Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1339

ZEUXIS. ■born about B. c. 455, and that he came to Athens about or soon after the beginning of the Pelopon- nesian War. He must have been in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaiis, soon after B. c, 413. He must have spent some time in Magna Graecia, as we learn from the story respecting the picture of Helen, which he painted for the city of Croton ; and it is also probable that he visited Sicily, as we are told that one of those inestimable pictures, which he gave away, was presented to the Agri- gen tines. His travels through Greece itself were no doubt extensive. We find him at Olympia, where he made an ostentatious display, before the eyes of all Greece, of the wealth which his art had brought him, by appearing in a robe embroidered with his own name in letters of gold : another example of that vanity, into which the conscious- ness of merit often betrays the artist, and which was still more strongly exhibited by his contem- porary Parrhasius. The time of his death is unknown, for the inference which has been drawn from the eulogium upon him in the oration of Isocrates irepl avridSaews merely confirms the fact, which is evident from the arguments already adduced as to his age, that he died before the de- livery of that oration in B. c. 355 (comp. Harpocrat. 5. v.). The story told of the manner of his death, namely, that he choked with laughing at a picture of an old woman which he had just painted (Festus, s. V. Pictor), furnishes another instance of those fic- tions which the ancient grammarians were so fond of inventing, in order to make the deaths of great men correspond with the character of their lives. In the case of Zeuxis, we would understand the fable to refer to that marvellous power of imitation, which was one of the most conspicuous and most admired qualities of his style. The few other facts which are known respecting his personal his- tory will be best stated in the account we have to give of his works. In attempting to trace the artistic life of Zeuxis, we meet with a difficulty in the outset. It was a disputed question, Pliny tells us, whether he was the disciple of Demophilus of Himera, or of Neseas of Thasos. Now we cannot but think that the former of these opinions is connected with the belief that the birthplace of Zeuxis was Heracleia in Lucania ; for, if Demophilus of Himera be the same person as the artist of whom a brief account is given under Damophilus, he must have been known through Southern and Central Italy, as well as in his native Sicily, as one of the most cele- brated painters of the age preceding that of Zeuxis. On the other hand, from the tradition respecting Neseas of Thasos (of whom, unfortunatelj', we have no other mention), we are inclined to derive, not only a confirmation of our opinion, that Zeuxis was a native of the Pontic Heracleia, but also an indication of the school in which he received his early training. For the island of Thasos was the home and head of the Ionic school of painting, in both its branches, the Asiatic and the Attic. In it lived the family of artists to which belonged Polygnotus, who established at Athens the new school of painting, which, after some rivalry with the older Attic school, with which Micon and Pa- naenus v/eie connected, became united with the latter, and acquired the position which is marked by the inventions and fame of the Athenian Apol- LODORUS ; while the Asiatic (or, as it is usually called simply the Ionian) school, received a new ZEUXIS. 1327 character from Dionysius of Colophon, the imitator of Polygnotus. The head-quarters of the Ionian school must soon have been fixed at Ephesus, where we find its home in the time of Parrhasius and his successors, and where, from the tradition which makes Zeuxis an Ephesian, it is probable that he also studied. At all events, he clearly be- longed to this school of painting, the leading cha- racteristics of which were accuracy of imitation, the exhibition of sensual charms, and the gra- tification of sensual taste. The perfection to which Zeuxis carried these qualities, which we suppose him to have learned in the Asiatic school, will presently appear in the description of his paintings. But there was another element in his style, which he acquired at Athens, wliither he went at the ver}' period when the wondrous works of Pheidias in sculpture were just completed, and when Apollodorus was beginning to develope those marvellous powers of his own art which reside in the contrast of light and shade, and which appear to have remained a secret even to Polygnotus. [Apollodorus.] How great was the influence of Apollodorus upon Zeuxis, may be seen in the manner in which Pliny introduces the name of Zeuxis (Ab Apollodoro artis fores apeiias Zeuxis intravit)^ and still more strikingly in the complaint which Apollodorus embodied in verse, that Zeuxis had robbed him of his art and carried it away, that is, had surpassed him in what constituted his peculiar excellence. (Plin. I. c. In eum Apollodorus supra scriptus versum fecit, artem ipsi ablatam Zeuxin ferre secum.) Quintilian (xii. 10) has robbed Apollodorus still further, by ascribing the invention of the treatment of light and shade to Zeuxis [Luminum umhrarumque invenisse ratio7iem Zeuxis traditur). And as to the influence of Pheidias upon Zeuxis, we need no direct testimony to assure us how deeply the genius of the young painter must have been affected by those glorious productions, then in all their freshness, the very fragments of which have caused a new birth in modern art ; but we are not without some positive evidence on the subject, in the statement that Zeuxis, like Pheidias, took Homer's descriptions as the model for his own representations of heroic persons, whom, even in his female figures, he painted in such a manner, as to give larger pro- portions to the limbs than in the ordinary human body. (Quintil. l. c. : plus membris corporis dedit, id amplius atque augustius ratus, atque, ut exisUmant^ Homerum secutus, cut validissiina quaeque forma etiam in feminis placet.') Some of the ancient writers charged him with carrying this enlarge- ment of the heads and limbs of his figures even to a fault (Plin. I. c. ; DcpreMnditur iainen ceugrandior in capitibus articulisque). In one respect, however, the art of Zeuxis had already degenerated from that of Pheidias and Polygnotus. His idealism was that oi form, not of character. What Aristotle calls ^0os, the exhibition of character in such a manner as to elevate the feelings and moral sentiments of the spectator, was entirely wanting, the philosopher tells us, in the works of Zeuxis, while it was conspicuous in those of Polygnotus ; and Zeuxis was rather the Euripides of painting than its Homer. (Aristot. Poet. vi. 5 ; for a fuller explanation of the passage, see Poly- gnotus, p. 4G4.) When Pliny says of the Pe- nekpe of Zeuxis, evidently as a sort of answer to the judgment of Aristotle, * in qua pinxisse mores