Winckelmann
| Johann Joachim Winckelmann | |
|---|---|
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Portrait by Raphael Mengs, after 1755
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| Born |
9 December 1717 Stendal, Margraviate of Brandenburg |
| Died | 8 June 1768 (aged 50) Trieste, Habsburg Empire |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Archaeology, art history |
| Alma mater | University of Halle |
| Known for |
Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (The History of Art in Antiquity; 1764) Contribution to the rise of the neoclassical movement |
| Influences | Johann Friedrich Christ,Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten |
| Influenced | Wickhoff, Justi, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, Spengler |
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (9 December 1717 – 8 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. "The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology", Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. Many consider him the father of the discipline of art history. His would be the decisive influence on the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late 18th century. His writings influenced not only a new science of archaeology and art history but Western painting, sculpture, literature and even philosophy. Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art (1764) was one of the first books written in German to become a classic of European literature. His subsequent influence on Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, and Spengler has been provocatively called "the Tyranny of Greece over Germany."
Today, Humboldt University of Berlin's Winckelmann Institute is dedicated to the study of classical archaeology.
Winckelmann was homosexual, and open homoeroticism informed his writings on aesthetics. This was recognized by his contemporaries, such as Goethe.
Winckelmann was born in poverty in Stendal in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. His father, Martin Winckelmann, worked as a cobbler, while his mother, Anna Maria Meyer, was the daughter of a weaver. Winckelmann's early years were full of hardship, but his academic interests pushed him forward. Later in Rome, when he had become a famous scholar, he wrote: "One gets spoiled here; but God owed me this; in my youth I suffered too much."
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