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Literature still remains. Pausanias, Pliny, Lucian, and others have enumerated and described the celebrated works of ancient painting, and indicated the chief characteristics of the great masters. In certain passages even the technique is mentioned and analysed. With the help of this literature we can, in a general way, trace the history of Greek painting, and it is chiefly from these records that such classic books have been written as Brunn’s Geschichte der Künstler and Woltmann’s Geschichte der Malerei. For gaining a thorough knowledge of the data of the subject, the great value of these books is unquestionable.

But there is no doubt that a history compiled from texts becomes excessively dry, even though illustrations are borrowed from Pompeii and Herculaneum. What impression would any one who had never seen a painting by Raphael or Michelangelo receive by merely reading about them?

Furthermore, many ancient authors, far from being accurate or full in their information, are hopelessly brief; often the subject of a painting and the name of its author are mentioned in but three words. Let us suppose that two thousand years hence our descendants should find a guide-book and read, “The Sacred Grove of the Muses, by Puvis de Chavannes.” What conclusions could they draw in regard to the composition of the painting or the talent of its author? Such is our position in regard to many works of antiquity. Even if, as is sometimes the case, the descriptions are full, as in a passage where Pausanias enumerates all the persons in the two frescoes of Polygnotos at Delphi, The Visit to Hades and The Capture of Troy, the same darkness still exists as to the placing of the figures, their expression, their attitude, and the technique of the colouring.