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There is no consecutive narrative. The story of painting originating
from a girl seeing the wall-silhouette of her lover and filling it in
with color, and the conjecture of painting having developed from
embroidery work, have neither of them a foundation in fact. The
earliest settlers of Greece probably learned painting from the
Phoenicians, and employed it, after the Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Phoenician manner, on pottery, terra-cotta slabs, and rude
sculpture. It developed slower than sculpture perhaps; but were there
anything of importance left to judge from, we should probably find
that it developed in much the same manner as sculpture. Down to 500
B.C. there was little more than outline filled in with flat
monochromatic paint and with a decorative effect similar, perhaps, to
that of the vase paintings. After that date come the more important
names of artists mentioned by the ancient writers. It is difficult to
assign these artists to certain periods or schools, owing to the
insufficient knowledge we have about them.


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