The Ancient Athenian Paint-Off
Technical skill at imitating reality seems to have been a yardstick by which the best ancient Greek and Roman artists were judged. Turning once more to Pliny’s Historia naturalis, we hear of the two most celebrated painters of early decades of the fourth century BCE. Real-life creative kolossoi of their day, old master Zeuxis of Heraclea and hotshot Parrhasios of Athens locked horns in an artistic rivalry that could be resolved only in a public duel of the paintbrushes. The Award for Most Lifelike Artwork was not be decided, however, by appeal to a fickle public vote, but by more discerning and unimpeachable arbiters:
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| Matthäus Merian: The Contest of Zeuxis and Parrhasios (Frankfurt, 1619) |
They say that Parrhasios was drawn into a contest with Zeuxis, who produced a picture of grapes so real, even the birds flapped their wings about his scena. For his part, Parrhasios made a picture of a curtain so lifelike that Zeuxis, puffed up with the approval of the birds, called for the curtain to be drawn back to reveal the painting. Realising he’d been duped, Zeuxis accepted defeat fair and square, saying that while he had tricked the birds, Parrhasios had tricked an artist.
Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis, Book 35, Chapter 36
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The Deception of Eve and Adam (Hardham, chancel arch west) |
Pliny's story of Parrhasios's curtain is the earliest recorded example of an intentionally deceptive painting. Placing their own work within this venerable Greek tradition of wily artists, the Hardham muralist is happy to borrow the famous curtain trick from one of the great figures of early Greek art as a way of bringing to life The Deception of Eve and Adam for a modern audience. Are you going to be a foolish Zeuxis, putting out a hand out to take the ‘apple’ from the Serpent? Once again, illusion pulls us in, not just visually, but physically drawing us into the drama. We’re the hungry mouse in Sosus's famous mosaic in ancient Pergamon who can’t resist nibbling at the forbidden feast of trompe l'oeil. After so many centuries these visual mind-mechanisms are still whirring, dragging us out of the torpor of artistic complacency to gnaw on deceptive artwork that makes us reflect upon the very nature and limits of perception.
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| Asàratos òikos: 'The Unswept Floor' Rome, Villa Hadriana c. 135 CE, after Sosus of Pergamon, 2nd century BCE |
Ceci n'est pas un rideau: 'This is not a curtain'
Parrhasios's deceptive curtain teases the viewer. Like proud Zeuxis, we want to pull back the cloth to uncover the ‘truth’ it conceals, only to graze our hand on the wall. Perhaps we came expecting to be spiritually fulfilled, nourished, even healed by holy icons, those windows to the divine, like birds flocking to peck at seemingly delicious grapes. Instead, the Hardham artist bumps our beak, adopting Parrhasios’s ruse to show us that there are no saints here. Just some plastered walls smeared with paint. The value of art isn't about possessing an object made with pigments and dust.
We’ve been attracted by the artist’s playful illusion into a rematch of Pliny’s great Athenian art duel, only to find that Zeuxis has quit the table, leaving you to play his hand. In this Christian recasting of the legendary paint-off we’re in the hot seat, and rolling for high stakes. Old Zeuxis damaged his personal dignity and reputation through his hubristic error when he mistook a painting for something real. If we now get this wrong and reach out for the apple, doomed ever to repeat the mistake of Eve and Adam, then mankind will remain locked in spiritual death, living the miserable fallen life of our ancient mother and father, weeping bitter tears of regret as we stand at the gates, shut out from Christian paradise and communion with God... no pressure then.
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| '...the grapes were so real, even the birds flapped their wings around the scena' Matthäus Merian: The Contest of Zeuxis and Parrhasios (Frankfurt, 1619), detail |
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| Eve, the Serpent, and the Apple Hardham, chancel wall west |
‘The wretchedness of visible things’
If the painting is the trap, our engagement with art can also be our the get-out-of-jail card. The deceptive fresco, like ancient Sosus's messy mosaic floor, can help train us to develop what the Byzantine mystic Symeon the New Theologian calls pneumatikōs blépontes, or 'spiritual vision', setting us free us from the problematic and sentimental relationship with the visual which threatens to holds us prisoner.
No more grasping at painted fruit: a liberal approach to art, where paintings aren’t endowed with value, or given a fixed ‘meaning’, or filled with the promise of a window to saintly presence, can open our eyes to an imaginative world beyond the 'wretchedness of visible things' to emerge filled with 'the light which transcends word and thought and every created light' (Symeon the New Theologian, 'The Allegory of the Prisoner', Constantinople, late 10th century). Symeon's 'spiritual vision' (as Charles Barber writes) put the sacred icon on trial, opening the door to a fresh approach to the image and enlightened artistic experimentation. The untethered painting opens itself up to a variety of interpretation, and to allegory. Look into that window now: who knows what you might see?
If you thought that Symeon's prisoner, breaking out of the illusion which holds him captive, is beginning to sound rather like 'The Matrix': the screenplay of the Wachowskis' 1999 film drew inspiration from Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave', some of the same neo-Platonic ideas and beliefs, such as the escape from Plato's cave of shadows, which we see being explored in the work of the Hardham artist. But that needs its own new blogpost.
Icons and idols
The Hardham artist's work challenged the contemporary orthodoxy of the holy icon in the twelfth century, but we continue to face our own icon challenges today. Our fondness for CGI avatars allows production companies to prolong the creative lives of much-loved musicians and actors. Idols of pop and screen like ABBA and Harrison Ford have recently been rejuvenated in images which offer a willing audience the desired impression that we are still blessed by the presence of never-ageing greats, the saints of our day.
Our naive and susceptible affection for the image can also lead to problems. Credible AI impersonations can make public figures and politicians do and say unexpected things, acting out implausible and sometimes compromising scenarios. The Hardham artist asks us: just how comfortable are we about allowing ourselves to slump into this cosy relationship with the image, and with our senses? If we hope to move on from Eve and Adam we must recognise and nurture our spiritual hunger for the unseen, assuming a more responsible place in a sensory world than simply pecking at artistic realism, grazing habitually on painted fruit, accepting the fateful apple and taking the testimony of our eyes and ears at face value.
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| Birds peck at Zeuxis's painted grapes. Unknown artist, Amsterdam 1613 |
Wake up
So here we are, nine hundred years later, and Hardham’s trompe l’oeil is still there, prodding the viewer, telling us to WAKE UP and adopt a more sophisticated and active approach in how we relate to what we see, and to the art we create. The Hardham artist, ever-conscious of their role in a long and distinguished artistic tradition, has secured themselves a place in the pantheon alongside Pliny's artistic greats of ancient Athens.
In this twelfth-century remix of the playful and confrontational artwork enjoyed in ancient Greece, the Hardham artist explores a radical, innovatory approach to visual representation, a direct challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy which encouraged believers to venerate the holy icon as a 'window to the saints'. Sure, people may still find the Hardham painting ‘most unusual and unique’ to quote David Park (1988), but like those ancient Greek tricksters, the mosaicist Sosus and the painter Parrhasios, the Hardham artist is still having a laugh.
