PROTOGENES

A celebrated Greek painter of Caunus in Caria, who lived for the most part at Rhodes, in the time of Alexander the Great and his first successors. He died 300 B.C. His poverty seems to have prevented him from attending the school of any of the celebrated masters of his age, for no one is named as his instructor. He long remained poor until the unselfish admiration which his contemporary and brother painter Apelles showed for his works raised him in riper years to great celebrity. His works, owing to the excessive care he bestowed on them, were few in number; but their perfect execution led to their being ranked by the unanimous voice of antiquity among the highest productions of art. His most celebrated works were a Resting Satyr, and also a painting representing the Rhodian hero Ialysus. On the latter he spent seven or, according to others, as many as eleven years. To insure its permanence he covered it with four distinct coats of paint, so that when the upper coating perished the lower might takes its place [Pliny, N.H., xxxv 101-105].