Winckelmann, Greek masterpieces, and architectural sculpture. Prolegomena to a history of classical archaeology in museums (original) (raw)

Much that we might imagine as ideal was natural for them [the ancient Greeks].' 1 ♣ Just as Johann Joachim Winckelmann mourned the loss of antiquity, so have subsequent generations mourned his passing at the age of fifty, in 1768, as he was planning his first journey to Greece. His deification through-not least-the placement of his profile head, as if carved out of a gemstone, on the title page of the first volume of his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums ('History of Ancient Art') in 1776 (the second edition, published posthumously) made him the poster boy for the study of classical art history and its related branches, Altertumswissenschaft or classical studies, history of art, and classical archaeology. 2 While Winckelmann strongly influenced artists, aesthetes, and historians, who have debated and developed his ideas in his and succeeding generations, his renown has put him at the centre of many movements-aesthetic (classicism, Hellenism, and neoclassicism), intellectual (historicism, 3 romanticism, 4 and modernism 5 * I am grateful to the editors for the invitation to contribute this piece and for their patience and to Katherine Harloe for encouragement, useful discussions, and reading an earlier draft of this article. I acknowledge all responsibility for remaining errors. 9 In emphasizing first-hand observation of works, Winckelmann was influenced by, in particular, Comte de