painting, Greek

painting, Greek
(see also pottery, Greek). When the Mycenaean palaces fell, c.1200 BC (see Mycenaean civilization), the art of painting was lost. It is next practised in the early Archaic period. Sources for Archaic to Hellenistic are: literary references; artefacts echoing painting (primarily vases); surviving examples, mostly recent discoveries.

Writers of the Roman period are most informative (J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Greece (rev. 1990), 124–80). Pliny the Elder (Naturalis historia 35) gives a history of painting, detailing many works and careers, dividing artists into regional schools, notably (as in sculpture) a 4th-cent. Sicyonian school. Pliny acknowledges debts to Xenocrates of Sicyon, hence the conspicuousness of the Corinthia (i.e. the territory of Corinth in the sources (although much has been found there). [The entire page is 1463 words long]

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