f drawing and brilliant coloring,
do not give us as high conceptions of ideal beauties as do the pictures
of the great masters of modern times. But we have the testimony of the
ancients themselves, who were as enthusiastic in their admiration of
pictures as they were of statues. And since their taste was severe, and
their sensibility as to beauty unquestioned, we have a right to infer
that even painting was carried to considerable perfection among the
Greeks. We read of celebrated schools,--like the modern schools of
Florence, Rome, Bologna, Venice, and Naples. The schools of Sicyon,
Corinth, Athens, and Rhodes were as famous in their day as the modern
schools to which I have alluded.

Painting, being strictly a decoration, did not reach a high degree of
art, like sculpture, until architecture was perfected. But painting is
very ancient. The walls of Babylon, it is asserted by the ancient
historians, were covered with paintings. Many survive amid the ruins of
Egypt and on the chests of mummies; though these are comparatively rude,
without regard to light and shade, like Chinese pictures. Nor do they
represent passions and emotions. They aimed to perpetuate historical
events, not ideas. The first paintings of the Greeks simply marked out
the outline of figures. Next appeared the inner markings, as we see in
ancient vases, on a white ground. The effects of light and shade were
then introduced; and then the application of colors in accordance with
Nature. Cimon of Cleonae, in the eightieth Olympiad, invented the art of
"fore-shortening," and hence was the first painter of perspective.
Polygnotus, a contemporary of Phidias, was nearly as famous for painting
as he was for sculpture. He was the first who painted woman with
brilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. He gave to the cheek the
blush and to his draperies gracefulness. He is said to have been a great
epic painter, as Phidias was an epic sculptor and Homer an epic poet. He
expressed, like them, ideal beauty. But his pictures had no elaborate
grouping, which is one of the excellences of modern art. His figures
were all in regular lines, like the bas-reliefs on a frieze. He took his
subjects from epic poetry. He is celebrated for his accurate drawing,
and for the charm and grace of his female figures. He also gave great
grandeur to his figures, like Michael Angelo. Contemporary with him was
Dionysius, who was remarkable for expression, and Micon, who was skilled
i