Polygnotus

Polygnotus, a Greek painter who flourished in the middle of the 5th century B.C., was born in the isle of Thasos, and belonged to a family of painters. He was a friend of the Athenian general Cimon, and is said to have been attached to his sister, Elpinice. His principal works were at Athens, at Delphi, and at Platæa. In the first-named city he executed paintings in the temple of Theseus; in the Stoa Poikile (or Painted Portico), the Greek Princes assembled to judge of the Violation of Cassandra by Ajax; in the temple of the Dioscuri, the Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus; and in the Propylæa on the Acropolis, a series from the old Greek legends. At Platæa he painted, in the temple of Athena, Ulysses and the Slain Suitors of Penelope. His greatest work is said to have been in the Lesché, a court or peristyle at Delphi, built by the Cnidian, the walls of which he covered with a series representing the Wars of Troy and the Visit of Ulysses to the Lower World. Polygnotus was a great advance on any of his predecessors. He was the first who gave life, character, and expression to painting. Aristotle extols the dignity and beauty of his conceptions.