its history.[1] This great savant, whose memory Germany holds in honour as the father of classic archæology, was not content with stating a principle: he followed it through to its consequences; he began by tracing the outlines of the science which he founded, and he never rested till he had filled them in. However, now that a century has passed away since it appeared, his great work, which even yet is never opened without a sentiment of respect, marks a date beyond which modern curiosity has long penetrated. Winckelmann's knowledge of Egyptian art was confined to the pasticcios of the Roman epoch, and to the figures which passed from the villa of Hadrian to the museum of Cardinal Albani. Chaldæa and Assyria, Persia and Phœnicia, had no existence for him; even Greece as a whole was not known to him. Her painted vases were still hidden in Etruscan and Campanian cemeteries; the few which had found their way to the light had not yet succeeded in drawing the attention of men who were preoccupied over more imposing manifestations of the Greek genius. Nearly all Winckelmann's attention was given to the works of the sculptors, upon which most of his comprehensive judgments were founded; and yet, even in regard to them, he was not well-informed. His opportunities of personal inspection were confined to the figures, mostly of unknown origin, which filled the Italian galleries. The great majority of these formed part of the crowd of copies which issued from the workshops of Greece, for some three centuries or more, to embellish the temples, the basilicas, and the public baths, the villas and the palaces of the masters of the world. In the very few instances in which they were either originals or copies executed with sufficient care to be fair representations of the original, they never dated from an earlier epoch than that of Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippus. Phidias and Alcamenes, Pæonius and Polycletus, the great
- ↑ Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art should be read in connection with his Remarks upon the History of Art, which is a kind of supplement to it, and takes the place of that new edition of which the author's premature and tragic death deprived the world. It is an answer to the objections which made themselves heard on every side; the preface to Monumenti inediti (Rome, 1867, 2 vols. in folio, with 208 plates) should also be read. The method of Winckelmann is there most clearly explained. Finally, the student of the life and labours of Winckelmann may consult with profit the interesting work of Carl Iusti, Winckelmann, sein Leben, seine Werke, und seine Zeitgenossen, which will give him a clear idea of the state of archæology at the time when the German savant intervened to place it upon a higher footing.
