Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68) has long been recognized as one of the founders of modern art history and a major force in the development of archaeology and the study of ancient Greek architecture. He also exerted an influence on the Weimar Classicism of Goethe and Schiller, for whom his description of Greek sculpture as evoking -edle Einfalt und stille Grosse- (noble simplicity and a calm greatness) became a watchword. He contributed to modern scientific archaeology through his application of empirically derived categories of style to the analysis of classical works of art and...
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68) has long been recognized as one of the founders of modern art history and a major force in the development of arc...