Polygnotus

Polygnotus was a Greek painter from Thasos who worked in the fifth century BCE. His monumental wall paintings in Athens and Delphi were celebrated in ancient literature, though none survive.

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Stoa Poikile: A painted colonnade on the north side of the Athenian Agora, decorated with scenes from myth and history. Polygnotus was credited with paintings in this prominent Athenian public building.
Cimon: An Athenian general and statesman who led campaigns and shaped civic life in the fifth century BCE. Ancient sources associate Polygnotus’s Athenian commissions with Cimon’s political circle.
Ancient Greek painting: Painting produced in the Greek world from the Bronze Age through antiquity, known chiefly from texts and indirect evidence. Polygnotus’s murals belong to a medium whose major works have largely vanished.
Zeuxis: A celebrated Greek painter of the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE, known from literary accounts. Ancient art histories compare the achievements of Polygnotus with those of later masters such as Zeuxis.
Lesche of the Knidians: A meeting hall at Delphi built by the people of Knidos and decorated with monumental paintings. Pausanias described Polygnotus’s major mythological paintings inside this building.
Micon: A Greek painter and sculptor active in fifth-century Athens, associated with major public paintings. Micon was a contemporary collaborator and fellow painter in accounts of Athenian murals.
Foreshortening: A technique that represents an object or figure at an angle so it appears to recede in space. Ancient criticism credits Polygnotus with advances in rendering bodies and depth.
Parrhasius: A Greek painter of the late fifth century BCE, praised in antiquity for precise line and lifelike figures. His reputation shows how Greek writers distinguished later painting from Polygnotus’s generation.
Iliupersis: The sack of Troy, a subject depicted in ancient Greek poetry, visual art, and drama. Polygnotus painted a celebrated version of Troy’s destruction at Delphi.
Pliny the Elder: A Roman author of the first century CE whose Natural History includes a history of Greek painting. Pliny transmitted judgments about Polygnotus’s skill and place in painting history.