| Notes | Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst ("Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture") was the first writing of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. It was first published in 1755 as an edition of 50 copies with a second edition in 1756. The publication was followed by a feigned attack on the work and a defense of its principles, ostensibly by an impartial critic. It contains the first statement of the doctrines he afterwards developed, the ideal of "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" (edle Einfalt und stille Größe) and the definitive assertion, "[t]he one way for us to become great, perhaps inimitable, is by imitating the ancients". The work won warm admiration not only for the ideas it contained, but for its literary style. It made Winckelmann famous, and was reprinted several times and soon translated into French. |
