Extract

When the Mycenaean palaces fell, c.1200 bce (see mycenaean civilization), the art of painting was lost. It is next practised in the early Archaic period. Sources for Archaic to Hellenistic are: literary references; artefacts echoing painting (primarily vases); surviving examples, mostly recent discoveries.Writers of the Roman period are most informative (J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Greece (rev. 1990), 124–80). *Pliny (1) (HN35) gives a history of painting, detailing many works and careers, dividing artists into regional schools, notably (as in sculpture) a 4th-cent. Sicyonian school; see sicyon. Pliny acknowledges debts to Xenocrates of Sicyon, hence the conspicuousness of the Corinthia (i.e. the territory of *Corinth) in the sources (although much has been found there). *Pausanias (3)'s autopsy and interest in art per se distinguish him from other writers. Philosophers like *Plato (1) and *Aristotle made moral and aesthetic judgements on art (see art, ancient attitudes to); the *ekphrasis employed by rhetoricians like Philostratus (see philostrati), *Lucian, and Aelius *Aristides involved describing art for effect, not accuracy.