PROTOGENES, a Greek painter, born in Caunus on the coast of Caria, but resident in Rhodes during the latter half of the 4th century b.c., was celebrated for the minute and laborious finish which he bestowed on his pictures, both in drawing and in colour. Apelles, his great rival, standing astonished in presence of one of these works, could only console himself that he knew when to stop whereas Protogenes did not. So also Petronius (Satyr., 83) experienced a sensation of horror at the too vivid realization of nature in which Protogenes indulged. On one picture, the Ialysus, he spent seven years; on another, the Satyr, he worked continuously during the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes (305-4 b.c.) notwithstanding that the garden in which he painted was in the middle of the enemy’s camp. Demetrius unsolicited took measures for his safety; more than that, when told that the Ialysus just mentioned was in a part of the town exposed to assault, Demetrius changed his plan of operations. Possibly the slowness and laboriousness of the work of Protogenes was due partly to a want of training in his youth. .He appears to have been self-taught; some said that he had begun life as a ship-painter, and, though the painting of certain small figures of ships in a picture of his in Athens, however excellent it may have been, can hardly be held to confirm this account of his youth, it does not on the other hand render the account unreliable. It may have been due also to a want of early training that he found so much difficulty in rendering the foam at the mouth of a dog which occurred in the picture of Ialysus. Angry at his many failures, he dashed the sponge wet with the white colour which he had just wiped off at the mouth of the dog. The result was a perfectly successful foam. ...