APPELLES, one of the most celebrated painters of antiquity. He was born in the island of Cos, and flourished in the time of Alexander the Great, with whom he was in high favour. He executed a picture of this prince, holding a thunderbolt in his hand: a piece, finished with so much skill and dexterity, that it used to be said there were two Alexanders; one invincible, the son of Philip; the other inimitable, the production of Apelles. Alexander gave him a remarkable proof of his regard: for when he employed Apelles to draw Campaspe, one of his mistresses, having found that he had conceived an affection for her, he resigned her to him; and it was from her that Apelles is said to have drawn his Venus Amadyomene.

One of Apelles's chief excellencies was his making his pictures exactly resemble the persons represented; insomuch that the physiognomists are said to have been able to form a judgment of the person's destiny as readily from his portraits as if they had seen the originals. But what is called grace was the characteristic of this artist. His pencil was so famous for drawing fine lines, that Protogenes discovered by a single line that Apelles had been at his house. Protogenes lived at Rhodes: Apelles sailed thither, and went to his house with great eagerness to see the works of an artist who was known to him only by name. Protogenes was gone from home: but an old woman was left watching a large piece of canvas, which was fitted in a frame for painting. She told Apelles that Protogenes was gone out; and asked him his name, that she might inform her master who had inquired for him. "Tell him (says Apelles) he was inquired for by this person;"—at the same time taking up a pencil, he drew on the canvas a line of great delicacy. When Protogenes returned, the old woman acquainted him with what had happened. That artist, upon contemplating the fine stroke of the line, immediately pronounced that Apelles had been there; for so finished a work could be produced by no other person. Protogenes, however, himself drew a finer line of another colour: and, as he was going away, ordered the old woman to show that line to Apelles if he came again; and to say, "This is the person for whom you are inquiring." Apelles returned, and saw the line: he would not for shame be overcome; and therefore, in a colour different from either of the former, he drew some lines so exquisitely delicate, that it was utterly impossible for finer strokes to be made. Protogenes now confessed the superiority of Apelles, flew to the harbour in search of him, and resolved to leave the canvas with the lines on it for the astonishment of future artists.

Apelles showed great liberality of mind towards Protogenes. With ideas enlarged by education and literature, he was incapable of harbouring little jealousies of noble competitors; on the contrary, he was the first who made the works of Protogenes to be valued as they deserved among the Rhodians. He acknowledged that Protogenes was in some respects superior to himself; but that in one particular himself excelled, viz. in knowing when to take his hand from the picture; an art which Protogenes had not yet learned, and therefore over-worked his pieces. Apelles equally disapproved of too elaborate diligence, or too hasty negligence in execution. A studied work of Protogenes he esteemed less on the one account; and on the other, when a silly painter once brought him a picture, and said, "This I painted in a hurry,"—he replied, "Though you had not told me so, I perceived it was painted in haste: but I wonder you could not execute more such pieces in the same time."

There are two stories related of Apelles, which show him to be at once an artist of modesty, in amending even trifling improprieties, when pointed out to him by competent judges; and yet of self-confidence sufficient to make him know the perfection and value of his own paintings. It was customary with Apelles to expose to public view the works which he had finished, and to hide himself behind the picture, in order to hear the remarks passed on it by persons who chanced to view it. He once overheard himself blamed by a shoemaker for a fault in the flippers of some picture: he corrected the fault which the man had noticed; but on the day following the shoemaker began to advert on the leg; upon which Apelles, with some anger looked out from behind the canvas, and bade him keep. keep to his own province, "Ne futur ultra crepidam." It is well known that Alexander forbade any one besides Apelles to paint his portrait. We are not, however, to conclude from this, that Alexander was a more skilful judge of painting than he was of poetry. Like Augustus, he cherished the fine arts more from vanity than taste. A remarkable proof is given of this prince's inability to discern merit, and of the painter's freedom in expressing the mortification he felt, when a work of his was not sufficiently commended. "Alexander (says Ælian, lib. ii. c. 3. Var. Hist.) having viewed the picture of himself which was at Ephesus, did not praise it as it deserved. But when a horse was brought in, and neighed at seeing the figure of a horse in the picture, as though it had been a real horse; O king! (said Apelles) this horse seems to be by far a better judge of painting than you." It happened more than once that the horses drawn by him were mistaken for real ones, by living horses which saw and neighed at the pictures. In his finishing a drawing of this animal, a remarkable circumstance is related of him. He had painted a horse returning from battle, and had succeeded to his wishes in describing every other mark that could indicate a mettlefome steed, impatient of restraint; there was wanting nothing but a foam of a bloody hue issuing from the mouth. He again and again endeavoured to express this, but his attempts were unsuccessful. At last, with vexation, he threw against the reins of the horse a sponge which had in it many colours; a mixture of which coming out of the sponge, and tinging the reins, produced the very effect desired by the painter.

The works of Apelles were all admired; but the most celebrated were the picture of Alexander in the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and that of Venus emerging from the sea. Alexander was drawn with thunder in his hand; and such relief was produced by the chiaro scuro in this piece, that the fingers seemed to shoot forward, and the thunderbolt to be out of the picture. His Venus Anadyomene was esteemed the most exquisite figure which the pencil could create: it is therefore extolled by the Roman poets Propertius and Ovid; and the poet of Sidon, Antipater, has left us the following Greek epigram on it:

Την ἀνάδυομενα ἐπὶ μάλιστα ἠξί· ἔχασταις Κύπρια. Ἀπέλλεις μαργαρίτης ἐφ᾽ ἑραῖς, Ως χεῖρι συμπαραβαίνει διαδέχεται πάλιν πάλιν. Εὐκάλυπτος νόστος ἀργὸς ἀπὸ πλευρᾶς, Αἰσίας νῦν ἐρωτευόμενος Ἀθηναῖος τε καὶ Ἕλης. "Οὐκ εἴ τι τοι μορφαῖς εἰς εὖρος ἐρχομένη."

Anth. iv. 12.

Graceful as from her natal sea she springs, Venus, the labour of Apelles, view: With pressing hand her humid locks she wrings, While from her tresses drips the frothy dew: Ev'n Juno and Minerva now declare, "No longer we contend whose form's most rare."