This conventional association of pictorial art with the art of rhetoric offers a glimpse of the complex discussion about colours that Lyly dramatised in his first comedy. This article aims at exploring the diverse meanings of colours in Campaspe in the light of Elizabethan perceptions of colours, focussing more particularly on the relation between colour and illusion. This play is replete with linguistic as well as artistic references to colours which have surprisingly gone unnoticed by critics 2 who tend to concentrate more on the relation of the art of painting and iconoclasm in this play.
In this comedy , colours are evoked, criticised or praised in nearly every scene. Although Lyly constantly relates colour to illusion and deceit, thus abiding by the traditional perception of colours in early modern England, spectators are advised not to follow the example of Apelles who is pictured as a master of illusion gradually trapped and deceived by the illusion he has created when he falls in love with the colours he has laid on his canvas.
In visiting either of these polarized locations, moreover, Alexander sets up a further set of oppositions: between a life of action as against reflection when he visits Diogenes, and of arms versus arts when he visits Apelles This type of interpretation shared by many critics 6 needs to be qualified since this visual but apparent contrast is constantly challenged by the many meetings between the servants working for philosophers and artists.
While the opening scene presents the audience with the eponymous character who is brought onto stage as an object to be admired by Alexander, the following scene surprisingly revolves around secondary characters. I serve Apelles, who feedeth me, as Diogenes doth Manes, for at dinner the one preacheth abstinence, the other commendeth counterfeiting.
Apelles justifies his trick of perspective by giving the well-known example of the grapes painted by Zeuxis:. Interestingly enough, the next chapter begins with the story of Lepidus who commissioned another illusionistic painting of a snake that could frighten birds into silence. Ah, shame, a maid forsooth, unknown, unnoble, and who can tell whether immodest, whose eyes are framed by art to enamour, and whose heart was made by nature to enchant.
