Polygnotus

Polygnotus (born c. 500 bce, Thasos, Thrace—died c. 440 bce, Athens) was a painter famed for his large monumental wall paintings in a severely Classical style, none of which is extant. He lived in Athens and eventually acquired citizenship.

The Greek traveler Pausanias left an account of two paintings in the hall of the Cnidian at Delphi: the Iliupersis (“Sack of Troy”) and the Nekyia (“Ulysses Visiting Hades”). Idealized figures approximately life-size were freely distributed within the composition. In Greek painting of the first half of the 5th century bce this method represents an innovation, though precedents existed elsewhere, notably in Assyrian art. It constitutes a break with the ancient Greek principle of arranging figures on a single base line. Polygnotus replaced the horizontal base lines by irregular mounting or descending terrain lines. Comparable representations can be found in contemporary vase paintings, perhaps under his influence. There was no unifying perspective in the modern sense; the individual figure remained the focus of interest even when several figures were grouped together. Stateliness was paired with subtlety of detail: delicate headdresses of women, transparent garments, mouths with parted lips uncovering the teeth. Polygnotus employed sharp foreshortening and four basic colours: black, white, red, and ochre. The “ethos,” which later critics, including Aristotle (Poetics, ch. 6), valued so highly in his work, indicates a concept of character as an innate disposition, governing the actions and manifest in a person’s outward bearing.