568 HISTORY OF ART 



one man to protest against the removal from it of a beautiful statue. 

 Artists and art-lovers, while they may well despair of bringing back 

 those golden days, may perhaps say with Touchstone, " We that have 

 good wits have much to answer for." 



It may seem like beginning history with Adam to go back here to 

 Winckelmann; but back to him we must go if we wish to get a view 

 of the beginnings of the study of the history of Greek sculpture. He is 

 the founder of that study and an example to us all. How far he outran 

 his generation is seen by the fact that his enlightened patron, Count 

 von Bunau, said, " Winckelmann is a fool, and will come to a terrible 

 end." Others were willing to concede that he was an inspired fool. 

 Rome was to him Mecca and Jerusalem combined. So absorbed was 

 he in its treasures of art that the question of becoming a Catholic 

 instead of a Protestant seemed to him much like a question between 

 tweedledum and tweedledee. His coming to Rome was an event in 

 the history of the study of art almost as important as the arrival of 

 Greek scholars in Europe which brought on the renaissance. 



When he had once become papal antiquary and had charge of the 

 museums of Rome his one thought was the mastery of all the material. 

 His contempt of Belescnheit and of "those who excogitate huge books 

 and sicken the understanding"; his saying that "no scribe can pene- 

 trate the inmost essence of art, " show how proud he was. intrenched 

 in his museums. He could hardly disguise his contempt for a certain 

 "superficial English writer" who formulated theories on the sight of 

 a few statues, and said of him, " such an inference was to be expected 

 only from those who had seen Rome in dreams or like young travelers 

 in one day." He exacted as much from himself as he did from others. 

 N'othing less than an acquaintance with the whole field satisfied him. 

 His principle was comparable to that which Ritschl formulated for 

 the study of the classics, "Lesen. viel Lesen, Moglichst viel Lesen." 

 In his judgment only he who had seen a thousand statues was cap- 

 it ble of understanding one. 



The wonder is that dealing as he did with copies, he still felt the 

 spirit and power of Greek sculpture as perhaps no man since has felt 

 it. Xo one can ever improve on his defining the essence of Greek art 

 as "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" (Edle Einfalt und stille 

 Grusse). Bosanquet. an English writer, offers as a substitute "har- 

 mony, regularity, and repose." But this leaves out the prime qualities 

 of "simplicity, greatness, and nobility." 



Winckelmann was not so visionary and rhapsodical as to fail to 

 give some practical directions for the study of art, as follows: 



(1) "Seek not to detect deficiencies and imperfections in works 

 of art until you have previously learned to recognize and discover 

 beauties." 



