to estimate the artistic value of the masterpieces of ancient painting, since time has destroyed the originals, and it is but rarely that we can even recover the outlines of a famous composition from decorative reproductions. For the history of Greek painting we have in Pliny's Natural History a fairly full literary record; but this fails us when we come to Roman times, nor do original works, worthy to be ranked with the monuments of Roman historical sculpture, supply the want. Painting in Italy was throughout its early history dependent on Greek models, and reflected the phases through which the art passed in Greece. Thus the frescoes which adorn the walls of Etruscan chamber-tombs show an unmistakable analogy with Attic vase-paintings. The neutral background, the use of conventional flesh-tones, and the predominant interest shown by the artists in line as opposed to colour, clearly point to the source of their inspiration; and the fine sarcophagus at Florence[1] depicting a combat between Greeks and Amazons, in which we first trace the use of naturalistic flesh-tints, though it bears an Etruscan inscription, can hardly have been the handiwork of native artists.
Roman tradition tells of early wall-paintings at Ardea and Lanuvium, which existed “before the foundation of Rome”;[2] of these the Etruscan frescoes mentioned above may serve to give some impression. We also hear of Fabius Pictor, who earned his cognomen by decorating the temple of Salus on the Quirinal (302 B.C.); and a few more names are preserved by Pliny on account of the trivial anecdotes which attached to them. The chief works of specifically Roman painting in Republican times (other than the frescoes which adorned the walls of temples) were those exhibited by successful generals on the occasion of a triumph; thus we hear that in 263 B.C. M. Valerius Messalla was the first to display in the Curia Hostilia such a battle-piece, representing his victory over Hiero II. of Syracuse and the Carthaginians.[3] We may perhaps form some idea of these paintings from the fragment of a fresco discovered in a sepulchral vault on the Esquiline in 1889,[4] which appears to date from the 3rd century B.C. This painting represents scenes from a war between the Romans and an enemy who may almost certainly (from their equipment) be identified as Samnites; the names of the commanders are indicated, and amongst them is a Q. Fabius, probably Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, who played a part in the third Samnite War. The scenes are superposed in tiers; the background is neutral, the colour-scale simple, and there is but little attempt at perspective; but we note the files of superposed heads in the representation of an army, which are found at a later date in Trajanic sculpture.
We pass from this isolated example of early Roman painting to the decorative frescoes of Rome, Herculaneum and Pompeii, which introduce us to the new world conquered by Hellenistic artists. The scheme of colour is no longer conventional, but natural flesh-tints and local colour are employed; the “artist understands,” as Wickhoff puts it, how to “concentrate the picture in space” instead of isolating the figures on a neutral background; he struggles (not always successfully) with the difficult problems of linear and aerial perspective, and contrives in many instances to give “atmosphere” to his scene; the modelling of his figures is often excellent; finally, he can, when need requires, produce an effective sketch by compendious methods. It must be premised that this style of wall-decoration was a new thing in the Augustan period. In the Hellenistic age the walls of palaces were veneered with slabs of many coloured marble (crustae); and in humbler dwellings these were imitated in fresco. This “incrustation” style is found in a few houses at Pompeii, such as the Casa di Sallustio, built in the 2nd century B.C.; but before the fall of the Republic it had given place to what is known as the “architectural” style. In this the painter is no longer content to reproduce in stucco the marble decoration of more sumptuous rooms; by introducing columns and other architectural elements he endeavours to give the illusion of outer space, and this is heightened by the landscapes, peopled, it may be, with figures, which form the background. We shall take as an example of such decoration one of the “Odyssey landscapes” discovered on the Esquiline in 1849; these may be amongst the more recent works of this school, but can scarcely, from the character of their surroundings, be later than the reign of Claudius. Amongst the remains of a large private house was a room whose walls were decorated in their upper portion with painted pilasters treated in perspective, through which the spectator appears to look out on a continuous background of land and sea, which is diversified by scenes from the voyage of Odysseus. It is clearly to such works as these that Vitruvius refers in a well-known passage (vii. 5) Where, in describing the wall-paintings of his time, he speaks of a class of “paintings on a large scale which represent images of the gods or unfold mythical tales in due order, as well as the battles of Troy or the wanderiugs of Odysseus through landscapes (topia).” And it is worthy of note that in a chamber discovered in the 18th century below the Flavian state-rooms on the Palatine (see Rome) the tale of Troy seems to have been represented in a very similar manner; drawings of the panel on which the landing of Helen is depicted have been preserved. Of the eight scenes from the Odyssey found on the Esquiline three represent the adventure in the country of the Laestrygones; the third forms a transition from this subject to the visit of Odysseus to Circe, which occupies the fourth and fifth panels;[5] the two last depict Odysseus among the shades. The second of these, which is here reproduced (Plate V. fig. 26), is only half as wide as the others, and was probably next to a door or window. It is, however, typical in style and treatment. The artist is mainly interested in the landscape, which is sketched with great freedom and breadth of treatment. He has clearly no scientific knowledge of perspective, and commits the natural error of placing the horizon too high. His figures are identified by Greek inscriptions, and we see that artistic considerations weigh more highly with him than close adherence to his poetical text; for the group of the Danaids in the foreground has no counterpart in the Homeric description. The conventional distinction of flesh-tints between the sexes is to be observed.
The use of landscape in decoration is expressly stated by Pliny (H.N. xxxv. 116) to have become fashionable in Rome in the time of Augustus. He attributes this to a painter named Studius, who decorated walls with “villas, harbours, landscape gardens, groves, woods, hills, fish-ponds, canals, rivers, shores,” and so forth, diversified with figures of “persons on foot or in boats, approaching the villas by land on donkeys or in carriages, as well as fishers and fowlers, hunters and even vintagers.” Vitruvius, too, in the passage above quoted, speaks of “harbours, capes, shores, springs, straits, temples, groves, mountains, cattle and herdsmen”; and existing paintings fully confirm the statements of ancient writers. In the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta the walls of a room are painted in imitation of a park; from the Villa of Fannius Synistor at Bosco Reale we have a variety of landscapes and perspectives; and in the house discovered in the grounds of the Villa Farnesina by the Tiber we find a room decorated with black panels, upon which landscapes exactly conforming to Pliny's description are sketched in with brush-strokes of white. While we have no reason to dispute the accuracy of Pliny's statement, or to refuse credit to the Roman artist for the development of landscape decoration, it is to be noted that the summary methods of impressionist technique which are here employed are probably traceable to Alexandrian influence. Petronius, who puts into the mouth of one of his characters a lament over the decline of art, attributes the decadence of painting to the “audacity of the Egyptians” and their discovery of “a short cut to high art” (tam magnae artis compendiaria). This has been thought to mean no more than the process of fresco-painting, which led to the substitution of
