At the time when Demetrius attacked the city of Rhodes, Protogenes was
painting a picture of Ialysus. "This," says Pliny, "hindered King
Demetrius from taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should burn the picture;
and not being able to fire the town on any other side, he was pleased
rather to spare the painting than to take the victory, which was already
in his hands. Protogenes, at that time, had his painting-room in a garden
out of the town, and very near the camp of the enemies, where he was daily
finishing those pieces which he had already begun, the noise of soldiers
not being capable of interrupting his studies. But Demetrius causing him
to be brought into his presence, and asking him what made him so bold as
to work in the midst of enemies, he answered the king, 'That he understood
the war which he made was against the Rhodians, and not against the
Arts.'"
With the decay of Greece, Art sank too, until it was revived in the
thirteenth century by Cimabue, since whose time its progress has been
triumphal.
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