Butades invented the method of coloring plastic compositions, by adding red earth to the material, or else modelling them in red chalk: he, too, was the first to make masks on the outer edges of gutter-tiles upon the roofs of buildings; in low relief, and in high relief. In these designs in terra cotta the ornaments on the pediments of temples originated.
The first person who expressed the human features by fitting a mould of plaster upon the face, and then improving it by pouring melted wax into the cast, was Lysistratus of Sicyon, brother of Lysippus, already mentioned. He first made it his study to give a faithful likeness; for before his time, artists only thought how to make their portraits as handsome as possible. The same artist, too, was the first who thought of making models for his statues; a method which afterwards became so universally adopted, that there could be neither figure nor statue made without its model in clay. The art of modelling in clay thus appears to be more ancient than that of moulding in bronze.
The most celebrated modellers were Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were painters as well. These artists adorned with their works, in both kinds, the Temple of Ceres, in the Circus Maximus at Rome, with an inscription in Greek, which stated that the decorations on the right-hand were the workmanship of Damophilus, and those on the left, of Gorgasus. Varro says that, before the construction of this temple, everything was Tuscan in the temples; and that, when the temple was afterwards repaired, the painted coatings of the walls were 315 cut away in tablets and enclosed in frames, but that the figures on the pediments were dispersed. Chalcosthenes executed at Athens some works in unbaked earth, on the spot which, from his manufactory, has since obtained the name of “Ceramicus.”
Varro states that he knew an artist at Rome, Possis by name, who executed fruit, grapes, and fish, with such exactness, that it was quite impossible, by looking at them, to distinguish them from the reality. He speaks very highly also of Arcesilaüs, who was on terms of intimacy with Lucius Lucullus, and whose models in plaster used to sell at a higher rate, among artists themselves, than the works of others. He informs us, also, that the Venus Genetrix in the Forum of C?sar was executed by this modeller, and erected before completion, in the great haste that there was to consecrate it. The same artist had made an agreement with Lucullus to execute a figure of Felicity, at the price of sixty thousand sesterces, the completion of which was prevented by the latter’s death; and Octavius, a Roman of equestrian rank, being desirous of a model for a mixing-bowl, Arcesilaüs made him one in plaster, at the price of one talent.