Apollodorus (painter) - Effect On Contemporaries

Effect On Contemporaries

Though not much about his life is known, historians have made assumptions about him and his works and actions via his contemporaries. The arrogant Zeuxis of Heraclea was one of Apollodorus' biggest enemies. Zeuxis was tutored in the arts by Demophilus of Himera and Neseus of Thasos. Apollodorus should have treated Zeuxis great respect because Zeuxis had been trained by some of the greats of ancient Greek art; however the two of them, as recorded by Pliny, were constantly at odds with each other. At one point, Apollodorus even accused Zeuxis of stealing art techniques from others which might very well have been true because Zeuxis was also attributed with the expansion and development of Apollodorus' prized skiagraphia. Zeuxis is said to have innovated skiagraphia by “adding highlights to shading and applying subtly different colors.” Regardless of what Zeuxis did, he was not the only painter to adapt Apollodorus' creation for his own purposes. Another painter named Parrhasius of Ephesus, also an enemy to the self-obsessed Zeuxis, helped expand skiagraphia as well. He supposedly used it in a contest against Zeuxis and won because the curtain that Parrhasius had painted looked so real that Zeuxis tried to pull it back; however, it is entirely possible that this fantastic tale is simply an urban myth created by Parrhasius to make himself look good. Whereas Zeuxis examined the technique of light and shade in skiagraphia, Parrhasius looked into the contoured lines that help express depth in a spatial way; therefore taking the meaning of skiagraphia even further. Not only was skiagraphia prominent in Athens, but also its influence extended beyond the polis' borders into the tomb paintings of Vergina, Aineia, and Lefkadia in northern Greece and even into Kazanlak, a city in Bulgaria. Though scarce, some of the tomb frescoes in Kazanlak had limited in color; however others in Vergina and Aineia used six or more colors further demonstrating the extent of the transformation of Apollodorus' skiagraphia. Skiagraphia continued to mutate and develop until the age of the Italian Renaissance when it was given a new name: chiaroscuro.