to know what to make of it. Perhaps it’s best seen as a weird, unintended precursor to fantasy novels, a work that creates an imaginary universe so convincing that it manages to attach itself to the things we know are real and changes how we see them.
But readers in 1764 didn’t share this confusion.
History of Ancient Art
was considered to be one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the age, having done for art what years earlier Newton had done for science. Three of his ideas in particular continued to affect thinking and taste for the next half-century. First, although Winckelmann believed there were a variety of reasons that art flourished in ancient Greece—the climate was benign; athletes competed in the nude, allowing artists to study the human form in all its attitudes—the most important reason was that the Greeks enjoyed political liberty: “The independence of Greece is to be regarded as the most prominent of the causes, originating in its constitution and government, of its superiority in art.”
Next, Winckelmann thought Greek art was not static but cyclical, just as he believed history itself was. It began, advanced, enjoyed a period of full development, then declined into decadence:
One can distinguish four stages of style in the art of the Greeks, and particularly in their sculpture. These are the straight and the hard style, the great and angular style,the beautiful and flowing style, and the style of the imitators. The first style for the most part lasted untilPhidias, the second untilPraxiteles, Lysippus andApelles; the third will have waned with the latter and their school, and the fourth lasted until the decay of art. At full bloom it did not last long: for from the age ofPericles until the death of Alexander, at which the glory of art began to decline, was a space of about one hundred and twenty years.
Last, Winckelmann’s ecstatic descriptions of individual works created a completely new way of seeing art and responding to it. Here, at enough length to convey its originality and power, is his description of theApollo Belvedere, the most famous statue in the world before the discovery of the Venus de Milo:
His height is above that of man and his attitude declares his divine grandeur. An eternal springtime, like that which reigns in the happy fields of Elysium, clothes his body with the charms of youth and softly shines on the proud structure of his limbs. To understand this masterpiece you must fathom intellectual beauties and become, if possible, a divine creator; for here there is nothing mortal, nothing subject to human needs. This body, marked by no vein, moved by no nerve, is animated by a celestial spirit which courses like a sweet vapor through every part.… Like the soft tendrils of the vine, his beautiful hair flows round to be perfumed by the essence of the gods, and tied with charming care by the hands of the Graces. In the presence of this miracle of art I forget the whole universe and my soul acquires a loftiness appropriate to its dignity. From admiration I pass to ecstasy, I feel my breast dilate and rise as if I were filled with the spirit of prophecy; I am transported to Delos and thesacred groves of Lycia—places Apollo honored with his presence—and the statue seems to come alive like the beautiful creation of Pygmalion.
No one had ever written about art this way before. Who else had ever smelled perfume wafting from the hair of a statue? “The only precedent for this passage,” wrote the contemporary British criticHugh Honour, “is to be found in the Christian mystics.” The belief that art could lead to revelation, that it could replace religion as a path to the divine, began with Winckelmann.
All the while he was in Rome, wealthy friends and noble patrons offered to pay for Winckelmann to visit and study in Greece. He always found some excuse not to accept. One can’t help but think he was afraid to confront whatever he might find there. After a lifetime
But readers in 1764 didn’t share this confusion.
History of Ancient Art
was considered to be one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the age, having done for art what years earlier Newton had done for science. Three of his ideas in particular continued to affect thinking and taste for the next half-century. First, although Winckelmann believed there were a variety of reasons that art flourished in ancient Greece—the climate was benign; athletes competed in the nude, allowing artists to study the human form in all its attitudes—the most important reason was that the Greeks enjoyed political liberty: “The independence of Greece is to be regarded as the most prominent of the causes, originating in its constitution and government, of its superiority in art.”
Next, Winckelmann thought Greek art was not static but cyclical, just as he believed history itself was. It began, advanced, enjoyed a period of full development, then declined into decadence:
One can distinguish four stages of style in the art of the Greeks, and particularly in their sculpture. These are the straight and the hard style, the great and angular style,the beautiful and flowing style, and the style of the imitators. The first style for the most part lasted untilPhidias, the second untilPraxiteles, Lysippus andApelles; the third will have waned with the latter and their school, and the fourth lasted until the decay of art. At full bloom it did not last long: for from the age ofPericles until the death of Alexander, at which the glory of art began to decline, was a space of about one hundred and twenty years.
Last, Winckelmann’s ecstatic descriptions of individual works created a completely new way of seeing art and responding to it. Here, at enough length to convey its originality and power, is his description of theApollo Belvedere, the most famous statue in the world before the discovery of the Venus de Milo:
His height is above that of man and his attitude declares his divine grandeur. An eternal springtime, like that which reigns in the happy fields of Elysium, clothes his body with the charms of youth and softly shines on the proud structure of his limbs. To understand this masterpiece you must fathom intellectual beauties and become, if possible, a divine creator; for here there is nothing mortal, nothing subject to human needs. This body, marked by no vein, moved by no nerve, is animated by a celestial spirit which courses like a sweet vapor through every part.… Like the soft tendrils of the vine, his beautiful hair flows round to be perfumed by the essence of the gods, and tied with charming care by the hands of the Graces. In the presence of this miracle of art I forget the whole universe and my soul acquires a loftiness appropriate to its dignity. From admiration I pass to ecstasy, I feel my breast dilate and rise as if I were filled with the spirit of prophecy; I am transported to Delos and thesacred groves of Lycia—places Apollo honored with his presence—and the statue seems to come alive like the beautiful creation of Pygmalion.
No one had ever written about art this way before. Who else had ever smelled perfume wafting from the hair of a statue? “The only precedent for this passage,” wrote the contemporary British criticHugh Honour, “is to be found in the Christian mystics.” The belief that art could lead to revelation, that it could replace religion as a path to the divine, began with Winckelmann.
All the while he was in Rome, wealthy friends and noble patrons offered to pay for Winckelmann to visit and study in Greece. He always found some excuse not to accept. One can’t help but think he was afraid to confront whatever he might find there. After a lifetime
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