This and a portrait of an elderly man, not given
here, are the masterpieces of the Graf collection. It is much too
little to say of these two heads that they are the best examples
of Greek painting that have come down to us. In spite of the great
inferiority of the encaustic technique to that of oil painting,
these pictures are not unworthy of comparison with the great
portraits of modern times.
The ancient wall-paintings found in and near Rome. but more
especially in Pompeii, are also mostly Greek in character, so far
as their best qualities are concerned. The best of them, while
betraying deficient skill in perspective, show such merits in
coloring, such power of expression and such talent for
composition, as to afford to the student a lively enjoyment and to
intensify tenfold his regret that Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Apelles
and Protogenes, are and will remain to us nothing but names.
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of A History Of Greek Art, by F. B. Tarbell
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