Phidias, being asked how he could conceive that air of divinity which he had expressed in the face of the Olympian Jupiter, replied that he had copied it from Homer’s celebrated description of him. All the personal strokes in that description relate to the hair, the eye-brows, and the beard: and indeed to these it is that the best heads of Jupiter owe most of their dignity; for though we have now a mean opinion of beards, yet all over the east a full beard carries the idea of majesty along with it; and the Grecians had a share of this Oriental notion, as may be seen in their busts of Jupiter, and the heads of kings on Greek medals. But the Romans, though they held beards in great esteem, even as far down as the sacking of Rome by the Goths, yet in their better ages held them in contempt, and spoke disrespectfully of their bearded forefathers. They were worn only by poor philosophers, and by those who were under disgrace or misfortune. For this reason Virgil, in copying Homer’s striking description of Jupiter, has omitted all the picturesque strokes on the beard, hair, and eye-brows; for which Macrobius censures him, and Scaliger extols him. The matter might have been compounded between them, by allowing that Virgil’s description was the most proper for the Romans, and Homer’s the noblest among the Greeks.
Apollodorus, one of the most famous of the ancient Greek painters, was born at Athens B. C. 440. Pliny commences his history of Greek painting with this artist, terming him “the first luminary of the art.” He also says of him, “I may well and truly say that none before him brought the pencil into a glorious name and especial credit.” The two most famous works of Apollodorus, were, a Priest in the act of Devotion, and Ajax Oileus Wrecked, both remarkable, not only in coloring and chiaro-scuro, but in invention and composition. These paintings were preserved at Pergamos in the time of Pliny, six hundred years after they were executed. Apollodorus was the first who attained the perfect imitation of the effects of light and shadow invariably seen in nature. If we may depend upon the criticisms of ancient writers, the works of this master were not inferior in this respect to those of the most distinguished moderns. His pictures riveted the eye, not merely from their general coloring, but also from a powerful and peculiar effect of light and shade, on which account he was called “the Shadower.”