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"Then, Damis, God is a painter, and has left his winged chariot, upon which he travels, as he disposes of affairs human and divine, and he sits down on these occasions to amuse himself by drawing these pictures, as children make figures in the sand."
Damis blushed, for he felt that his argument was reduced to such an absurdity. But Apollonius, on his side, had no wish to humiliate him, for he was not unfeeling in his refutations of people, and said: "But I am sure, Damis, you did not mean that; rather that these figures flit through the heaven not only without meaning, but, so far as providence is concerned, by mere chance; while we who by nature are prone to imitation rearrange and create them in these regular figures."
"We may, he said, "rather consider this to be the case, O Apollonius, for it is more probable, and a much sounder idea."
"Then, O Damis, the mimetic art is twofold, and we may regard the one kind as an employment of the hands and mind in producing imitations, and declare that this is painting, whereas the other kind consists in making likenesses with the mind alone."
"Not twofold," replied Damis, "for we ought to regard the former as the more perfect and more complete kind, being anyhow painting and a faculty of making likenesses with the help both of mind and hand; but we must regard the other kind as a department that, since its possessor perceives and imitates with the mind, without having the delineative faculty, and would never use his hand in depicting its objects."
"Then," said Apollonius, "you mean, Damis, that the hand may be disabled by a blow or by disease?"
"No," he answered, "but it is disabled, because it has never handled pencil nor any instrument or colour, and has never learned to draw."
"Then," said the other, "we are both of us, Damis, agreed that man owes his mimetic faculty to nature, but his power of painting to art. And the same would appear to be true of plastic art. But, methinks, you would not confine painting itself to the mere use of colours, for a single colour was often found sufficient for this purpose by our older painters; and as the art advanced, it employed four, and later, yet more; but we must also concede the name of a painting to an outline drawn without any colour at all, and composed merely of shadow and light. For in such designs we see a resemblance, we see form and expression, and modesty and bravery, although they are altogether devoid of colour; and neither blood is represented, nor the colour of a man's hair or beard; nevertheless these compositions in monochrome are likenesses of people either tawny or white, and if we drew one of these Indians with a pencil without colour, yet he would be known for a negro, for his flat nose, and his stiff curling locks and prominent jaw, and a certain gleam about his eyes, would give a black look to the picture and depict an Indian to the eyes of all those who have intelligence.
And for this reason I should say that those who look at works of painting and drawing require a mimetic faculty; for no one could appreciate or admire a picture of a horse or of a bull, unless he had formed an idea of the picture represented. Nor again could one admire a picture of Ajax, by the painter Timomachus, which represents him in a state of madness, unless one had conceived in one's mind first an idea or notion of Ajax, and had entertained the probability that after killing the flocks in Troy he would sit down exhausted and even meditate suicide.
But these elaborate works of Porus we cannot, Damis, regard as works of brass founding alone, for they are cast in brass; so let us regard them as the chefs d' oeuvre of a man who is both painter and brass-founder at once, and as similar to the work of Hephaestus upon the shield of Achilles, as revealed in Homer. For they are crowded together in that work too men slaying and slain, and you would say that the earth was stained with gore, though it is made of brass."
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