Egypt The Greeks Obtained The Knowledge Of Their Ars Chromatica

: ON COLOURS AND COLOURING.

which they are said to have carried by gradual advances during several

centuries, from the monochromatic of their earlier painters, to the

perfection of colouring under Zeuxis and Apelles, 450 to 350 B.C.

Unfortunately, not long after, or about 300 B.C., art rapidly

deteriorated; the invasion of the Romans commenced; and the principles

of light, shade, and colours in painting as understood by the Greeks,

together with heir valuable treatises on the subject were lost. The

early Roman and Florentine painters, so eminent in other respects, were

almost destitute of those principles, and of truly refined feeling for

the effects of colouring.



The partial restoration of this branch seems to have been coeval with

the earliest practice of painting in oil. The glory of it belongs to the

Venetians, to whom the art of painting passed with the last remains of

the Greek schools after the capture of Constantinople at the beginning

of the thirteenth century. Giovanni Bellini laid the foundation of

colouring, and Titian carried it to its highest practical perfection.

From the Venetian it extended to the Lombard, Flemish, and Spanish

schools. In the practice of these, however, there was perhaps as much of

instinct as principle, colouring still remaining to be established in

its perfection as a science.



According to the true, natural, and philosophical classification of

painting, there are but three principal classes or schools; viz.: the