground. Among the antiquities of the Herculaneum are 4 paintings on white marble.

Their immoveable paintings on walls, were either in frefco, or on dry ftucco in diftemper. In deed all the ancient paintings may be reduced to, ift, Frefco painting; 2dly, Water-colour, or diftemper painting on a dry ground; and 3dly, Encauftic painting. The ancient frefco paintings appear to have been always on a white ftucco ground, the colours inlaid very deep, and the drawing much more bold and free than any fimilar performance of modern art. The outlines of the ancient paintings on fresco were probably done at once, as appears from the depth of the incifion and the boldness and freedom of the defign, equal to the care and spirit of a penciled outline.

In general the ancients painted on a dry ground, even in their buildings, as appears from the Herculanean antiquities, moft of which are executed in this manner. At Rome and Naples the firft (deepest) coat is of true Puzzolana, of the

had white lead variously prepared, a white from calcined egg-fhells, and preparations from cretaceous and argillaceous earths. The moderns, in addition, have magiftery of bismuth, little used; and ought to have the calces of tin and zinc.

Of blacks, the ancients had preparations fimilar to lamp, ivory, blue, and Franckfort black; alfo to Indian ink and common writing ink; and they used what we do not, the precipitate of the black dyers vats.

The ancients poffeffed a species of vermilion or fine cinnabar, a coarfer cinnabar, red lead, various earths, burnt and unburnt, apparently fimilar to our red ochre: Venetian red, Indian red, Spanifh brown, burnt terra de Sienna, and fcarlet ochre; they had also a fubftance alike in colour and in name to our dragon's blood.

The yellow pigments of the ancients were gene rically the fame with our orpiments, king's yellow, Naples yellow, &c. They did not poffefs turbith, mineral, mineral yellow, or gamboge; nor do they appear to have known of gall stone as a pigment.

Of blue paints, they had preparations from the lapis fyanus and lapis armenus. Indigo they had, and perhaps bice and fmelt; for they made blue glafs, but whether from fome ore of cobalt or of wolfram muft be uncertain: they had not Pruffian blue, verditer, nor litmus, which we have. do not ufe the blue precipitate of the dyers vats, nor mountain blue, which they certainly employed.

We

Of green colours, they had verdegris, terra vert, and malachite or mountain green. The latter is

not

not in ufe among us. Sap green, green verditer, and Scheele's green, appear to have been unknown to them: like us, they procured as many tints as they pleased from blues and yellow vegetables. We have no original purple in ufe: that from gold by means of tin, though very good when well prepared, is too dear. Their purple was a tinged earth. Their orange or fandarac (red orpiment) we alfo poffefs, Hence there does not appear to have been any great want of pigments, or any very material difference between the colours they used and fuch as we generally employ. Perhaps the full effect of colouring may be obtained without the ufe of the exceeding brilliant pigments, depending chiefly on the proportion and oppofition of tints.

The ancients were undoubtedly acquainted with oil varnishes, that is, with the ufe and effect of refinous gums diffolved in boiling infpiffated oils. One of the best preferved mummies in the British mufeum, has an aftonishing brightness of colours on the outfide of the coffin. Thousands of years have not impaired them; they are as fresh as if they had been laid on yesterday.

PLINY has defcribed the effects of the varnish of APELLES, under the name of atrament. He has mentioned the fhining gloffy fkin of the varnifh, which excites the brightnefs of the colours, and preferves them against duft; he obferved, that this skin was laid on fo thin, that it could not be difcerned at any distance. The chemifts and connoiffeurs are of opinion, that no liquid mixture of any kind is fit to produce thefe effects befides the oil varnishes: and therefore, that Apelles and the Greeks were certainly acquainted with thofe varnishes.

The black outlines of the figures on the moft ancient Greek paintings yet extant, that is, on E trufcan vases, are fo fharp, fo thick, and drawn in so easy and masterly a manner, that one cannot help looking upon them as having been drawn in oil colours.

Yet the Greek and Roman paintings that have been preserved or difcovered at Rome and Hercu. laneum do not countenance the fuppofition of oil colours; at least Turnbull and the academifts at Naples, who have defcribed the royal collection at Portici, Cochin, and many other authors who have seen and defcribed them, do not hint any thing of that nature. On the other hand Vitru. vius, who has left us fo many valuable notices of the ancient arts, acquaints us, that there was a kind of painting which absolutely required a mixture of oil: And Pliny, to the fame purpose, exprefsly fays, "Sun and moon fhine are inimical and obnoxious to red lead. The remedy is to apply the red wax when hot and melted, with fome oil, on the well dried walls, which is to be done with brushes."

But, on the whole, we have no direct evidence that painting in oil was understood or practifed by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans, however nearly they may have approached towards the discovery.

The art of painting was revived in Europe about the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. In Italy, where the first attempts were made, they were employed in representing the mysteries of the

paffion, and subjects of a fimilar nature, on the walls of chapels and churches. Their labours were directed to a vaft number of figures, rather than to the beauty and perfection of each; and the art, in more modern times, has always preferved fomewhat of this abfurd fault which it contracted at that early period. The first thing which they dif covered, or rather revived, was perspective, which enabled them to give more truth to their works. DOMINIQUE GHIRLANDAIOS, a Florentine, was the firft who enriched the ftyle of his compofition by grouping his figures, and who gave depth to his pictures, by diftinguishing, by exact gradations, the spaces which his figures occupied; but his fucceffors have far furpaffed him in boldness of compofition.

LEONARD DA VINCI, Michael Angelo, Giorgion, Titian, Bartholomew De St Marc, and Raphael, flourished about the end of the 14th centur. DA VINCI was the inventor of many details in the art: MICHAEL ANGELO, by ftudying the ancients, and by his knowledge of anatomy, arrived at great elegance in drawing the outlines of his figures: GIORGION gave greater brilliancy to his colours than his predeceffors: TITIAN, by a careful imitation of nature, made great proficiency in the truth and perfection of his tones: ST MARC difcovered the claro-obscuro, the best manner of giving drapery to his figures, and of making the naked to be felt even when they were covered: RAPHAEL formed a ftyle more perfect and more univerfal than any painter who went before, or who has fucceeded him.

After Raphael had appeared, grace was the only thing wanting to the art, and CORREGIO became the Apelles of Europe. Painting was by him carried to the highest degree among the mo derns; the taste of the best critics, and the eye of the vulgar were equally gratified.

After thefe great masters, a confiderable interval elapfed till the time of the CARACCI, who by fudying the works of their predecessors, became the firft and the most celebrated of their imitators. The pupils of the Caracci formed a school after their manner; but GUIDO, a painter of an easy and happy talent, formed a ftyle altogether graceful, rich, and eafy. GUERSHEN formed after Caravaggio, or invented a particular style of the claro-obfcuro, compofed of ftrong fhades and vivid oppofitions.

PETER DE CORTONE fucceeded those great imitators of their predeceffors and of nature; and having great natural abilities, applied himself chiefly to compofition and taste. He diftinguished invention from compofition; appeared not to have attended to the former, but chiefly to those parts which are most prominent in the picture, and to the the contrafting of groups.

About the middle of the 17th century flourished at Rome CHARLES MARATTI, who, aiming at the greatest perfection, carefully ftudied the works of the firft painters, and particularly those of the fchool of the Caracci.

FRANCE alfo produced great masters, particu larly in the part of compofition; in which Pouf fin, after Raphael, is the best imitator of the style of the ancient Greeks. CHARLES LE BRUN and many others diftinguished themselves for great

fertility

phael, fays Mengs, that he was born in what he terms the infancy of the art, and that he formed himfelf by copying nature before he had access to fee the works of any great mafter. He began by ftudying, with great exactnefs, the fimple truth in his figures. He was then ignorant that any choice was neceffary; but he faw the works of Da Vinci, Maffacio, and Michael Angelo, which gave his genius a new direction. But the works of thofe mafters were not fufficiently perfect to point out the beft choice to make; and he continued in uncertainty till he faw at Rome the works of the ancients. Then he found the true models, and in imitating them, he had only to follow the natural impulfe of his genius.

He never loft fight of nature; but he was inftructed by the ancients in what manner the fhould be ftudied. He perceived, that the Greeks had felected what was great or beautiful, and that one of the chief causes of the beauty of their works was the regularity of their proportions. He faw alfo that the joinings of the bones, and the free play of their articulations, are the caufes of all graceful movement: he therefore, was led by thefe obfervations not to be contented with the fimple imitation of nature.

His defign is excellent, but neither fo perfect nor fo finished as that of the Greeks. He excel led in representing philofophers, apoftles, &c. but he did not equal the Greeks in ideal figures, which ought to carry the impreffion of divinity. His tafte for defign was more Roman than Greek, because he formed it chiefly on the baffo-relievos which he found at Rome. But while he excelled in this part he did not give his figures all the elegance of the Greek artifts, nor the flexibility of articulation which is admired in the Laocoon, in the Apollo of Belvidere, and in the Gladiator.

AS RAPHAEL knew that the expreffion of the paffions is abfolutely neceffary in an art which represents the actions of men, his first care, when he wanted to compofe a piece, was to weigh the expreffion; that is, to establish, according to the nature of the fubject, the paffions which were to animate the characters. All the figures, all the acceffories, all the parts of the compofition, were moulded to the general expreffion. It cannot be faid, however, even with regard to the claro-obfcuro, that he imitated nature without tafte. He delighted in what are called maffes of light; and difpofed the great lights in the moft confpicuous places of his figures, whether naked or in drapery. This gives his works that diftinctness which makes his figures confpicuous at a diftance; and this must be allowed to be an effential part of the art of painting. He did not proceed beyond this; content with that kind of claro-obfcuro which comprehends imitation, he never attempted that which is ideal.

The compofition and the ensemble of his figures were the chief excellences of Raphael. He had too high an idea of painting to confider it as a mute art; he made it speak to the heart and foul; and he could only do this in fubjects which required expreffion. If Raphael did not reach the Greek excellence, if he did not poffefs the art of embellifhing nature in the fame high degree, he faw at least, and imitated her in whatever was expreffive

and beautiful. "The Greeks failed with majesty (fays Mengs) between earth and heaven: Raphael walked with propriety on the earth."

"Compofition is in general (fays he) of two kinds: Raphael's is the expreffive kind; the other is the theatrical or picturefque, which confifts of an agreeable difpofition of the figures. LANFRANC was the inventor of this last, and after him Cortona. I give the preference to Raphael; because reafon prefides over all his works, or at least the greateft part of them."

A masterly contraft between Angelo and Raphael is given by Sir Joshua Reynolds. "If we put thofe great artifts (fays he) in comparison with each other, Raphael had more tafte and fancy, Michael Angelo more genius and imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michael Angelo has more of the poetical in opera tion; his ideas are vaft and fublime. Raphael's imagination is not fo elevated, though his ideas are chafte, noble, and of great conformity to their fubjects." &c.

The VENETIAN SCHOOL is the child of nature. The Venetian painters, not having under their eyes, like the Roman, the remains of antiquity, were destitute of the means of forming a juft idea of the beauty of forms and of expreffion. They copied without choice the forms of nature; but they were chiefly delighted with the beauties which prefented themselves in the mixture and the variety of natural colours. Colouring was their chief object, and they fucceeded in it. They endeavoured, by the agreement and oppofition of the coloured ob jects, and by the contraft of light and fhade, to produce a vigorous effect, to demand and fix the attention. Dominic, who was the fecond Italian artist who painted in oil, had educated, before he quitted Venice, his native country, James Bellin, whofe chief merit lay in the picturefqué education he gave to Gentel and John his two fons.

GENTEL, the eldest, painted chiefly in water colours. John contributed much to the progress of his art in painting conftantly in oil, and after nature. Although he always retained great ftiffnefs in his manner, he had lefs than his father or brother. Great neatness of colouring, and an ap proach to harmony, are evident in his works. His tafte in design is Gothic, the air of his heads is fufficiently noble, his attitudes are without judgment, and his figures without expreffion. He had for fcholars Giorgion and Titian, who are con fidered as the founders of the Venetian school.

GIORGION diftinguished himself by a defign of a better tafte than that of his mafter; but he chief, ly furpaffed him in colouring. He died in his 32d year; and excited the emulation of Titian, who foon greatly excelled him.

TIZIANO VECELLI, best known by the name of TITIAN, was inftructed to copy nature in the moft fervile manner in the school of John Bellin; but when he had feen the works of Giorgion, he began to ftudy the ideal in colouring. The truth of hiftory is not to be expected in his hiftorical paintings, or in thofe of the artifts of the fame fchool. He feems to have paid little attention to the confiftence of fcene, to the coftume, to expreffion adapted to the fubject, or, to the accommodation of parts which characterife the works

of