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The first great painters, whose works deserve
inspection for something more than their mere
antiquity, are said to have been Polygnotus and
Aglaopllon,1 whose simple colouring has still such
enthusiastic admirers that they prefer these almost
primitive works, which may be regarded as the first
foundations of the art that was to be, over the works
of the greatest of their successors, their motive
being, in my opinion, an ostentatious desire to seem
persons of superior taste.
1 Of the painters mentioned in this and the following sections Polyglotus of Thasos, son of Aglaophon, painted at Athens in the middle of the 5th century B.C.. Zunis of Heracelea Parrhasius of Ephesus flourished 420–390, while the remainder are painters of the 4th century. Of these Palmphilus of Sicyon was the teacher of Melanthius and Apelles, the latter being the most famous painter of antiquity.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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