COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

442 COSMOS.
of the master-works of JEschylus and Sophocles, gradually
enlarged this branch of art,* by increasing the demand for
an illusive imitation of inanimate objects, as
buildings, woods,
and rocks.
In consequence of the greater perfection to which scenography
had attained, landscape painting passed amongst the
Greeks and their imitators, the Romans, from the stage to
their halls, adorned with columns, where the long ranges of
wall were covered, at first, with more circumscribed views,f but
shortly afterwards with extensive pictures of cities, sea-shores,
and wide tracts of pasture-land, on which flocks were grazing.;!:
Although the Roman painter, Ludius, who lived in the
Augustan age, cannot be said to have invented these graceful
decorations, he yet made them generally popular, animating
them by the addition of small figures. || Almost
at the
same period, and probably even half a century earlier, we find
landscape painting mentioned as a much practised art among
the Indians during the brilliant epoch of Vikramaditya. In
the charming drama of Salmntala, the image of his beloved is
shown to King Dushmanta, who is not satisfied with that
alone, as he desires that " the artist should depict the places
which were most dear to his beloved, the Malini river,
with a sandbank on which the red flamingoes are standing; a
chain of hills skirting on the Himalaya, and gazelles resting
on these hills." These requirements are not easy to comply
with, and they at least indicate a belief in the practicability
of executing such an intricate composition.
In Rome, landscape painting was developed into a separate
branch of art from the time of the Caesars ; but if we may
* Particularly through Agatharcus, or at least according to the rules
he established. Aristot. Poet., iv. 16; Vitruv., lib. v. cap. 7, lib. vii. in
Praef. (ed. Alois Maxim us, 1836, t. i. p. 292, t. ii. p. 56); compare
also Letronne's work, op. cit. p. 271-280.
f On Objects of Rhopograpliia, see Welcker ad Pldlostr. Imag.,
p. 397.
Vitruv., lib. vii. cap. 5 (t. ii. p. 91).
"
Hirt., Gescli. der bildenden Kunste bei den Alien, 1833, s. 332;
Letronne, pp. 262 and 468.
|| Ludius qui primus (?) instituit amcenissimam parietum picturara
(Plin. xxxv. 10). The topiaria opera of Pliny, and the varietates
topiorum of Yitruvius, were small decorative landscape paintings. The
passage quoted in the text of Kalidasa occurs in the Sakuntala, act vi.