Zeuxis, the painter who attracted real sparrows by painting grapes

Dario Melissano 20 February 2025

Zeuxis (5th century BC – 4th century BC) was an ancient Greek painter who lived in the second half of the 5th century BC; he continued the work of Apollodorus.

Sources say he was born in Herakleia, the ancient Policoro, and worked in many areas of the ancient world, stopping in Athens where he became known for having developed the so-called "easel painting", that is, painting on wood. Pliny indicates the painter's peak at 397 BC, reporting at the same time that his sources reported a much earlier date (424-421 BC). Zeuxis must have already been active and well-known in Athens around 434-429 BC, although still young, if he was named as Zeuxippus in Plato's Protagoras set in those years. The only certain dating remains, however, the period spent in the service of Archelaus I of Macedonia, between 413 and 399 BC, during which he worked on the decoration of the royal palace. Isocrates remembers him as already dead in 394 BC.

He had considerable fame and was cited by Xenophon and Aristophanes among others. The sources of the Hellenistic era also passed down his fame through anecdotes such as that of the grapes painted in competition with Parrhasius, who deceived the sparrows; equally well-known and repeated to satiety, especially during the Renaissance, the story according to which he wanted to depict Helen, he had induced the five most beautiful virgins of the city (Crotone or Agrigento in the sources) to allow him to copy what was most beautiful of each. Of a completely different nature is the ekphrasis of Lucian of Samosata relating to the copy of a painting depicting the Family of the Centaur, which due to its thematic and iconographic novelty is defined as an anticipation of genre painting.

He apparently died from laughter at a humorous painting of the goddess Aphrodite that he himself had painted.

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Zeuxis, the painter who attracted real sparrows by painting grapes

Written by Dario Melissano

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Zeuxis, the painter who attracted real sparrows by painting grapes

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