German Classical Archaeology

The first scientific approaches to classical archaeology in Germany date back to the so-called antiquaries, who were active from the sixteenth century on and who—due to their systematic classification of the material estate of Antiquity—were often and rather unjustly called ignorant. The Thesaurus Brandenburgicus selectus, written by Lorenz Beger (1653–1705) and published in three volumes between 1696 and 1701, may be regarded as the most significant opus of an antiquary in Germany. The intensity of the antiquaries’ influence, especially that which they exerted on following generations of classical scholars, characterized particularly in Germany by the factual and substantial organization of manuals and, above all, of corpora.

Even johann joachim winckelmann (1717– 1768), who vehemently opposed the antiquaries, followed an antiquarian pattern in the draft of his Monumenti antichi inediti, published in 1772. Winckelmann’s hermeneutic method (i.e., his explanation of antique monuments mainly by means of Greek mythology) and his aesthetic approach built on the achievements of the antiquaries. A significant difference, however, can be noted in his observation that the art of antiquity, until that time regarded as an absolute entity, could be given a chronology. In this observation he was partially influenced by concepts taken from the late-Hellenistic period, although Winckelmann’s judgment was predominantly influenced by the aesthetic criteria of his time. His discovery of the possibility of differentiating the various stages of the development of antique art by means of stylistic analyses enabled him to subdivide that art into several periods, a classification that is more or less still valid today. In his Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (1764) he distinguished between the Alterer Stil (Older Style) of the first half of the fifth century b.c., the Hoher Stil (Grand Style) of the period of Phidias, the Schoner Stil (Beautiful Style) of Praxiteles, Lysipp, and Hellenistic works of art, and the Stil der Nachahmer (Style of the Imitators) of the classicist period. The time of the Roman Empire was defined as an era of decay and the complete decline of art.

Winckelmann’s aim was to discover the Wesen der Kunst (nature of art) and define the use of beauty and verity, distinctive to a particular work of art. Both of these values he regarded as fulfilled in the Hoher Stil and the Schoner Stil. He also wanted to develop a model of general (as in a universal) validity: “The history of art should teach the origin, the growth, the change, and the decline of art, as well as the different styles of peoples, periods, and artists and to prove this to the greatest possible extent by means of those works of Antiquity left over” (Winckelmann 1764).

In this way Winckelmann prepared the basis for a developmental approach to art, which is still influential today. This model of development of a comparative art history almost necessarily implied a concentration on each and every work of art, as well as an understanding of its contents and its value (despite this being often determined subjectively). Winckelmann’s influence on successive generations of scholars was considerable and his passionate and refined language, used to describe such monuments as the outstanding statutes Laocoon and the Apollo of Belvedere, was also influential. Both the study of art, according to his model, and his literary attainments can be regarded as strange contrasts to the intended delineation of art-historical contexts. Winckelmann’s subjective idealization and, above all, mystification of Greek art and his intention to deduce aesthetic rules and standards from it was inherently contradictory to an interpretation striving for historical facts.

Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729–1812), the realistic, dispassionate archaeologist who was also enthusiastic about Greek beauty, was Winckelmann’s counterpart. Heyne was greatly important to the development of archaeology as an academic discipline, primarily because of his “Academic Lectures on the Archaeology of the Art of Antiquity,” which he had given since 1767 at the University of Gottingen. His work “Introduction into the Study of Antiquity, or Draft of a Guide to the Knowledge of Ancient Works of Art,” published in 1772, was also very significant and pioneering because he was a philologically determined classical scholar. On the one hand he proceeded methodically according to