Timanthes of

Cythnus Kythnos (, ), commonly called Thermia (), is a Greek island and municipality in the Western Cyclades between Kea and Serifos. It is from the Athenian harbor of Piraeus. The municipality Kythnos is in area and has a coastline of about . Mount Kak ...

() was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

of the fourth century BC. The most celebrated of his works was a picture representing the sacrifice of

Iphigenia In Greek mythology, Iphigenia (; , ) was a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus a princess of Mycenae. In the story, Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis on his way to the Trojan War by hunting and killing one of Artem ...

, in which he finely depicted the emotions of those who took part in the sacrifice; however, despairing of rendering the grief of

Agamemnon In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans during the Trojan War. He was the son (or grandson) of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of C ...

, he represented him as veiling his face. Zeuxis, Timanthes and Parrhasius were painters who belonged to the Ionian School of painting. The Ionian School flourished during the 4th-century BCE. A

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

discovered at

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

, and now in the Museum at

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, has been regarded as a copy or echo of this painting (Wolfgang Helbig, ''Wandgemälde Campaniens'', No. 1304).

Influence

Timanthes' ''Sacrifice of Iphigenia'' was well-known in Rome through

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

's description in Book 35 of his

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

. Even before his description,

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

and

Quintillian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quinti ...

used it to describe the effects of the four men who witnessed or partook of the sacrifice.

is veiled since his sadness was so great that it could not be portrayed in paint. Iphigenia's suffering seems to be left out. The painting had a strong impact in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

. Artists such as

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work ''Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ideol ...

and

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish painting, Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged comp ...

attempted to replicate the lost painting. Writers from

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, Catholic priest, priest, linguistics, linguist, philosopher, and cryptography, cryptographer; he epitomised the natu ...

Jacopo Sannazaro Jacopo Sannazaro (; 28 July 1458 – 6 August 1530) was an Italian poet, Renaissance humanism, humanist, member and head of the Accademia Pontaniana from Kingdom of Naples, Naples. He wrote easily in Latin language, Latin, in Italian and in Neap ...

, and from

Michel de Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( ; ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the the essay ...

to Gianbattista Marino, include the sacrifice in their works devoting all their attention to the sadness expressed by the four men and Agamemnon in particular. In Spain Juan Boscán redirects the suffering to Iphigenia Frederick A. de Armas, “Un pintor clásico en la poesía del Siglo de Oro: Timantes en Boscán, Garcilaso, Lope de Vega y Argensola,” ''Serenísima palabra: Actas del X Congreso de la Asociación Internacional Siglo de Oro (Venecia, 14-18 de Julio 2014)'', eds. Ana Bognolo et al., Biblioteca de Rassegna Iberistica 5. Venezia: Edizione Ca’Foscari, 2017: 49-67.https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/libri/978-88-6969-164-5/un-pintor-clasico-en-la-poesia-del-siglo-de-oro/

References

* Ancient Greek painters 5th-century BC Greek people People from Kythnos 4th-century BC painters {{Greece-painter-stub