Classical Wisdom Litterae - November 2020

XL Paintings attributed to Apelles included, Aphrodite Rising from the Sea and Alexander the Great holding a Thunderbolt . Sadly, none of the paintings described here have survived. It is the historians, such as Pliny the Elder and Herodotus, who have given us the detailed information on the artists and their materials, and whom we should thank. But there is one good piece of news. In the late 19th century two archeologists, Theodor Graf and Flanders Petrie, discovered over 1,000 portraits in the Fayum section of the desert, west of Cairo. These paintings were of the four color palette described, used the encaustic method, and were painted from 1st to 3rd century AD. Amazingly, they were preserved by the arid climate, allowing us to travel back into time and enjoy the art and artists from antiquity… and see for ourselves the artistic revolutions of Ancient Greece and Rome. A mural believed based on Apelles' Venus Anadyomene, brought to Rome from Pompeii by Augustus