DIONY'SIUS OF CO'LOPHON, a celebrated Greek painter, who lived in the time of Pericles. His works were known to Aristotle, who, in speaking of imitation, says, that it must be superior, inferior, or equal to its model, which he exemplifies by the works of three painters. Polygnotus, ho says, painted men better than they are, Pauson worse than they are, and Dionysius as they are; by which we may infer that Dionysins was a good portrait painter. His style was laboured, as we learn from Plutarch, who states that his works had both force and spirit, yet they appeared to be too much laboured.
Polygnotus and Dionysius were contemporaries, and, according to Aelian, painted similar subjects in a similar style, except that Diony sine painted in small and Polygnotus in large. Aelian, in the passage alluded to, evidently refers to the styles of the two painters, and not their pictures ; he nays that Dionysius imitated in every respect, except in size, the art of Polygnotus. Nearly the same might be said
of Garofalo with respect to his small works and the art of Raffaello, without implying that Garofolo copied in small the pictures of Raffaelle, which is the interpretation given by Sillig and others to the words of Aelian, namely, that Dionysius copied in small the pictures of Polygnotus.
There was another painter of this name, who lived in Rome about the time of the first Roman emperors. Pliny states that his works filled picture-galleries. He was probably the same Dionysios who was called, according to Pliny, the Anthropograph,' because he painted nothing but men ; some however think that it was Dionysius of Colophon who was so designated.
(Aristotle, Poet., c. 2; Plutarch, TimoL, 36; Aelian, Var. Mist., iv. 8; Pliny, Mist. Nat., xxxv. 37, 40.)