An ekphrasis is a description by an ancient author of a work of art, be it imagined or real.

In one scene, Encolpius, the main character in Petronius’ Satyricon, comes upon a pinakotheke, or picture gallery, just as he meets his mentor and poet, Eumolpus. This gallery, as in our modern museums, housed a large collection of paintings of the "old masters", such as Apelles and Zeuxis, who were active in Classical and Hellenistic Greece.

We are left with a tantalizing account of a number of masterpieces which no longer exist, as we find also in Philostratos’ Imagines or Pausanias’ Guide to Greece. As Pascal Quignard laments, "Time has not preserved the works of Polygnotos, Parrhasios, or of Apelles as it has the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides…we will never see them." (Le sexe et l’effroi, 1994)

I have became increasingly interested in the many copies (or copies of copies) of "masterworks" created for virtual picture galleries for rich Roman patrons, such as at the House of the Vettii in Pompeii. The fragmentary view we possess today of these ghosts of the ancient Greek past are interpretations and improvisations by the later ancient Roman copyists. Many of the authors of these copies are anonymous; and the works remain before us as simulacra of lost visual schemata. The imagined originals occupy a territory on a numinous plane, forever relegated to the status of "shades" of which we might have glimpses, but whose true nature we will never see.

I am creating a new series of paintings, a metaphorical "pinakotheke" of imagined reconstructions, interpretations of ancient Greek paintings alluded to in ancient texts, in particular Philostratos’ Imagines, Pliny’s Natural History, and Lucian’s Ekphrases. This allegorical "gallery" would be a fusion of the perceptions, imaginings, of the ancient masterworks with a 21^st century artist’s individual traits and cultural specificity. In effect, it will be way of establishing a link with an invisible past which I believe forms the basis for all later Western painting, as many of these artists were the first to translate light, mass, space, color, geometry, anatomy, architecture, psychology, pathos, narrative, to a two-dimensional surface. Although in constant dialogue with the past, the work would emphasize the almost eerily contemporary aspects described in the texts, such as "more is implied than is depicted" to pictures that "depicted the mind" (Pliny, Natural History XXXV). I would apply certain principles of ancient painting in the sense that one starts with the visible, then one moves to the idea of beauty, then to the to tès psychès èthos, or the "moral" expression of the soul, the "psychic disposition to the crucial moment". (P. Quignard)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK PAINTING

A Lost School

In the 4^th century BC, during the Hellenistic period in Greece, there flourished a great school of painting that rivalled that of sculpture. Most everyone who has knows some art history has heard of or seen famous sculptures by Phidias, Polyclitus, or Miron. However, since no original Ancient Greek painted masterpieces have come  down to us, we are left only with descriptions by ancient authors and a few pallid copies at Pompeii or other sites. In fact, this was a school of artists that achieved a level of technique and thematic depth which would astound modern viewers, as we tend to think of the only Greek “painting” as that of vase painting, which although is very beautiful, is characterized by its flatness and schematic representation of figures and space. The Greek painters, during this period, mastered light and shadow, color, human anatomy, atmospheric perspective and to a certain extent true perspective. They created grand compositions with incredibly complex groupings of figures, and indeed one could argue that all that was accomplished during the Renaissance was not the creation of something new, but the continuation of a long-standing tradition.

The Greek artists during their time were considered as much celebrities as any Andy Warhol  or Picasso. They commanded incredible prices for their work, and during the Roman period their paintings sold for the prices of entire cities. They frequented kings and queens, rich patrons and collectors, and formed an integral part of an art market and system which is eerily similar to today’s.

Among the most famous painters were Zeuxis, Parrhasios, Nikias, and Timanthes. However, the artist who would be remembered as the greatest painter of antiquity, a veritable titan prefiguring Michelangelo, was Apelles, who lived in the 4th century BC, and was the court painter to Alexander the Great. Apelles was not only an amazing realist, but he also carried painting to new conceptual levels as he created works with allegorical or symbolic significance. One work believed to be a copy in mosaic (the original was executed in tempera or encaustic) of one of his masterpieces is now at the Museo Nazionale in Naples. It represents a vast battle scene with Alexander in the center vanquishing his enemy, Darius.

The work, entitled, “Battle of Issos”, is executed in the four-color palette of the Greek artists, namely white, yellow ochre, red earth, and black. With this limited palette Apelles was able to achieve an incredible chromatic range; and the strong linear quality of the composition makes the work dynamic and contrasted.

The Greeks also invented the different genres we are so familiar with today: still life, landscape, portrait, etc. During the Roman period the Greek school fell into decline and the works, executed in encaustic or tempera on wood, disappeared to the winds of time. If climate-controlled museums had existed, perhaps our conception of great masters would be different, and instead of admiring Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Leonardo so much, we would have posters of Apelles, Zeuxis, and Timanthes, instead.

Encaustic is a particularly challenging, yet beautiful medium, in which to paint. As encaustic is the technique of fused wax, it is one of the most permanent mediums known to us. The funerary portraits of Ancient Egypt are oftentimes better preserved than many works from three centuries ago. I have used the four-color palette of Apelles, which at first was daunting, but later revealed itself to be very suitable for rendering flesh tones. I have been inspired by the numerous encaustic funerary portraits which have turned up in the Fayum district in Egypt. They attest to the Greek training many of the local artists received, and are unprecedented in their psychological depth, realism, and evocation of that remote period in time. I have sought to create a number of portrait heads in the spirit of the Fayum works, of contemporary sitters. This series was exhibited in Siracusa, Sicily, in May of 2006, in conjunction with the Festival of Ancient Greek Theater, as a number of works were inspired by Greek tragedy.