Zeuxis of Herakleia

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Zeuxis of Herakleia ( Greek  Ζεῦξις , shortened for Ζεύξιππος , Zeuxippos ) was one of the most famous Greek painters according to ancient evidence ; he also created small clay figures, figlina opera . He worked around the last third of the 5th and the first years of the 4th century BC. His work has been handed down solely through literary evidence.

Life

His origin from a Herakleia is attested, even if Tzetzes calls him Ephesian . However, it cannot be determined from which city this name came from. It was not until 432 BC. Herakleia, which was founded in the Italian city of Lucania , is ruled out because of the dates of life.

The acme of Zeuxis is from Pliny very accurately in the fourth year of the 95th Olympiad set, so in the year 397 v. BC, although he knew sources, the Zeuxis' bloom wrongly in his eyes in the 89th Olympiad, i.e. the years 424 to 421 BC. Chr. Date (a quibusdam falso in LXXXVIIII olympiade positus) . It is more likely, however, that Pliny 's statement was an error and that the year of death was meant. According to Plato , who mentions him in his dialogue Protagoras , he must have died before Pericles' death in 429 BC. BC, if still young, was already experienced enough to give advice on painting. Around 405 BC His name appeared in the Gorgias , another dialogue of Plato. In addition, he was most admired by Xenophon in the memorabilia of a conversation partner of Socrates because of his art among the painters. Finally, the most recent work of the Zeuxis, which has to be fixed in time, is the design of the palace of Archelaos I , the 399 BC. BC died. Zeuxis himself died safely before 355/354 BC. BC, since Isocrates names and praises him in his Antidoseus speech at the same time as Phidias and Parrhasios , a praise that Isocrates gave only to deceased artists.

In the sources available to Pliny, either a Demophilos from Himera or a Neseus from Thasos were named as teachers . Even Pliny did not want to commit himself to this. However, the origin of the Demophilos from northern Sicily was sometimes seen as an indication of a Lower Italian descent of the Zeuxis.

plant

More than fifteen works by the Zeuxis are mentioned in ancient literature. In addition to the design of the palace for Archelaus, he also gave it a painting of Pan , and he gave the Agrigento an alcmene . The latter is possibly the same image that depicted the child Heracles strangling the snakes in the presence of Alkmene and Amphitryon . Furthermore, Pliny names a “great Zeus on the throne, surrounded by gods”, a very morally rendered Penelope , as well as an athlete of whom he was very proud and signed with the words invisurum aliquem facilius quam imitaturum , he would be easier to look at with envy than to imitate. The same verse in its originally Greek version ( μωμήσεται τις μᾶλλον ὴ μιμήσεται ) was assigned to the painter Apollodoros elsewhere . In the temple of Aphrodite in Athens there was a painting of a rose-wreathed Eros, which Aristophanes had in 425 BC. Listed Chr. Acharnern mentioned and according to a Scholion came from the hand of Zeuxis. In the Temple of Concordia in Rome there was a portrait of a tied Marsyas. A weeping Menelaus sacrificing at the grave of Agamemnon and the portrait of an old woman, at the sight of which he is said to have died of laughter .

His grape paintings have achieved anecdotal fame. He created one of his most famous works in competition with Parrhasios . While birds were pecking at the grapes painted by Zeuxis, he himself was deceived by a curtain painted by Parrhasios, so that he wanted to push the veil aside so that he could better see the painting underneath. The pigeons also wanted to nibble on the painting of a boy carrying grapes, which led the angry Zeuxis to the insight that he had hit the grapes better than the boy, because “if he had also achieved the highest in this one, the birds would have been afraid . ”On smaller works he still created single-colored“ white ”pictures (monochromata ex albo) , of which no real idea can be gained. Whether it was gray-on-gray chiaroscuro or paintings in the style of white-ground lekyths cannot be clarified. In Ambrakia in 189 BC. After the opening of the city during the Roman-Syrian War , Fulvius Nobilior returned only small clay statuettes, figlina opera , from the hand of the Zeuxis, but he transferred muses to Rome.

In his characterization of a philosopher called Thrasykles, Lukian mentions a portrait of the wind god Boreas and one of the sea demon Triton , depictions painted on the body just like Thrasykles. A decision as to whether both were painted individually or together does not have to be made. Lukian also provides the extremely detailed description of the painting of a family of Centaurs des Zeuxis. He did not know the original, it had sunk in the sea near Malea while it was being transported to Rome on behalf of Sulla , so Lukian's description was based on an allegedly exact copy he saw in Athens. The picture showed a centauress lying down and feeding two young, one on the breast and the other on the udder. The father of the family looked down at the scene from above and held up a lion cub to joke his little ones. The very hairy family man had the wild appearance of a "forest dweller" in his human part too, smiling but with a wild look. The mother, on the other hand, had the horse's body of the most beautiful education and the human part was also quite beautiful except for the satyr-like ears. In spite of their childlike softness, the children already showed their irrepressible, wild nature.

Very famous and often mentioned was his portrait of Helena , which he painted on behalf of the Lower Italian city of Croton . The picture originally hung, along with other works by Zeuxis, in the temple of Hera Lakinia in Croton, but at the time of Pliny it was in the Porticus Philippi in Rome. There are many anecdotes about the painting that Zeuxis is said to have made based on the model of the five most beautiful girls in town. He was so convinced of the result that he is said to have taken entrance fees for his visit. But the great recognition of the picture by the painter Nicomachus also testifies to the rank of the picture and the artistry of the Zeuxis expressed in it. There may have been a copy of the picture in Athens, whether it was in the hand of the Zeuxis himself is uncertain. Eustathios of Thessalonike moved the picture into the grain hall, the stoa alphiton , of Athens.

Position and person

“Zeuxis von Herkleia entered the doors of art opened by Apollodorus”. With these words Pliny begins his short treatise on the artist. Apollodorus of Athens , in whose late period Zeuxis worked, introduced shadow painting, which Zeuxis achieved great fame with his brush. For Quintilian he was even the inventor of shadow painting, because no longer out of practical experience, but with ratio , i.e. with reason and regularity, he used light and shadow and developed the principles that apply to them. Apollodorus certainly recognized this achievement when he judged that "Zeuxis had stolen the art of others and took it with him".

Cicero assigned him to the four-color painters, which in view of the time and the description of the work should not be taken too literally. The effects and illusionistic illusions described would not have been possible with just four colors. Nevertheless, compared to the painters of the Alexandrian period compared by Cicero, the painting of the Zeuxis will have been of a simpler color, especially since the production of artificial, composite dyes was still largely unknown. Especially in the arrangement of different surfaces to each other, in conveying the colors under the influence of light and shadow, Zeuxis created remarkable things and stood in conscious contrast to the work of the older Polygnotus , who was a master of lines and two-dimensionally filled contours, but suddenly placed them next to one another.

Especially in contrast to Polygnotos his work was lacking in the judgment of Aristotle , the ethos . For in art the impossible is to be preferred to the possible but improbable as soon as it is given the appearance of the true. The change in the ideas on which the judgment is based can be seen from the fact that Pliny, on the other hand, praises Zeuxis' Penelope as a symbol of morality. In contrast to Polygnot, who preferred battles and great mythological themes such as Iliupersis , Zeuxis, according to Lukian, did not like ordinary subjects such as heroes, gods or scenes of war, but was rather interested in the new, the unusual and the strange and wanted in them the highest perfection of art demonstrate. A certain preference for hybrid beings can be seen in the list of works and may have given reasons for Aristotle's judgment.

Zeuxis' interest was in the technique of painting and through this he earned his distinctive merit. In contrast to Parrhasios, who was concerned with the utmost delicacy, Zeuxis was not a draftsman, but a painter of the improbable, of the surprising, who nonetheless sought at least the external ideal and, as in the example of the Helena picture, tried to extract the truth from the living example (in simulacrum ex animali exemplo veritas transferatur) . The fact that his work was not only popular is evident from the general criticism handed down from Pliny, according to which his heads and limbs were too large, i.e. incorrect in proportion. Quintilian, on the other hand, passes this on as a reminiscence of Homer, who especially liked strong forms on women. Zeuxis would have given the limbs more mass because he considered the sitter to be fuller and more stately. Cicero also praised his formas et liniamenta .

Zeuxis, who became prosperous through his art and walked around Olympia in a gold-embroidered robe, gave away his pictures in his later years, "because no price would have been too high to pay them anyway."

reception

Its effect on modern art since the Renaissance , triggered by literary tradition alone , should not be underestimated, for example:

  • The studio of the painter by Giorgio Vasari

  • Self-portrait as Zeuxis by Rembrandt van Rijn

  • Zeuxis paints Helena for the Temple of Hera in Croton by François-André Vincent

  • Zeuxis choisissant ses modèles by Victor Mottez

Remarks

  1. ↑ Pliny , Naturalis historia 35, 61; Aelian , varia historia 14, 17.
  2. ↑ Tzetzes, Chiliades 8, 388.
  3. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 61.
  4. ↑ Plato, Protagoras 318 b.
  5. ^ Plato, Gorgias 453 c.
  6. ↑ Aelian, varia historia 14, 17.
  7. ↑ Isocrates, Peri antidoseos second
  8. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 61.
  9. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 62.
  10. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 63.
  11. ↑ All mentioned in Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 63.
  12. ↑ Scholion to Homer , Iliad 10.
  13. ↑ Scholion to Aristophanes, Acharnes 991; So also Suda , keyword ἀνθέμων , Adler number: alpha 2492 , Suda-Online .
  14. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 66.
  15. ↑ Tzetzes, Chiliades 8, 390 f.
  16. ↑ Festus 209, 10 (ed. Müller).
  17. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 64.
  18. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 66.
  19. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 64.
  20. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 66.
  21. ↑ Lukian, Timon 54.
  22. ↑ Lukian, Zeuxis 3.
  23. ↑ Lukian, Zeuxis 4-7.
  24. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 64 and 66; Cicero , De inventione 2, 1, 1 f .; Dionysius of Halicarnassus , de imitatione 6, 1; Valerius Maximus 3, 7 ext 3; Aelian, varia historia 4, 12 and 14, 47; Plutarch in Johannes Stobaios 4, 20, 34.
  25. ↑ Cicero, De inventione 2, 1, 1 f.
  26. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 66.
  27. ^ Aelian, varia historia 14, 47.
  28. ↑ Eustathios, ad Homeri Iliadem 11, 629.
  29. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 61.
  30. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 61.
  31. ↑ Quintilian, institutio oratoria 12, 10
  32. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 62.
  33. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 18.
  34. ↑ Aristotle, de arte poetica 25.
  35. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 63.
  36. ↑ Lukian, Zeuxis 3.
  37. ↑ Himerios , eclogae 13, 5.
  38. ↑ Cicero, De inventione 2, 1, 2.
  39. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 64.
  40. ↑ Quintilian, institutio oratoria 12, 10
  41. ↑ Cicero, Brutus 70.
  42. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 35, 62.

literature

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Zeuxis of Herakleia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zeuxippos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Painter of Ancient Greece
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 4th century BC Chr.