So comes the truth of Goethe's judgments
on his works; they are a life, a living thing, designed for those who
are alive--ein Lebendiges fur die Lebendigen geschrieben, ein
Leben selbst.
In 1758 Cardinal Albani, who had formed in his Roman villa a
precious collection of antiquities, became Winckelmann's patron.
Pompeii had just opened its treasures; Winckelmann [195]
gathered its first-fruits. But his plan of a visit to Greece remained
unfulfilled. From his first arrival in Rome he had kept the
History of Ancient Art ever in view. All his other writings were a
preparation for that. It appeared, finally, in 1764; but even after
its publication Winckelmann was still employed in perfecting it.
It is since his time that many of the most significant examples of
Greek art have been submitted to criticism. He had seen little or
nothing of what we ascribe to the age of Pheidias; and his
conception of Greek art tends, therefore, to put the mere elegance
of the imperial society of ancient Rome in place of the severe and
chastened grace of the palaestra. For the most part he had to
penetrate to Greek art through copies, imitations, and later
Roman art itself; and it is not surprising that this turbid medium
has left in Winckelmann's actual results much that a more
privileged criticism can correct.
He had been twelve years in Rome. Admiring Germany had
made many calls to him. At last, in 1768, he set out to revisit the
country of his birth; and as he left Rome, a strange, inverted
home-sickness, a strange reluctance to leave it at all, came over
him.
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