FIRST LECTURE.

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ments in painting which Pliny afcribes to him, of hav-ing drefled the heads of his females in variegated veilsand hancleaus, and robed them in lucid drapery, of hav-ing gently opened the lips, given a glimpfe of the teeth,and leffened the former monotony of face, fuch im-provements I fay were furely the moft trifling part of apower to which the age of Apelles and that of Quin-tilian paid equal homage: nor can it add much to oureflccm for him, to be told by Pliny that there exifted,in the portico of Pompey , a picture of his with the figureof a warrior in an attitude fo ambiguous as to makeit a qucftion whether he were afcending or defcending.Such a figure could only be the offspring of mental ortechnic imbecility, even if it refembled the celebratedone of a Diomede carrying off the palladium with oneand holding a fword in the other hand, on the intaglioinfcribed, I think, with the name of Diofcorides.

With this fimplicity of manner and materials the artfeems to have proceeded from Polygnotus , Aglaophon,Phidias, Pansenus, Colotes , and Evenor, the father of

Parrhafius,

the fame picture, together with the coloured draperies mentioned by Pliny ; makesit evident, that the f (implex colour’ al'cribed by Quintilian to Polygnotus andAglaophon, implies lefs a (ingle colour, as Come have fuppofed, than that fimplicityalwavs attendant on the infancy of painting, which leaves every colour unmixedand crudely by itfelf. Indeed the Poecile (r ttodciA*i s'occ) which obtained itsname from his pictures, is alone a fufficient proof of variety of colours.

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