Probably born at
Colophon in
Ionia, he first studied under Ephorus of
Ephesus, but after he had attained some celebrity, he became a student of
Pamphilus at
Sicyon; he thus combined the
Dorian thoroughness with the
Ionic grace. Attracted to the court of
Philip II, he painted him and the young Alexander with such success that he became the recognized court painter of Macedon, and his picture of Alexander holding a
thunderbolt ranked in the minds of many with the Alexander with the spear of the sculptor
Lysippus. Hundreds of years later,
Plutarch was among the unimpressed, deciding that it had failed to accurately reproduce Alexander's colouring: "He made Alexander's complexion appear too dark-skinned and swarthy, whereas we are told that he was fair-skinned, with a ruddy tinge that showed itself especially upon his face and chest." after a painting supposed to be by Apelles or
Philoxenus of Eretria found in the
House of the Faun at
Pompeii|left Much of what is known of Apelles is derived from
Pliny the Elder (
Natural History, XXXV). His skill at drawing the human face is the focus of a story connecting him with
Ptolemy I Soter. This one-time general of Alexander disliked Apelles while they both were in Alexander's retinue. Many years later, while travelling by sea, a storm forced Apelles to land in Ptolemy's
Egyptian kingdom. Ptolemy's
jester was suborned by Apelles' rivals to convey to the artist a spurious invitation to dine with Ptolemy. Apelles' unexpected arrival enraged the king. Ptolemy demanded to know who had given Apelles the invitation, and with a piece of
charcoal from the fireplace, Apelles drew a likeness on the wall, which Ptolemy recognized as his jester in the first strokes of the
sketch. Apelles was a contemporary of
Protogenes, whose reputation he advocated. Pliny also recorded an anecdote that was making the rounds among
Hellenistic connoisseurs of the first century CE: Apelles travelled to Protogenes' home in
Rhodes to make the acquaintance of this painter he had heard so much about. Arriving at Protogenes' studio, he encountered an old woman who told him that Protogenes was out and asked for his name so she could report who had enquired after him. Observing in the studio a panel Protogenes had prepared for a painting, Apelles walked over to the easel, and, taking up a brush, told the servant to tell Protogenes "this came from me," and drew in colour an extremely fine line across the panel. When Protogenes returned, and the old woman explained what had taken place, he examined the line and pronounced that only Apelles could have done so perfect a piece of work; Protogenes then dipped a brush into another colour and drew a still finer line above the first one, and asked his servant to show this to the visitor should he return. When Apelles returned and was shown Protogenes' response, ashamed that he might be bettered, he drew in a third colour an even finer line between the first two, leaving no room for another display of craftsmanship. On seeing this, Protogenes admitted defeat and went out to seek Apelles and meet him face-to-face. Pliny claims that this painting had been part of the collection of
Julius Caesar but was destroyed when Caesar's mansion on the
Palatine Hill burned down. While sketching one of Alexander the Great's concubines,
Campaspe, Apelles fell in love with her. As a mark of appreciation for the great painter's work, Alexander presented her to him. Apelles is said to have been working on a painting of
Aphrodite of
Kos when he died, and the painting was left unfinished, for no one had skill enough to complete it. The renowned work of Apelles provided several exemplars for the narrative realism admired by Greco-Roman connoisseurs, succinctly expressed in
Horace's words
ut pictura poesis, "as is painting so is poetry." Apelles seemed to have had a taste for elaborate
allegory and personification, which he carried far in his rendering of Calumny, described by
Lucian, in which an innocent youth is falsely accused by Ignorance, Envy, Treachery and Deceit. The story occasioning the painting was alleged to have been false accusations by a rival artist that Apelles took part in a conspiracy against
Ptolemy IV Philopator. This almost led to the artist's execution. "In the
Renaissance the exemplar of the poetic painting which was invariably cited whenever the art-poetry question was discussed was the
Calumny of Apelles, known through Lucian's description."
Sandro Botticelli's panel of
Calumny of Apelles was painted in conscious striving to equal the painting in Lucian's
ekphrasis. The
Pyrrhonist philosopher
Sextus Empiricus used Apelles in an analogy for how
ataraxia (i.e., freedom from mental perturbance) is achieved. The acquisition of ataraxia was likened to the process where Apelles was trying to paint a horse. He wished to represent its foam (in Greek mythology, Poseidon created horses out of sea foam). He was so unsuccessful that, in a rage, he gave up and threw the sponge he was using to clean his brushes with at the medium, and its mark produced the effect of the horse's foam. == Works ==