(Ζεῦξις), artists.
1. The celebrated painter, who excelled all his contemporaries except Parrhasitus, and whose name is one of the most renowned in the history of ancient art, was a native of Heracleia; but which of the cities of that name had the honour of his birth we are not informed. Most modern writers follow the opinion of Hardouin, who fixed upon Heracleia in Lucania, for no better reason than that Zeuxis executed a celebrated picture for the neighbouring city of Croton; and on a precisely similar ground others decide in favour of Heracleia Lyncestis, in Macedonia, because Zeuxis enjoyed the patronage of Archelaüs. It is evident how these two opinions show the worthlessness of each other; both rest on facts which are better accounted for by the celebrity of the artist, which was doubtless coextensive with the Grecian name; and, as for the former, it is most probable, as will be seen presently, that Zeuxis was born some time before the foundation of the Italian Heracleia, which was not built till after the destruction of Siris, in B. C. 433. It is rather singular that none of the commentators (so far as we know) have thought of that city which was the most celebrated of any of its name for the great men whom it sent forth, namely, Heracleia on the Pontus Euxeinus. The question deserves investigation whether, when Heracleia is mentioned without any distinctive addition by an Athenian writer of the time of Xenophon and Plato, we are not justified in assuming that the reference is to Heracleia on the Euxine. The probability of this city having been the birth-place of Zeuxis is confirmed by the well-known fact, that the artist belonged to the Asiatic school of painting ; a fact which is also indicated in the tradition which made him a native of Ephesus (Tzetz. Chil. 8.196), the head-quarters of the Asiatic school. In the same way Apelles and other eminent artists of the Asiatic school are called natives of Ephesus, though known to have been born at other places. [*](* A modern writer on art, who, on the strength of the statement referred to, and of a chronological mistake of Lucian's, makes a second painter Apelles, of Ephesus, should consistently have invented a second Zeuxis, of Ephesus; and so in several other instances, in which two places are mentioned in connection with an artist's name--the one being that of his birth, the other that of the school to which he belonged.)
The date of Zeuxis has likewise been a matter of dispute, which has arisen from the confused account of it given by Pliny, who is our chief authority for the artist's life. (H. N. 35.9. s. 36.2.) He says that "The doors of the art, thrown open by Apollodorus of Athens, were entered by Zeuxis of Heracleia in the fourth year of the 95th Olympiad (B. C. 400-399) ... who is by some placed erroneously in the 79th Olympiad (or 89th, for the best MSS. vary; B. C. 464-4460 or 424-420), when Demophilus of Himera and Neseas of Thasos must of necessity have flourished, since it is doubted of which of them he was the disciple." Now, passing over what is said of Demophilus and Neseas -- which cannot help us, as it is doubtful who the former artist was, and we have no other mention of the latter,--it appears to us that this passage, when cleared of a mistaké into which Pliny was led in a way which can be explained, contains the true period of Zeuxis, namely, from about Ol. 89 to Ol. 89,. B. C. 424-400 ; the mistake referred to, as made by Pliny, being the assumption of the period at which Zeuxis had attained to the height of his reputation, as that at which he began to flourish. And here we have the reply to the argument of Sillig in favour of reading LXXIX. rather than LXXXIX.; for the latter, he contends, is the true date for the beginning of the artist's career, and is not inconsistent with his having flourished at Ol. 95. 4; whereas the former, involving as it does an interval of sixty-seven years, is inconsistent with the last date. The premises are sound; but the true conclusion in each branch of the argument appears to us to be the direct opposite of that drawn by Sillig. The date of Ol. 89 is certainly quite consistent with the fact that Zeuxis was still flourishing in Ol. 95. 4; but it is altogether inconsistent with his having begin to flourish at the latter date, which is the view expressly stated by Pliny, who therefore very consistently rejects the former date ;
Pliny's reason for rejecting this statement, and for fixing on the 95th Olympiad as the commencement of the career of Zeuxis, is, we suspect, to be found in his notion of the relation of Zeuxis to Apollodorus, whom he places at Ol. 93. Pliny evidently believed Zeuxis to have been largely indebted to Apollodorus; and thus far, as we shall presently see, he was doubtless in the right. But if he drew from this relation the inference that Zeuxis must have begun to flourish some eight or twelve years, or even at all, after the time at which Apollodorus was at the height of his reputation, he adopted a conclusion which by no means necessarily follows. We are nowhere expressly told that Zeuxis was a pupil of Apollodorus; but this does not matter. In schools of art the disciple is often very little younger, sometimes even older, than his master; and this is especially the case where an artist, who has already made some progress in his studies or even in the practice of his art, enters the school of a master who is celebrated in some one point of the art, for the sake of acquiring the knowledge of that point. Numerous examples might be cited from the history both of ancient and modern art of this sort of relation between contemporary artists, and also of the errors made by adopting some fixed average period as that by which it may be assumed that the disciple was later than his master. For these reasons we draw a conclusion in favour of the date we have assigned to Zeuxis, even from the manner in which Pliny denies its correctness.
This date is abundantly confirmed by other evidence. Quintilian (12.10) tells us that he lived about the time of the Peloponnesian War. The allusions to him, which are put into the mouth of Socrates by Xenophon and Plato, even after making all allowance for the anachronisms which the latter is often content to commit for the sake of dramatic effect, point to the date above fixed, and place him, at all events, earlier than the date assigned by Pliny (Plat. Gorg. p. 453c. d.; Xen. Mem. 1.4.6, Oecon. 10.1; and probably also Sympos. 4.63, and Plat. Protag. p. 318b. c. ; see ZEUXIPPUS). Besides the general indications of his date, furnished by these passages, the one last quoted (if Zeuxippus there be Zeuxis) gives a specific date perfectly in accordance with the one assumed, for the second visit of Protagoras to Athens, on occasion of which the dialogue is supposed to be held, took place in B. C. 422. Similar incidental evidence may be derived from Aristophanes, who, in the Acharnians (991, 992), having mentioned Eros, adds :--
- ὥσπερ ὁ γεγραμμένος, ἔχων στέφανον ἀνθέμων.
Now, from the general character of the allusions in the comic poets, we may safely infer that the picture alluded to was only recently painted; and therefore we are quite prepared to accept the express statement of the Scholiast, that the picture referred to was one painted by Zeuxis, and dedicated in the temple of Aphrodite at Athens, representing Eros in the fairest youthful beauty, and as crowned with roses (comp. Suid. s. v. Ἀνθέμων). The date of the Acharnians was B. C. 425 ; and this agrees wonderfully well with the passage in the Protagoras, where it is clearly implied that the painter had already achieved a very high reputation. It is hardly necessary to remark, that there is no difficulty in explaining the word νεωστὶ as referring to a period three or four years back, especially when we are dealing with a chronological allusion in Plato. It is true that each portion of the incidental evidence now adduced has a certain degree of indefiniteness; but some of the soundest results of critical inquiries are based upon the cumulative force and mutual confirmation of a body of incidental evidence, no one portion of which, by itself, would justify the conclusion.
The above arguments apply to the beginning of the career of Zeuxis : they are abundantly confirmed by evidence referring to a later period, namely, from what we are told of his connection with Archelaüs, king of Macedonia, whose reign began in B. C. 413, and ended in B. C. 399. the very year in which, according to Pliny, Zeuxis began to flourish. But for this king he executed an important and extensive work, which would not have been entrusted to any but an artist of established reputation, the decoration of the royal palace at Pella with paintings, for which Zeuxis received four hundred mine (Aelian, Ael. VH 14.17). Aelian relates this fact in connection with a remark of Socrates upon it, which is worth repeating, both for its own sake, and as showing that the work must have been executed some time before B. C. 399 (when Socrates himself was put to death), and yet after the fame of Zeuxis had been spread far and wide --" Archelaüs," said the philosopher, " had spent 400 minae on his house, hiring Zeuxis of Heracleia to paint it, but nothing on himself (that is, on his own improvement). Wherefore men travelled from a distance, eager to see the house, but none visited Macedonia for the sake of Archelaüs himself." We are also told by Pliny, that Zeuxis, after acquiring a great fortune by the exercise of his art, adopted the custom of giving away his pictures, because no adequate price could be set upon them ; and one of the paintings so given away was a picture of Pan, which he presented to Archelaüs : another proof that he had reached the summit of his reputation before that king's death in B. C. 399, Another indication of his date is found in the story related by Plutarch (Per. 13), which represents him as partly contemporary with Agatharcus, who painted scenes for Aeschylus or Sophocles [AGATHARCIDES].
On these grounds we may say, with almost absolute certainty, that Zeuxis flourished chiefly during the last quarter of the fifth century, B. C.; and, as it has been shown to be probable that he was already exercising his art at Athens with great success at the beginning of that period, we may assume that he was then not less than thirty years old (and this falls within the meaning of νεάνισκος in the Protagoras); and therefore that he was
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 IIimera, 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 celebrated painters of the age preceding that of Zeuxis. On the other hand, from the tradition respecting Neseas of Thasos (of whom, unfortunately, 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 Panaenus were connected, become united with the latter, and acquired the position which is marked by the inventions and fame of the Athenian APOLLODORUS ; while the Asiatic (or, as it is usually called simply the Ionian) school, received a new 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 belonged to this school of painting, the leading characteristics of which were accuracy of imitation, the exhibition of sensual charms, and the gratification 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, whither he went at the very 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 apertas 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. l.c. In eum Apollodorus supra scripts versum fecit, artem ipsi ablatam Zeuxin ferre secum.) Quintilian (12.10) has robbed Apollodorus still further, by ascribing the invention of the treatment of light and shade to Zeuxis (Luminum umbrarumque invenisse rationem 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 proportions to the limbs than in the ordinary human body. (Quintil. l.c. : "plus membris corporis dedit, id amplius atque augustius ratus, atque, ut existimant Homerum secutus, cui ralidissima quaeque forma etiam in feminis placet.") Some of the ancient writers charged him with carrying this enlargement of the heads and limbs of his figures even to a fault (Plin. l.c.; Deprehenditur tamen ceu grandior in capitibus articulisque).
In one respect, however, the art of Zeuxis had already degenerated from that of Pheidias and Polygnotus. His idealism was that of form, not of character. What Aristotle calls ἦθος, 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. 6.5 ; for a fuller explanation of the passage, see POLYGNOTUS, p. 464.) When Pliny says of the Penelope of Zeuxis, evidently as a sort of answer to the judegment of Aristotle, " in qua pinxisse mores
His marvellous power in expressing the ideal standard of human beauty, and of exactly imitating those natural objects, which are incapable of an ideal representation, are celebrated by several ancient writers. In the passage, more than once referred to in this work, in which Cicero expresses the general character of several of the chief artists of Greece (Brut. 18), as illustrative of the gradual progress of art, he says of Zeuxis, Polygnotus, and Timanthes, " we praise their forms and outlines (formas et lineamenta); but in Echion, Nicomachus, Protogenes, and Apelles every thing is already perfected." Elsewhere (de Invent. 2.1 ; comp. Victorin. Expos. ad loc.) he relates, more fully than any other ancient author, the well-known story of his choice of the five most beautiful virgins of Croton [*](* Not Agrigentum, as Pliny says.), as models for his picture of Helen, to be dedicated in the temple of Juno in that city ; which is one of the best illustrations of the sort of ideal character which was expressed in the paintings of Zeuxis, and which shows us that his idealism consisted in the formation of a high average of merely human beauty, by the actual imitation, in one figure, of the most beautiful models of each separate part which he could find. This picture, Cicero tells us, was esteemed the finest work of the painter, in that application of his art in which he most excelled, namely the delineation of the female form; and Zeuxis himself is said to have indicated his own opinion, that the picture was not only his masterpiece, but that its excellence could not be surpassed, by adding to it the following lines of Homer (Hom. Il. 3.156_158) :--
Οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιοὺς τοιῇδ̓ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν· αἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν.
(V. Max. 3.7, ext. 1.) This judgment was confirmed by that of the great painter Nicomachus (see NICOMACHUS, p. 1196a.), but, when he saw a goddess in the Helen of Zeuxis, we must remember that, in his age, even more than in that of Zeuxis himself. the highest idea of a divine form was satisfied by the perfection of merely human beauty. This picture and its history were celebrated, Cicero further tells us, by many poets, who preserved the names of the five virgins upon whom the choice of Zeuxis fell; and it has more than once been alluded to by modern poets. (See especially, Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 11.71-78.) This picture is said to have contributed greatly to the artist's wealth. Cicero tells us that the Crotoniats, who were then at the height of their prosperity, engaged Zeuxis, for a large sum of money, to adorn with paintings the temple of Juno in their city ; and Aelian (Ael. VH 4.12) relates a gossipping story, that, before the picture was dedicated, Zeuxis made an exhibition of it, at a fixed price, paid before admission, and so made a great gain of it; but this proceeding caused his Helen to be known by the epithet of Ἑταῖρα.
The accurate imitation of inanimate objects was a department of the art which Zeuxis and his younger rival Parrhasius appear to have carried almost to perfection. The well-known story of the trial of skill in that species of painting between these two artists, if not literally true, indicates the opinion which was held in ancient times of their powers of imitation. In this contest the picture of Zeuxis represented a bunch of grapes, so naturally painted that the birds flew at the picture to eat the fruit; upon which the artist, confident in this proof of his success, called upon his rival no longer to delay to draw aside the curtain and show his picture but the picture of Parrhasius was the curtain itself, which Zeuxis had mistaken for real drapery. On discovering his error, Zeuxis honourably yielded the palm to Parrhasius, saying that he himself had deceived birds, but Parrhasius an artist. (Plin. l.c. § 3.) Such a tale, perhaps. hardly falls within the province of criticism; otherwise an exception might be taken to the decision of Zeuxis, on more grounds than one. As a pendant to this story, Pliny (l.c. § 4) relates another less known, but more interesting, if true ; namely, that Zeuxis afterwards painted a boy carrying grapes, at which a bird again flew; but this time the artist was displeased at his success, and said "I have painted the grapes better than the boy ; for had I made him perfectly like life, the bird would have been frightened away."
Besides this accuracy of imitation, many of the works of Zeuxis displayed great dramatic power. This appears to have been especially the case with his Infant Hercules strangling the Serpent, where the chief force of the composition consisted in the terror of Alemena and Amphitryon, as they witnessed the struggle. (Plin. l.c. § 2. : Hercules Infans Dracones strangulans, Alemena corams pavente et Amphitryone.) This picture was one of those which Zeuxis painted after he had reached the summit of his fame, and which he freely gave away as above all price; for there can be no doubt that it was the same work as the Alemena, which, as Pliny states a little before, he presented to the people of Agrigentum. Another picture, in which he showed the same dramatic power, applied to a very different subject, was his Female Hippocentaur, of which a most charming description is given by Lucian (Zeuxis, 3, foll.), who saw a copy of the work at Athens, the original having been lost in a shipwreck off Cape Malea, on its way to Rome, whither it has been sent by Sulla. It represented a peaceful, happy, cheerful group of Centaurs, in which the repose of the mother suckling her young was beautifully contrasted with the sportive roughness of the father, who was partly visible on an elevation in the background, holding up a lion's whelp to frighten the little ones. The mixed shape of the Centaurs gave the artist a splendid opportunity to show his power of delineating form, and that in several varieties; the male was fierce and shaggy, and his face, though smiling, was wild and savage; the Centauress combined the beauties of a perfect female form, in the upper part, with those of a mare of the purest Thessalian breed, so skilfully united that it was impossible to detect the point of transition from the human form to the animal; and the young ones, though new born, showed the fierce wildness of their nature, mingled with infantine timidity and curiosity at the sight of the lion's whelp, and while they looked at it, they clung closer to their mother. The figure of a female Centaur, suckling her young one, copied doubtless from the painting of Zeuxis. is seen in a
Of the diligence, with which Zeuxis elaborated his paintings, we have a proof in the reply which he made to Agatharcus, who, as was natural for a scene-painter, was boasting of the rapidity with which he executed his works, when Zeuxis quietly observed : -- " But I take a long time about mine" (Ἐγὼ δὲ πολλῷ χρόνῳ : Plut. Per. 13). The tale is told with a slight variation by Plutarch, in another passage (De Amic. Mult. 5, p. 94f.), that Zeuxis, being blamed for the slowness with which he worked, replied, " I confess that I take a long time to paint; for I paint works to last a long time (Ὁμολογῶ ἐν πολλῷ χρόνῳ γράφειν, καὶ γὰρ εἰς πολύν· hence the proverb, Pingo in aeternitatem)." There are other anecdotes told of Zeuxis in common with other great painters. Thus the celebrated verse, ascribed to APORLLODORUS, is said by Pliny to have been written by Zeuxis upon his picture of an athlete : --" A man will find it easier to blame than to imitate " (Invisurum aliqucm facilius, quam imitaturum) or, in the original,
- μωμήσεταί τις μᾶλλον ἢ μιμήσεται.
The reproof addressed by Apelles to Megabyzus, or, as others say, to Alexander, is ascribed by Aelian (Ael. VH 2.2) to Zeuxis. (See APELLES, p. 221a.)
It is unnecessary to multiply references to passages of the ancient writers in praise of Zeuxis. The remarkable fact that his name is not mentioned by Pausanias, is explained by the supposition, which is almost undoubtedly true, that his pictures were mostly upon panels, according to the general practice of the Greek painters, and therefore that they had either been destroyed or plundered before the time of Pausanias. The latter process would of course be carried on by the Roman conquerors of Greece with an eagerness proportioned to the celebrity of the artist, and accordingly we find several of his best works in the list of Pliny. Cicero also expressly tells us, with reference to the pictures which he painted for the temple of Juno at Croton, that not even the sanctity of the fane had availed for the preservation of any of them, except the Helen. He does not, however, say distinctly whether that great work was still at Croton in his time. Pliny mentions a Helen by Zeuxis as being at Rome, in the portico of Philip ; but he does not identify it with the picture painted for the Crotoniats, the subject of which indeed he does not mention : it is not improbable however that they were the same. The picture of Helen at Athens, in the portico called Ἀλφίτων Στοά was of course not the same; but it may have been a copy of it. (Eustath. ad Il. 11.629, p. 836. 37). How the Athenians were robbed by Sulla of his Centaur, and how that picture perished, has been already mentioned; and his picture of the Muses was curried off to Rome, from Ambracia, by Fulvius Nobilior.
In addition to the works which have been already mentioned, we possess notices of the following pictures by Zeuxis. His Jupiter enthroned, with the gods standing by, is mentioned by Pliny with the epithet magnificus, and its subject confirms the opinion that it was one of the artist's finest works. Pliny also mentions his Marsyas Bound (Marsyas religatus), in the temple of Concord. A minute description of a painting on this subject is given by Philostratus, who, however, does not mention Zeuxis as its painter (Eikon. 2); and the subject frequently occurs on vases, sarcophagi, candelabra, and other remains of ancient art, as well as in the painting found at Herculaneum, and one or two others, which may be presumed to be more or less copied from the work of Zeuxis. (For an account of these works, see Müller, Archäol. d. Kunst, § 362, n. 4; for a sketch of the picture at Herculaneum, Müller, Denkmäler d. alten Kunst, vol. i. pl. xliii. No. 204; and for copies of other works, which represent the story of Apollo and Marsyas, see the Deukmäler, vol. ii pl. xi. Nos. 149-154). The Menelaus of Zeuxis is mentioned by Tzetzes (Chil. 8.196-198); and his Boreas or Triton by Lucian (Timon, 54). Pliny tells us that he painted monochromes in shades of gray (monochromata ex albo) ; and also that there were some vases painted by him (figlina opera) at Ambracia, where they were left untouched by Fulvius Nobilior, when he took away the picture of the Muses. The statement of Cicero (Brutus, 18), that Zeuxis used only four colours, is explained in the Dictionary of Antiquitics, s. v. Colores, p. 320b. 2d ed.