Painter - Apelles

Apelles (flourished 4th century BC) was a famous painter of ancient Greece. Pliny the Elder, to whom we owe a great deal of our knowledge of this artist (N.H. 35.36.79-97 and passim) rated him greater to preceding and following artists. He dated Apelles to the 112th Olympiad (332-329 BC), possibly as he had shaped a portrait of Alexander the Great.

Biography

Probably born at Colophon in Ionia, he first deliberates under Ephorus of Ephesus, but after he had attained some star he became a student to Pamphilus at Sicyon (N.H. 35.36.75). He thus joints the Dorian thoroughness with the Ionic grace. Attracted to the court of Philip II, he painted him and the young Alexander with such achievement that he became the documented court painter of Macedon, and his picture of Alexander holding a thunderbolt ranked with the Alexander with the spear of the sculptor Lysippus.
Apelles was a modern of Protogenes, whose reputation he advocated. Apelles traveled to Protogenes’ home on Rhodes make the acquaintance of this painter he had heard so much about. Arriving at Protogenes’s studio, he came across an old woman who told him that Protogenes was out and asked for his name so she could report who had enquired after him. Observing in the studio a panel Protogenes had ready for a painting, Apelles walk over to the easel, and taking up a brush tells the servant to tell Protogenes “this came from me,” and drew in color a very fine line across the panel. When Protogenes returned, and the old woman explained what had taken place, he looked at the line and marked that only Apelles can have done so ideal of work; Protogenes then curved in a brush into another color and drew a still finer line above the first one, and asked his servant to demonstrate this to the visitor must he return. When Apelles returned, and was shown Protogenes’ response, ashamed that his strength be bettered, he drew in a third color an even finer line between the first two, leaving no room for another show of craftsmanship. On seeing this, Protogenes admit defeat, and went out to seek Apelles and meet him face-to-face.
Pliny claims that this extremely painting had been part of the collection of Julius Caesar, but was destroyed when Caesar’s mansion on the Palatine Hill burned down.



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