“Edle Einfalt und stille Größe”: Greek Art, Roman Eyes, German Vision

Winckelmann published the tract Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst to great effect. In it he set down the arguments why the ancient Greeks, through a fortuitous coincidence of nature and culture, were unable to execute a work of art that was not beautiful, and so have remained the school for the cultivation of taste throughout the ages. The great example that he chose for his case was the Laocoon statue. It was in relation to this statue that, when attempting to sum up the essential attributes of Greek beauty, he hit upon the happy phrase “edle Einfalt und stille Größe.” These few words served to establish the essential attributes of the classical conception of beauty or “das Schöne” of German aesthetics in the eighteenth century and, at the same time, to make that ideal of beauty the historical possession of a particular people and a particular time.

The combination of an enthusiasm for the beautiful and for the Greeks gave Winckelmann a good claim to be the spiritual progenitor of the intense Grecomania that so distinguished the generations of Germans immediately after him. The counterpart of this new enthusiasm was a disinclination towards all things Roman. In part Winckelmann's argument dictated the necessity for this corollary. In order for Winckelmann's Greece to emerge with a distinctive profile from under the shadow of Rome, he was compelled to reject the current notion that the Latin heritage assimilated the Greek world and brought it to completion.