Perspective and Scene Painting

Abstract

The few surviving examples of great Hellenistic painting display a curious limitation in an advanced art. True to his tradition the artist is preoccupied with the human element in his picture or with the symmetry of his grouping; in spatial rendering he is conservative and timid. For psychological expression nothing could be better than the Medea of Timomachus from Herculaneum with her irresolute hands and distraught eyes, or for design and mastery of the human figure than the finding of Telephus, a majestic tableau vivant.¹ Yet, in the Alexander mosaic, a copy of the work of Philoxenus of Eretria, the difficulties of suggesting depth are apparent (Fig. 1).²