1872.
WINCKELMANN
ET EGO IN ARCADIA FUI
Goethe's fragments of art-criticism contain a few pages of strange
pregnancy on the character of Winckelmann. He speaks of the teacher who
had made his career possible, but whom he had never seen, as of an
abstract type of culture, consummate, tranquil, withdrawn already into
the region of ideals, yet retaining colour from the incidents of a
passionate intellectual life. He classes him with certain works of art,
possessing an inexhaustible gift of suggestion, to which criticism may
return again and again with renewed freshness. Hegel, in his lectures on
the Philosophy of Art, estimating the work of his predecessors, has also
passed a remarkable judgment on Winckelmann's writings:--"Winckelmann, by
contemplation of the ideal works of the ancients, received a sort of
inspiration, through which he opened a new sense for the study of art.
He is to be regarded as one of those who, in the sphere of art, have
known how to initiate a new organ for the human spirit.
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