As nearly all the works of which we have notice in his tory, whether in Rome or elsewhere, were the productions of Greek artists, there cannot be said to have been any Roman style of painting. hlany of the performances of these itinerent artists were doubtless very indifferent, and these are what are generally attributed to the Romans, as the veneration for Grecian art occasions an unwilling ness to allow any thing inferior to come from their hands. Among the few pictures painted at Rome, of which the name of the artist is recorded, was the triumph of Paulus £milius, by Netrodorus the philosopher, whom he brought from Athens as tutor to his son Scipio. It must have been a picture of very great magnitude, if it gave a true representation of the triumph, which, for one part of the train, is said to have been attended with two hundred and fifty chariots filled with pictures and statues. This very abundant supply, which flowed from the conquest of Greece, and its colonies in Sicily, was perhaps one pow erful means of paralyzing any talent for painting which might have sprung up among the Romans. So long as the demand found sufficient supply, and at the easy rate of conquest, there could be little encouragement to native artists, particularly as the Romans soon acquired skill enough to prefer the works of the ancient Greeks to any productions of their own day. The history of the arts in England and France furnish another instance of the effect produced by a ready supply of the works of art from fo reign schools.
The notion of the Greeks, as to the influence of pictures upon the public mind, was strongly taken up at Rome. Marcus Agrippa delivered an oration in favour of it, and proposed that all pictures should be considered public property, and deposited for public exhibition, so that no individual should be allowed to possess and keep a picture for private use. This policy seems to have been readily entered into, and many pictures were accordingly hung up in the market-places.
As to the specimens of ancient art that have reached our day, the very small proportion is much less to be won dered at, than that any of them should have survived at all ; considering how very few centuries suffice for the entire destruction of the ornamental painting of our best preserved buildings, for of that description alone are those that have been found in Italy. Of moveable pictures, such as the finer works of the Greeks are recorded to have been, no vestige has ever come to light, and probably never can. Indeed, when we consider the devastation to which Italy was exposed, and the barbarous ignorance under which that country lay for so many centuries, co operating with the slow but sure tooth of time ; it is only the singularly favourable circumstances of concealment and protection under the hermetical seal of a mass of melted rock, that could have succeeded in preserving these monuments of ancient art. But the misfortune is, that we only recover them to witness their destruction as evidence of what they were. The exposure to the air, after being buried for so many ages, soon tarnishes their colour, and destroys whatever may have existed of har mony ; in fact, the very substance would have slipped from our hands, had they not been very speedily retouched, which is equally destructive of their value as evidence.
It would be a piece of injustice, in every view, to receive these specimens as testimonies of the qualities of ancient art, or a witness of the veracity of ancient authors on the subject ; as they are clearly the productions of very infe rior artists, (if artists they can be called,) who ornamented the walls of private houses in so inconsiderable a town as Herculaneum ; and painted at a period when the art had fallen greatly from its ancient state of perfection. Yet,
notwithstanding the rapid decline, and probable inferiority of the workmen, these specimens do possess traits of suf ficient skill to argue strongly in favour of what the works of the more eminent artists must have been. Were we to transferthe case to our own day, and suppose the accidental discovery, at a distant period from the present time, of the very best efforts and skill of our house painters in some of the smaller provincial towns, as the only wreck of the arts left to tell the tale of our proficiency ; it is to be fear ed, that we should scarcely come off so well as the an cients do in the comparison. We should scarcely be able to say, as we can with truth in favour of these ancient spe cimens, that they are simple, correct, and in good draw ing ; of their merits in colouring, circumstances deny us the means to judge, as little colour could be expected to remain after being buried for nearly two thousand years under lava and volcanic ashes. They are, notwithstanding, valuable discoveries, as they have cleared up many facts connected with the manners and mode of life among the Romans. It is exceedingly probable that most, if not all, of these paintings were merely copies by house painters of existing basso-relievos, decorating the walls of their apartments with them, exactly as we are now in the use of doing.
Those that were found in Rome were chiefly the orna mental works of baths, either in pencil or mosaic. Va rious collections have been published of them, and much discussion has been excited among the learned antiquaries of Italy. The piece which has principally attracted no tice is called the Aldobrandine Marriage, and was found on the site of Meccnas's garden in Rome. The ancient paintings more recently discovered at Herculaneum and Portici are equally interesting. Those of Herculaneum were found painted on the walls of a temple, distributed into compartments, and representing the combats of wild beasts, real and imaginary animals, heads of Medusa, land scapes, views of houses, and architecture of various kinds ; besides some historical pieces, which are the greatest curiosity of all. One represents a naked Theseus, resting on a club ; he has a ring on his finger, and the chlamys, a sort of scarf, hanging over his shoulders ; between his legs lies the Minotaur, naked, whom lie appears to have just killed : the body is of a human form, but the head is horn ed like a bull ; the head is entirely seen, but the body re tires in a straight line, finely foreshortened, Three little boys attend the hero, two of whom kiss his hands, and the third embraces his left arm ; a virgin modestly touches the club, probably meant to represent Ariadne or Phxdra, and in the air is seen another figure denoting victory. There is another picture of the birth of Telephus. A third represents Chiron, under the figure of the centaur, teaching young Achilles music. A fourth is Mercury, giving Bacchus to the nurse. The pictures found here are not all equally good : many, however, possess great merit as to judicious composition, accurate contour, and fine colouring, which, though now much faded, was at the time of their being first brought to light as fresh as if only a few years had elapsed since they had been painted ; which is perhaps to be attributed to the perfect exclusion of the air which the envelope of lava occasioned. To a certain extent, these specimens leave little doubt of the ancients having been acquainted with the leading principles of perspective and chiaro scum, particularly if we are cor rect in supposing them to be copies of basso-relicvos, which gave little room for a display of either.