Eva Keuls  

"Another possible pun connected with the art of painting may be present in some passages where Plato uses the word papy-aKov for "paint" (Rep. 420c, Pit. 277c). (He also uses -gpdipft.) <f>dpp,aKov is a normal word in this sense (LSJ s.v. III). Yet its basic meaning is "drug" (whether healing or noxious), and Plato possibly implies that painters "intoxicate" their viewers with an illusion or reality. This is certainly the case in Empedocles fr. 23, 3, where it said that a painter’s colors (pappaxa) produce "deception" (ajrdnj). For ^appaKOv as a metaphor for the into.xicating charm of literary composition in l-findar and Gorgias. see Flashar, Ion 71."--Plato and Greek Painting (1978) by Eva Keuls