APELLES, AN ANCIENT GREEK PAINTER, WAS CONSIDERED BY MANY, INCLUDING PLINY, TO BE THE GREATEST ARTIST IN THE WORLD. PLINY RECORDED THAT ALEXANDER THE GREAT SO ADMIRED APELLES'S WORK THAT HE GAVE HIS CONCUBINE TO HIM. APELLES WAS NOT JUST A MASTER ARTIST.HE WAS ALSO A THEORIST.

Alexander the Great and Campaspe in the studio of Apelles, 1725-26, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Calumny of Apelles, 1496-97, Sandro BotticelliProbably born at Colophon in Ionia, he first studied under Ephorus of Ephesus, then became a student to Pamphilus at Sicyon (N.H. 35.36.75). He executed a number of paintings for Phillip II and the young Alexander the Great to the advancement of his reputation.

Apelles was a contemporary of Protogenes, whose reputation he advocated. Apelles travelled to Protogenes' home on Rhodes make the acquaintance of this painter he had heard so much about. Arriving at Protogenes's studio, he encountered an old woman who told him that Protogenes was out and asked for his name so she could report who had enquired after him. Observing in the studio a panel Protogenes had prepared for a painting, Apelles walked over to the easel, and taking up a brush told the servant to tell Protogenes "this came from me," and drew in color an extrememly fine line across the panel. When Protogenes returned, and the old woman explained what had taken place, he examined the line and pronounced that only Apelles could have done so perfect of work; Protogenes then dipped a brush into another color and drew a still finer line above the first one, and asked his servant to show this to the visitor should he return. When Apelles returned, and was shown Protogenes' response, ashamed that he might be bettered, he drew in a third color an even finer line between the first two, leaving no room for another display of craftsmanship. On seeing this, Protogenes admitted defeat, and went out to seek Apelles and meet him face-to-face.Pliny claims that this very painting had been part of the collection of Julius Caesar, but was destroyed when Caesar's mansion on the Palatine Hill burned down. Apelles is said to have been working on a painting of Aphrodite of Kos when he died, and the painting was left unfinished for no one could be found with skill enough to complete it. Apelles was not just a master artist; he was also a theorist. He studied with the Sicyonian painter Pamphilus, who believed that knowledge of arithmetic and geometry was essential to artistic excellence  and Apelles supplemented his numerous technical innovations with his own volumes on painting He seems to have been acutely aware, from the conceptual perspective of ancient art theory, of what might be called the ecphrastic paradox, the interrelationship of the verbal and the visual, of saying and seeing.Apelles was early Hellenistic Greek painter whose work was held in such high esteem by Pliny the Elder and other ancient writers on art that he continues to be regarded, even though none of his work survives, as the greatest painter of antiquity. He was appointed as court painter of Philip II and Alexander III of Macedon. Descriptions of his works, inspired Italian Renaissance artists to emulate them;  Boticelli, etc.Of all artistic media, painting perhaps best exemplifies the paradoxical nature of art, which compels us with its silent presence and yet at the same time gains its power from the linguistic paradigms we bring to our viewing. In this paper I draw upon a combination of art historical anecdotes and literary ecphrases to argue that Apelles consciously addressed the verbal-visual dichotomy in his writings and in his art. To do so, I look at three categories of his paintings: the realistic as “true” representation, the allegorical which can represent the “false,” and a third category which through a combination of paint and language seeks to surpass the limits of both the realistic and the allegorical to activate the real.Apelles was probably born at Colophon in Ionia (west coast of present-day Turkey). He first studied under Ephorus of Ephesus, then later became a student to Pamphilus at Sicyon (near Corinth), Greece, his work said to have combined Dorian depth with Ionic grace. At an early age, Apelles was attracted to the court of Philip II, King of Macedonia, whom he painted along with the young Alexander (the Great) with such success that he became the official court painter of Macedonia. Although Pliny the Elder was obviously a great fan of Apelles, several hundred years later, the Greek philosopher, Plutarch, was not. He faulted the painter for rendering Alexander's complexion as too swarthy. The closest we have to a surviving work by Apelles was discovered in 1830-34 with the excavation of the House of the Faun in Pompeii (upper image, below). The painting had been described in some detail by Lucian. In any case, Apelles' life's story often sounds more like one from Greek mythology than biography.Apelles' skill at drawing the human face is related in a story connecting him with Ptolemy I Soter, who became ruler of Egypt after the death of Alexander. As a general under Alexander, he disliked Apelles while they both were a part of Alexander's entourage. Many years later, while travelling by sea, a storm forced Apelles to land in Ptolemy's Egypt. Ptolemy's jester was urged by Apelles' rivals to convey to the artist a fake invitation to dine with Ptolemy. Apelles's unexpected arrival enraged the king. Ptolemy demanded to know who had given Apelles the invitation. Apelles took a piece of charcoal from the fireplace and drew a likeness on the wall, which Ptolemy recognized as his jester from the first few strokes of the sketch. Presumably, the jester had some explaining to do.Apelles (as portrayed by Raphael, above, left) lived about the same time as another Greek painter, Protogenes, (above-right) whose work he much admired. The two are often cast as rivals. Pliny tells another story from the first century AD, for which there likewise can be no historical verification. According to the Roman historian, Apelles travelled to Protogenes' home on the island of Rhodes to make the acquaintance of this painter he had heard so much about. Arriving at Protogenes' studio, he found only an old woman who told him that Protogenes was out and asked for his name so she could report who had inquired after him. Apelles, observing in the studio a panel Protogenes had prepared for a painting, approached the easel. He then took a brush and drew in color an extremely fine line across the panel, telling the servant to tell Protogenes "this came from me." When Protogenes returned, and learned what had taken place, he examined the line and pronounced that only Apelles could have done so perfect a piece of work. Protogenes then dipped a brush into another color and drew a still finer line above the first one. He asked his servant to show this to the visitor should he return. When Apelles did, in fact, return and was shown Protogenes' response, fearful that he might be bettered, Apelles chose a third color and drew an even finer line between the first two, leaving no room for another display of painting prowess. Upon seeing this, Protogenes admitted defeat, and went out to seek Apelles, meeting him face-to-face. Pliny claims this painting became a part of the collection of Julius Caesar, but was destroyed when the royal palace on Palatine Hill was destroyed by fire. In another story told by Pliny, Apelles, while sketching one of Alexander the Great's concubines named Campaspe, the artist fell in love with her. As a mark of appreciation for the great painter's work, Alexander gave her to him. This tale, whether true or not, was the one latched onto by a series of Italian Renaissance artists chief among whom were Botticelli (above) and Tiepolo (top) in paying tribute to the one whom they considered the greatest painter who ever lived. Apelles is said to have been working on a painting of Aphrodite of Kos when he died. The painting was left unfinished in that no one could be found skilled enough to complete it. Among the anecdotes reported by Pliny about Apelles is the following .Apelles sailed to Rhodes in eagerness to see the paintings of Protogenes, previously known to him only by reputation. When he arrived at Protogenes’ workshop, he found the artist absent, but a large blank panel fixed to the easel ready for painting. The old woman who watched over the workshop informed him that Protogenes was not there and inquired who she should say had been looking for him. “From this,” answered Apelles, and taking up a brush he painted a colored line of extreme thinness on the panel. When Protogenes returned, he contemplated the exactness of the line and announced that it was Apelles who had arrived, because no other painter could produce so perfect a work. He then painted an even thinner line in another color on the first one, and as he was going away again bid the old woman to show the line to Apelles if he returned and to add that this was the person Apelles was looking for. Apelles did return, and in embarrassment at being beaten he placed another line in a third color on top of the first two so that there was no more room for a display of precision. Protogenes then confessed his defeat and flew to the harbor to find Apelles. He decided that the panel should be preserved for posterity just as it was, to serve as a source of special amazement not just for anybody but for artists. Pliny confirms Protogenes’ judgment by adding that before the painting was destroyed in the burning of Caesar’s palace on the Palatine, it had been greatly admired because, containing nothing but almost invisible lines and appearing like a blank space among the other paintings, it enticed viewers and became more renowned than any other work.This collaborative painting by Apelles and Protogenes is silent, but lacks poetry. It is pure form, void of representation, about nothing at all, except itself, about painting. In that sense, it may be considered the first piece of abstract art in the western tradition. “Pictures of nothing,” a phrase used by a disgruntled viewer of a Turner landscape. But, as he makes clear, pictures of nothing provoke a great deal of something, in the form of language. So too Apelles’ line painting. In the anecdote, the painters do not speak to each other; rather they communicate through their expert recognition of the other’s skill and their ability to answer with like skill. The three lines thus encapsulate the common process of creating innovative art in response to the innovations of others, of creativity through rivalry. Yet the communication of Apelles and Protogenes was not based purely on shape and color, but involved language as well. Apelles’ first line was drawn as a kind of business card, to answer the verbal question of who had called, and Protogenes’ responsive line conveyed his verbalized recognition of Apelles’ identity and his challenge to his reputation. In this way the artists engage in nonverbal verbal communication, made possible, however, only through the intermediary of the old woman, who speaks to both and explains the circumstances under which the lines were drawn. This third character may be read as a feminizing symbol of language itself—unobtrusive, natural, omnipresent, essential. Only through their verbal dialogue with her do the artists come to communicate in paint with each other. In its afterlife in Rome, as Pliny tells it, the painting’s renown was based, not on the admiration of connoisseurs as Protogenes had hoped, but on the amazement provoked by its silent presence, as ordinary viewers were struck by the stark contrast between its minimalist lines and the representational paintings surrounding it. Yet the painting came to have this presence in an imperial gallery because of the reputation of its artists and because of the stunning anecdote told about it. Already in Pliny’s day, as in ours, the visual reality of the picture was long gone; only the story of its creation, the ecphrastic equivalent, remained.The current industry of ecphrastic studies takes its definitional premises from the earliest Greek discourse on art poetic accounts in epic, most famously Achilles’ shield. With the Homeric ecphrases begins a long tradition of imaginary art works, often with impossible features of speech or movement that enhance their fantastic realism, presented, at least in part, as symbol to illuminate the literary work in which they are embedded. While this sort of ecphrasis lived on, especially in later epic, by the late classical age there had developed another kind of written discourse on art in the form of treatises, from which undoubtedly stem many surviving anecdotes about artists, such as the one about Apelles’ line painting. These theoretical, interpretive, and biographical texts are also ecphrastic, and they came, I argue, to interact with the older tradition of poetry about art to produce a new type of literary ecphrasis that was both poetically subtle and theoretically informed. A central figure in this revolution in ecphrastic form, resulting from the coalescence of prose and poetic discourse, was Apelles of Ephesus, Alexander’s favorite painter and, in Pliny’s view, the finest of all ancient painters. 

Apelles studied art for 12 years in the Sicyon Art School next to multiple , together with Lysippus worked in the royal Macedonian court..Probably born at Colophon in Ionia, he first studied under Ephorus of Ephesus, then became a student to Pamphilus at Sicyon . He executed a number of paintings for Phillip II and the young Alexander the Great to the advancement of his reputation.His skill at drawing the human face is the point of a story connecting him with Ptolemy I. This onetime general of Alexander disliked Apelles while they both were in Alexander's retinue, and many years later, while travelling by sea a storm forced Apelles to land in Ptolemy's Egyptian kingdom. Ptolemy's jester was suborned by Apelles' rivals to convey to the artist an invitation to dine with Ptolemy. Apelles's unexpected arrival enraged the king. Ptolemy demanded to know who had given Apelles the invitation, and with a piece of charcoal from the fireplace Apelles drew a likeness on the wall  which Ptolemy recognized as his jester in the first strokes of the sketch.

Luba Freedman Apelles, Giovanni Bellini, and Michelangelo in Titian's Life and Art When Titian was called 'Apelles of this century' in the patent of nobility issued by Charles V on 10 May 15331, the encomium was not the usual tribute from a ruler to his portrait painter.2 Apelles (c. 375 - c. 300 BC), proclaimed the best painter of ancient Greece, could paint what others failed to represent with just a four-color palette.3 Titian strove all his life to be the best colorist of his time - the ultimate painter in the Venetian sense of the profession. Apelles was the authoritative example of an artist whom Titian could embrace to assert his own approach to his profession.4 Titian well knew that his identity as the 'mod ern Apelles'5 could be used to propel his unceasing desire to explore his art. Titian (c. 1488-1576) cherished his association with Apelles when he created portraits of rulers and their administrative courtiers or paintings on mythological subjects.6 And as he was painting saints and sacred events, he had before him an exem plum virtutis in Giovanni Bellini (c. 1436-1516). At the same time, while he regarded Apelles as his antique exemplar and Giovanni as his modern exemplar, Titian saw Michelangelo (1475-1564) as an antagonist, or anti-exemplar. From these three figures, Ti tian learned how to deepen his mastery of the painter's art. Titian had studied the works of many artists, but his borrow ings from them were occasional. Titian's debt to Apelles, Belli ni, and Michelangelo is quite different: he continuously studied their subjects and moti. Luba Freedman Like other artists, Titian's creative process was constrained of Giovanni's impact on Titian is often obscured by the latter's by contemporary expectations. His frequent representation of study of works by other artists. Yet it was through Giovanni's art some subjects, religious and secular, can be explained primarily that Titian arrived at most of the pivotal landmarks in his œuvre. by the demands set by his patrons. Titian used the repetition to There are numerous observations one might make on the treat the same subjects innovatively; he evidently enjoyed the subjects and methods Titian borrowed from Giovanni as he es very process of his work, often taking some time to complete tablished a new pinnacle in Venetian painting. This discussion a commission. To an impatient but erudite art connoisseur, he focuses on similarities, intentionally leaving dissimilarities aside, defended his delays by explaining that he was motivated by his The similarities between Titian and Giovanni are many when search for the best techniques for the expression of thought, or their lives and works are seen in parallel. Both are remarkable for concetti.7 Titian worked at a time when an artist was supposed the enormous change in the style of their works: their early works to know the great art of ancient and modern Rome.8 Therefore, differ markedly from their late ones. Carolyn C. Wilson sees the it was expected that he appropriate from those works in his com- change in Giovanni's style that took place after 1500 as generated missions. At the same time, however, Titian set himself to the by the artist's inner development and a desire to indicate a har challenges of his profession by representing not only what is monious relation between figures and their outdoor setting.13 visible in nature and art, ancient and modern, but also what can A similarly radical style change was generated half a century be suggested to the imagination.9 He thought of posterity; desir- later when Titian's search to express the intense emotions of the ing his reputation to outlive him, he embodied both the complete represented subjects resulted in the outdoor setting being used student and the consummate master of painting. The contempla- as a reflection of their state of mind. There are remarkable simi tion of the works and methods of Apelles, Giovanni Bellini, and larities between the two in the way each artist used the system of Michelangelo helped to develop his exceptional approach to art. chalk underdrawing and layers of glazes and scumbles (discov The first two artists were the examples from which to absorb and ered through the application of infrared reflectography).14 Both adapt. The latter was the example to learn from by rejection. worked by the system of pentimenti (changes), using their fingers Titian cast off what Michelangelo exalted: a visible disegno in as much as they used brushes of various sizes. Interestingly, both every work of art. His paintings, the medium Michelangelo never artists enjoyed drawing doodles on the back of their paintings.15 highly esteemed10, launch his own interpretation of disegno. These close similarities are a testament to Titian's earnest study Most of Titian's paintings, and his borrowings from other art- of every method explored in the Bellini workshop, ists, can be analyzed on various levels and from different angles. Both artists started as notable Madonna painters, both cre What he chose to appropriate and adapt reflects Titian's debate ated small-scale paintings of St Jerome reading, and both re with his fellow artists. The scope of Titian's œuvre is overwhelm- turned to these same subjects during the course of their long ing, and it is hard to discuss the specifics of what Titian learned lives.16 The similarity in the chosen subjects might be explained from Giovanni, from Apelles, and from Michelangelo, without by the tastes of local patrons, but Titian often painted the same mentioning all three at each discussion and without looking at subjects as Giovanni; the list included the Death of St Peter what he acquired from other artists, both ancient and modern. Martyr17, the Assumption18, the Transfiguration19, the Annuncia At the same time, the analysis of Titian's œuvre, while collat- tion20, the Resurrection21, the Crucifixion22, and the Pietà. He ing those traits and motifs (or omissions) from those three art- often employed the same compositions as Giovanni: Titian's ists, reveals how Titian used them. Even this present collation of St Mark altarpiece shows his study of Bellini's St Jerome altar traits and motifs might show that Titian's adoption of the mantle piece23; Titian's Votive Picture of Doge Andrea Gritti was based of Apelles for the public outside Venice owed its inception to on Giovanni's Votive Picture of Doge Agostino Barbarigœ, Titian's his observation of how Giovanni worked throughout his crea- The Gypsy Madonna reminds us of Giovanni's Madonna from tive life.