Aristidis of Thebes II

Aristides of Thebes was an ancient Greek painter of the 4th century BC, active according to the sources between about 360 and 330 BC. He is considered the first to render the passions and movements of the soul in the faces of his figures, which makes him a key figure for understanding the interest in human expression in ancient painting.

Born in Thebes, he trained with his father, Nicomachus, and with Euxenidas, and worked in the same period as Parrhasius and Timanthes. Among his pupils was Euphranor of Corinth, and his sons Niceros and Ariston also became painters. His work is placed within a Boeotian school that, it is said, emerged at the same time as the brief prominence of Thebes under Epaminondas, and that became mixed with the new Attic school.

His style is described as stiff in colour, though he is credited with inventing encaustic, a technique using wax. Pliny the Elder names him as the first to express the mood, feelings and emotions of people.

His most famous painting showed the siege of a city, with a child at the centre approaching his mother, who was mortally wounded and nursed him with blood instead of milk. Alexander the Great took this work to Pella, the capital of his kingdom. Pliny also mentions a battle against the Persians with hundreds of figures, a suppliant whose voice seemed audible, a portrait of the Epicurean philosopher Leontion, and a Dionysus and Ariadne that King Attalus of Pergamon reportedly wanted to buy for a hundred talents. Lucius Mummius, by contrast, carried it to Rome, where it was displayed publicly in the temple of Ceres.

His fame endured in antiquity, although much of his work is known only through written references. Pliny and Polemon of Athens recall him for scenes of everyday subjects and courtesans, the latter in a critical tone.