It is of no importance to what individual the art was in debted for each step of its progress; the march of im provement advanced here, as it did elsewhere, from very rude and imperfect beginnings ; and, considering the sin gular concurrence of advantages which Greece presented for the growth of the fine arts, it would have been surpris ing had they not reached great excellence. \Ve find in Greece a number of small states occupying the finest cli mate of the world, full of vigour and talent, animated by the spirit of independence and emulation, striving to out strip each other in every road to eminence, either by mili tary glory, or mental acquirements, stimulated by the fire of genius, and gifted by nature with beauty of person sur passing their contemporaries. Accordingly, in every ac quirement of which human nature is susceptible, the ge nius of the Greeks seems to have soared above that of every other nation ; whether by their valour in arms, the celebrity of their schools, their political establishments, their eloquence, poetry, statuary, and architecture. IVe cannot suppose, therefore, that painting should fail to join the train, although the perishable nature of its productions should deprive us of the ocular evidence of facts, Nirhich in the more permanent branches of the fine arts still remain in such profusion as to attest the masterly skill and taste of Greek artists. But there are so many essentials common to both, that the monuments of sculpture bear equal testimony in favour of the pencil ; as they require the same knowledge and correctness of design, the same grace, elegance, and fire of genius. Where the one is found to•lourish, we do not hesitate to admit the existence of the other. Nor have we any reason to receive with doubt the account given by Pliny, and other ancient authors, who lavish their praises on the labours of the Grecian pencil. They exalt with the same enthusiasm the excellence of their sculpture ; and in this last we have abundant testimony that they do not mislead us in their judgment of them.
Yet there are many who, judging from the few imperfect specimens of painting that have reached our day, refuse to admit that the ancients really did possess any adequate knowledge of the art, compared to our ideas of the excel lence attainable by it. We shall not find any difficulty, when we come in the sequel to talk of these remnants, in their incompetency to lead to any such conclu sion. We do not deny that the praises bestowed by ancient authors on the works of art, must always be commensurate to the state of perfection it had reached at the time, and to their capacity of judging. The peasant admires the wonderful art of the sign-painter, or the wooden cuts of his collection of ballads, as great, efforts of genius. Every thing is excellence that excels what we are used to, and the artist who advances a step beyond his contemporaries becomes a prodigy; but where knowledge, in all the vari ous branches of the fine arts, has generally diffused itself over the great body of a people, as we know to have been the case among the Greeks, to a degree unequalled by any other nation, either at that time or since ; we may confi dently rely upon what their authors confidently assert, although the nature of the case admits of no other evidence to corroborate their opinion. When Cicero, Aristotle, Pliny, and others of the great luminaries of ancient litera ture, judge with precision of the beauties of writing and composition, of the excellencies of their poets and orators, we find the opinions they express on these subjects amply borne out by the testimony of their works. When, there fore, they exercise a similar discrimination of judgment as to the perfections of their painters, pointing out with all the precision and scrutiny of critics the defects of such and such individual performances; their good taste and competency to judge can be as little questionable as the fact of their having seen what they not only describe, but dwell on with the delight of amateurs. They draw with scrupulous nicety the parallel betwixt the productions of their great statuaries and painters, who are classed in an equal eminence : They at the same time lament the very great decay of the art in their own day, compared to what it was some centuries before ; and expose the deficiency of the Roman artists, some of whose works remain to verify the truth of their criticism.
The state of the art in general, in the time of Homer, was probably not quite so far advanced as the enthusiasm of some of the admirers of that poet lead them to infer ; but we cannot go so far as to admit, that the circumstance of his not precisely mentioning the art of painting in his poem, is sufficient to make us conclude, that painting did not exist before the period he describes ; and that, in this respect, Greece, before the age of Pericles, remained in utter ignorance of the art. Much refinement in painting, or knowledge of perspective, either linear or aerial, is not to be looked for at this early age ; but every authority of ancient history unites to prove, that the art was, to a cer tain extent, practised, and that representations in basso relievo were much in use, which implies at least a know ledge of design.
The exquisite compositions so beautifully described by Homer, as embossed on the shields and armour of his heroes, may, in point of execution, perhaps, have been somewhat inferior to the masterly excellence of his de scription ; but the design and composition, which is all that we argue for, is naturally implied in the circumstance of their furnishing subjects for his poetic delineation. It is a subject of controversy whether these decorations were sculptured, cast, or painted ; but, in so far as it proves the existence of a knowledge of design at the remotest period of Grecian history, it is immaterial for our purpose, as that was an acquirement equally requisite for them all. ,Neither does it avail to maintain, that painting at least was quite unsuitable to the uses to which arms and heck lers were exposed, when we recollect the early practice of dedicating votive shields as commemorative of heroic exploits, and hanging them up in the temples, where there was nothing to prevent their being of a sufficient size to admit of the representations necessary to convey the record desired. There can be no doubt of the high antiquity of this practice anterior to the age of Homer. The celebrated description which he gives of the shield of Achilles, which has called forth so much discussion, must in every view be admitted as an undeniable testimony of the usage of the age, and to the taste which existed at that epoch in matters of art, as well as one of the earliest monuments of Grecian knowledge in composition and de sign. As it was intended to exercise the talents of an omnipotent artist, Vulcan, whose skill might be supposed capable of giving colour as well as form to his metallic materials, we are not bound to infer, from the minute de tail of colouring, that painting and not sculpture was the art contemplated by Homer. We are not even left to form a conjecture respecting the pOssibility of producing these metallic tints. Homer tells us that Vulcan threw brass, tin, gold, and silver into the lire, and drew from the mixture the combination of colours required, dex terously modifying them to all the delicate blendings which his subject demanded : Whatever, therefore, the execu tion may have been, the idea was here, and however much we may suppose it heightened by poetic hyperbole, it is impossible to read the description, without representing to our imagination a complete picture, or at least a co loured basso-relievo ; for he gives no indication of a co loured sky, or of the flesh-colour required for the counte nances of the figures. In fact, Homer seems willing to impress us with a notion of the omnipotent perfection of Vulcan's art, by superadding to that of the accomplished worker in metals, all the perfections and excellencies pe culiar to sculpture and painting, known to, and of course practised by, that age.