Johann Joachim Winckelmann

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (9 December 1717 - June 8, 1768) was German art historian and archaeologist. He is famous for founding the "Greek revival", an art movement based on Greek art that influence the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late 18th century. Winckelmann was also one of the founders of modern scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art.

Biography

Early life

Johann Joachim Winkelmann was born in Stendal, Prussia, into poverty. His father, Martin Winckelmann, was a cobbler, and mother, Anna Maria Meyer, a daughter of a weaver. Winckelmann's early years were full of hardships but his thirst for learning pushed him forward. Later in Rome, when he was a famous scholar, he wrote: "One gets spoiled here; but God owed me this; in my youth I suffered too much."

He attended the Coellnische Gymnasium in Berlin and the school at Salzwedel and, in 1738, at 21, was induced to go as a student of theology to the University of Halle. However, Winckelmann was no theologian - he had became interested in Greek classics already in his youth, but he soon realized that teachers in Halle could not satisfy his intellectual pursuits in this field and he soon devoted himself enthusiastically to Greek art and literature. He followed the lectures of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who coined the term "aesthetics".

Later, with the intention of becoming a physician, in 1740 he attended medical classes at Jena. Between the terms and sometimes during them he worked as a tutor of languages. In 1743 he became the deputy head master of the gymnasium of Seehausen. Winckelmann felt that his work with children was not his true calling. Moreover, his salary was so low that he had to rely on his students' parents to have free meals and overall his means were insufficient and he was obliged to accept a tutorship near Magdeburg. From 1743 to 1748, he was associate-rector of a school at Seehausen in the Altmark.

Bunau's librarian

In 1748 he wrote to Count Henry von Bünau: "... little value is set on Greek literature, to which I have devoted myself so far as I could penetrate, when good books are so scarce and expensive." In the same year Winckelmann was appointed secretary of his library at Nöthnitz, near Dresden. The library contained some 40,000 volumes. Winckelmann had read Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, Xenophon, and Plato, but now he found the works of such famous Enlightenment writers as Voltaire and Montesquieu. To leave behind the Spartan atmosphere of Prussia was a great relief for him. Winckelmann's major duty was to assist von von Bünau to write a book on the German-Roman or Holy Roman Empire and collect materials for it. During this period he made several visits to the collection of antiquities at Dresden, but his description of its best paintings was left unfinished. The treasures there nevertheless awakened in Winckelmann an intense interest in art, which was deepened by association with various artists, particularly the painter Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717-1799), Goethe's future friend and influence, who encouraged him in his aesthetic studies. - Wincklemann too exercised a powerful influence over Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Winckelmann's study of ancient literature had inspired Oeser with a desire to visit Rome, and he became librarian to Cardinal Passionei, in 1754. This compelled him reluctantly to join the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1750, Winckelmann published his Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in Malerei und Bildhauerkunst ("Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture"), followed by a feigned attack on the work, and a defence of its principles, nominally by an impartial critic. The Gedanken contains the first statement of the doctrines he afterwards developed, and was warmly admired not only for the ideas it contained but for its style. It made Winckelmann famous and was reprinted several times and soon translated into French. In England, Winkelmann's views stirred discussion in the 1760s and 1770s. Henry Fuseli's translation of his book, Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks, was published in 1765, but the translation was not well received.

Rome

In 1751 the papal nuncio, Archinto, visited Nothenitz, and in 1754 Winckelmann joined the Roman Catholic Church. Goethe stated, that Winckelmann was a pagan, but his decision finally opened him the doors of the Pope's library. He was named librarian to Domenico Cardinal Passionei, who was impressed by Winckelmann's beautiful Greek writing. After publishing Gedanken über die Nachahmung der Griechischen Werke in der Mahlerey und Bildbauer-Kunst (1755), Winckelmann moved to Rome. Augustus III, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, granted him a pension of 200 thalers, that he might continue his studies in Rome.

He arrived in Rome in November 1755. His first task in Rome was to describe the statues in the Belvedere - the 'Apollo', the Laocoõn, the so-called Antinous, and the 'Torso Belvedere' - which represented him the "utmost perfection of ancient sculpture." He became librarian to Cardinal Archinto, and received much kindness from Cardinal Passionei. After their deaths, he was received as librarian and as a friend into the house of Cardinal Albani, who was forming his magnificent collection of antiquities at Porta Salara, and became his patron. Originally Winkelmann planned to stay in Italy only two years with the help of a grant from Dresden, but the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) changed his plans.

He devoted himself earnestly, at first with the aid of his new friend, the painter Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-79), who he first met in Rome, to the study of Roman antiquities and gradually acquired an unrivalled knowledge of ancient art. Mengs became the channel through which Winkelmann's ideas were realized in art and spread around Europe. "The only way for us to become great, yes, inimitable, if it is possible, is the imitation of the Greeks," Winckelmann declared. With imitation he did not mean slavish copying: "... what is imitated, if handled with reason, may assume an other nature, as it were, and become one's own." The Roman art Winckelmann discredited, which was unusual at that time - Roman culture was considered the ultimate achievement of Antiquity. Neoclassical artists attempted to revive the spirit as well as the forms of ancient Greece and Rome. Mengs's contribution in this was considerable - he was in his day widely regarded as the greatest living painter. The French painter Jacques-Louis David met Mengs in Rome (1775-80) and was introduced to the artistic theories of Winckelman. His painting, 'The Oath of the Horatii' (1784), made in the neoclassical spirit, is one of the greatest interpretations of the French revolutionaries' zeal.

In 1760 appeared his Description des pierres gravées du feu Baron de Stosch; in 1762, his Anmerkungen über die Baukunst der Alten ("Observations on the Architecture of the Ancients"), including an account of the temples at Paestum. In 1758 and 1762, he visited Naples to observe the archaeological excavations being conducted there. Usually the excavations of Pompeii (1748) have been considered the decisive stimulus to the new archaeological classicism, but first excavation in Herculaneum took place much earlier. These two cities had been buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. From the middle of the century the collection of "antiques" becomes a passion all over Europe, discoveries in Pompeii and Herculaneum has a profound effect on taste, especially on interior design, and a journey to Italy is a mark of good breeding. Goethe made his journey to Italy in 1786-88 and although he never met Winckelmann - he was nineteen when Winckelmann died - Goethe found his memory still inspiring.

In 1762 appeared Winkelmann's study Sendschreiben von den Herculanischen Entdeckungen (Letter About the Herculanean Discoveries) and two years later Nachrichten von den neuesten Herculanischen Entdeckungen (Report About the Latest Herculanean Discoveries). From these scholars obtained their first real information about the treasures excavated at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

His major work, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764, The History of Anciet Art), influenced deeply contemporary views of the superiority of Greek art. It was translated into France in 1766 and later into English and Italy. Among others Gotthold Ephraim Lessing based much of his ideas in 'Laokoon' (1766) on Winckelmann's views on harmony and expression in visual arts. Lessing also stated that painting uses completely different means or signs than does poetry, which depicts progressive action rather than the visible and stationary.

From 1763, while retaining his position with Albani, Winckelmann worked as a prefect of antiquities (Prefetto delle Antichità) and scriptor (Scriptor linguae teutonicae) of the Vatican. Winckelmann again visited Naples, in 1765 and 1767, and wrote for the use of the electoral prince and princess of Saxony his Briefe an Bianconi, which were published eleven years after his death, in the Antologia romana.

Masterwork

His masterpiece, the Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums ("History of Ancient Art"), issued in 1764, was soon recognized as a permanent contribution to European literature. In this work Winckelmann sets forth both the history of Greek art and the principles on which it seemed to him to be based. He also presents a glowing picture of the political, social, and intellectual conditions which he believed tended to foster creative activity in ancient Greece. The fundamental idea of his theories are that the end of art is beauty and that this end can be attained only when individual and characteristic features are strictly subordinated to an artist's general scheme. The true artist, selecting from nature the phenomena fitted for his purpose, and combining them through the imagination, creates an ideal type marked in action by "Edle Einfalt und stille Größe" ("noble simplicity and quiet grandeur")—an ideal type in which normal proportions are maintained, particular parts, such as muscles and veins, not being permitted to break the harmony of the general outlines.

Later works

Winckelmann contributed various admirable essays to the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften; and, in 1766, he published his Versuch einer Allegorie, which, although containing the results of much thought and reading, is not conceived in a thoroughly critical spirit. Of far greater importance was the work entitled Monumenti antichi inediti (1767-1768), prefaced by a Trattato preliminare, presenting a general sketch of the history of art. The plates in this work are representations of objects which had either been falsely explained or not explained at all. Winckelmann's explanations were of the highest service to archaeology, by showing that in the case of many works of art supposed to be connected with Roman history the ultimate sources of inspiration were to be found in Homer.

Death

In 1768 he started his journey over the Alps to the North, but Tyrol depressed him and he decided to return back to Italy. However, his friend, the sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi managed to persuade him into travel to Munich and Vienna, where he was received with honour by Maria Theresa. On his way back he was murdered at Trieste on June 8, 1768 in a hotel bed by a fellow traveller, a man named Francesco Arcangeli, possibly one of his lovers , for medals that Maria Theresa had given him. Arcangeli had thought that he was only "un uomo di poco conto."

He was buried in the churchyard of the cathedral of St. Giusto at Trieste. Domenico Rosetti and Cesare Pagnini documented the last week of Winckelmann's life. Heinrich Alexander Stoll translated the Italian document, the so-called "Mordakte Winckelmann", into German language what Pagnini edited in Italian language before. Pagnini found in the Archive of Trieste this and sometime later edited the documents himself.

Critical response

In the historical portion of his writings he used not only the works of art he himself had studied but the scattered notices on the subject to be found in ancient writers; and his wide knowledge and active imagination enabled him to offer many fruitful suggestions as to periods about which he had little direct information. Many of his conclusions, based on inadequate evidence of Roman copies, would be modified or reversed by his subsequent research. The fine enthusiasm of his work, its strong and yet graceful style, and its vivid descriptions of works of art give it enduring value and interest, even though some particulars that led to his conclusions are false. It marked an epoch by indicating the spirit in which the study of Greek art should be approached, and the methods by which investigators might hope to attain solid results. To Winckelmann's contemporaries it came as a revelatio, and exercised a profound influence on the best minds of the age. It was read with intense interest by Lessing, who had found in the earliest of Winckelmann's works the starting-point for his Laocoon.

Works

Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in Malerei und Bildhauerkunst ("Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture"), followed by a feigned attack on the work, and a defence of its principles, nominally by an impartial critic. (1750)
Description des pierres gravées du feu Baron de Stosch (1760)
Anmerkungen über die Baukunst der Alten ("Observations on the Architecture of the Ancients"), including an account of the temples at Paestum (1762)
Sendschreiben von den Herculanischen Entdeckungen (Letter About the Herculanean Discoveries) (1762)
Nachrichten von den neuesten Herculanischen Entdeckungen (Report About the Latest Herculanean Discoveries) (1764)
Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums ("History of Ancient Art") (1764)
Versuch einer Allegorie (1766), which, although containing the results of much thought and reading, is not conceived in a thoroughly critical spirit.
Monumenti antichi inediti (1767-1768), prefaced by a Trattato preliminare, presenting a general sketch of the history of art. The plates in this work are representations of objects which had either been falsely explained or not explained at all.
Poshtumously published - Briefe an Bianconi, which were published eleven years after his death, in the Antologia romana.

His sexuality and lifestyle

Winckelmann never learned to master Italian perfectly. He lived simply on bread and wine, but partly his asceticism and loneliness was increased by his homosexuality. At the age of 45 he fell in love with a young nobleman, Friedrich von Berg, and wrote for him Abhandlung von der Fähigkeit der Empfindung des Schönen (1763). "As it is confessedly the beauty of man which is to be conceived under one general idea, so I have noticed that those who are observant of beauty only in women, and are moved little or not at all by the beauty of men, seldom have an impartial, vital, inborn instinct for beauty in art," he wrote in the essay. "To such persons the beauty of Greek art will ever seem wanting, because its supreme beauty is rather male than female." Winckelman did not think that women could be fascinated by sculptures presenting naked young males. In his art theory Winckelmann rejected sensual nature of art, manifestation of the passions of the soul, and idealized expressionless beauty, tranquil and passionless aesthetic forms. Likewise in his own sexual life he had to hide his hopes and disappointments behind a facade of diligence and respectability.

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