An important and difficult requisite in this art is con gruity, preserving the harmony and union of the whole in all its subordinate parts. Every thing must partake of, and he consistent with, the character adopted,—a combi nation of excellencies not only possible, but natural; for there are perfections of an incongruous nature, which, being dragged together into union, make each other ridi culous. It is a very plausible idea, but one that has given rise to more bad taste in painting than any other, that a painter who strictly follows nature must be correct ; and so he will, if he follows general nature free from individu alities ; but the copy of individual nature with its perfec tions and imperfections, such as they are, is the province of the portrait painter merely. A prejudice exists against ideal beauty, as if it were a desertion of reality, in order to sport in the regions of fancy and invention ; but it is not so: it is simply the selection of what is beautiful in na ture, to the exclusion of what is not so. It is merely choos ing the most favourable point of view for our representa tion of nature, and clothing it in the most graceful attire. The painter tells his story like the poet, confined to accu racy and precision in substance, while the mode of expres sion is left to his own taste and talent for pleasing. And how much of our pleasure depends upon this is obvious to all. The most interesting narration, anecdote, or scene, may be deprived of all its zest or merit by the mode of handling it. The painter is doubly entitled to as great lati tude for the exercise of taste as the historian, and is as little bound to unadorned matter of fact, as the historian or poet to narrate in the language of mathematical de monstration.
The Greeks, with whom the best display of taste is tc be sought for, adopted the practice of representing their figures either in a fanciful and more graceful attire than the usual dress of the country, or more uncovered than was at all consistent with reality. This practice furnished greater scope for the exercise of skill and genius in thede lineation of the human figure, but certainly led them in time to very preposterous representations of naked philo sophers, and warriors in combat with no other covering than a ponderous helmet, a precaution which seems so needless when the rest of the body is exposed. Although the artists of Greece had the peculiar advantage of study ing the human figure at their public games, and frequent practice of manly exercises, yet the usual attire of the Greeks was far from scanty, and the women particularly were very much covered, and even encumbered with drapery, as we sometimes see represented in basso-re lievos.
Painting does not seem by any means to have been held in such high estimation as sculpture among the Greeks, although they were far from undervaluing either its me rits or importance, as is obvious from the high honours conferred upon their eminent masters; from the general interest taken in the competitions at the great games, where painting held a distinguished place ; and from the important interest attributed to it over the public mind, so as to occasion paintings to be considered, like the great monuments of the state, as a kind of public property. The
number of painters were, however, comparatively incon siderable to that of the statuaries, though, in proportion to the size of the state, Athens itself gave birth to more great painters than fell to the lot of many kingdoms of much greater magnitude. Pausanias enumerates one hundred and sixty-nine statuaries, and only fifteen paint ers, whose works he had seen and describes; but his ac count, though correct as an average proportion, only ap plies to that part of Greece through which he travelled; for Pliny extends his enumeration to one hundred and thirty-three Greek painters, whose merits were worthy of record. The number of statues which Pausanias had occasion to examine in his journey through Greece, amounts to three thousand, which, when we consider that the Romans had already, for three hundred years, been em ',hayed in despoiling that country of its finest monuments of art, is quite surprising. He gives a particular descrip tion of many of these statues. The greater part were of marble; some of bronze; and a few colossal ones of wood, of which the Greeks made pretty frequent use. M. de Caylus mentions having seen two statues of iron, one of them constructed of plates riveued together with clenched nails; gold, silver, and ivory, were also used ; and what of all things clearly demonstrates the energy of genius in Greece, is the circumstance that no copies appear among all the statues that have been preserved. Though fre quently representing the same subject, there is no copying of one from another ; each individual statue being an original. Their portraits of private individuals were ge nerally in sculpture, and very numerous. Accordingly, Pausanias enumerates only forty-three painted portraits, while he saw eighty-eight fresco historical pictures. Sta tues were not considered of such value as pictures, and sold for inferior prices; and as some of these which have reached our day, independent of any adventitious value as objects of antiquity, are well worthy of a high price as specimens of art, we may infer what those pictures must have been which they esteemed so highly.
A Venus painted by Apelles is said to have been bought by Augustus for one hundred talents, about twenty thou sand pounds sterling. The tyrant slnason gave about three thousand pounds for a battle piece painted by Aris tides of Thebes. Nicias had the munificence to refuse sixty talents offered him by Ptolemy for his celebrated picture of the descent of Ulysses to hell, which lie after wards gratuitously presented to his native country, and was accordingly rewarded with great honours. Julius Cisar paid eighty talents for an Ajax and Medea painted by Timounachus. The Medea was unfinished; and as a proof that the connoisseurs of old partook of some of the absurdities of their successors in modern times, this very circumstance had the effect of greatly enhancing the value of the picture. It must no doubt be admitted, that a pic ture when only half finished is sometimes in its best state, and that the finishing often proves too truly so.