The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

The evidence from the texts cited demonstrates that animals, when featured as
subjects of works of art, were intimately connected with the concept of lifelikeness. In
fact, animals provide the ancient definition of this concept as accurate reproduction of
physical form and a sense of aliveness which allowed the viewer to cross freely the
boundary between art and reality and created the impression that the animal subject had
the ability to speak and in some cases even move. In light of this evidence, animals
provide a useful insight into the ancient Greek understanding of the lifelikeness of works
of art. This exceptional role of animals in the realm of artistic lifelikeness in ancient
Greece is also found in their featuring as judges of lifelike works of art.
Animals as Judges of Lifelikeness of Works of Art
The case of animals—a part of the natural world—as judges of lifelike works of
art is indicative of a very particular approach to art itself: as an artificial man-made
construction, but, at the same time, one accepted as natural even by nature itself. The
most interesting and most familiar attestation to animals as judges of artistic lifelikeness
occurs in Pliny’s account of a competition between two fourth-century painters, Zeuxis
and Parrhasius:
His [Zeuxis’] contemporaries and rivals were Timanthes, Androcydes, Eupompus
and Parrhasius. This last it, is recorded, entered into a competition with Zeuxis,
who produced a picture of grapes so successfully represented that birds flew up to
the stage-buildings; whereupon Parrhasius himself produced such a realistic
picture of a curtain that Zeuxis, proud of the verdict of the birds, requested that
the curtain should now be drawn and the picture displayed; and when he realized
his mistake, with a modesty that did him honor he yielded up the prize, saying
that whereas he had deceived birds Parrhasius had deceived him, an artist. It is
said that Zeuxis also subsequently painted a Child Carrying Grapes, and when
birds flew to the fruit with the same frankness as before he strode up to the picture
in anger with it and said, “I have painted the grapes better than the child, as if I
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