C.


Leigh
Holbrook

10/22/2009

Rels
8210
‐
Origins

Dr.
Louis
A.
Ruprecht




Wilamowitz
versus
Winckelmann
is
a
remarkable
exploration
and
critique
of


Wilamowitz’s
understanding
of
Nietzsche’s
understanding
of
Winckelmann’s


writings
and
conceptualizations
of
the
Classical
Age.
What
I
would
like
to
consider
in


the
reading
of
this
article,
is
that
it
seems
as
though
the
unified
front
that
Nietzsche


and
Winckelmann
manage
to
portray
two
generation
apart
from
one
another,
is
by


and
large
against
the
theological
framework
within
the
study
of
the
Classics.
This


idea
of
Classicism
is
what
Wilamowitz
is
defending
and
ultimately,
seems
more
aptly


described
as
Classicist
apologetics.
I
think
that
the
underline
theological
framework


on
the
classicists’
approach
of
Greek
culture
and
history
create
this
terminal


optimism
used
to
describe
Greek
history
that
Nietzsche
views
with
disgust.


Winckelmann
seems
to
be,
three
generations
earlier,
fighting
a
similar
theological


undertone
in
the
approach
of
profane
art
and
the
Christian
culture’s
view
of


embodiment
and
human
sexuality.




The
language
that
Wilamowitz
uses
in
his
criticism
of
Nietzsche
is
laden
with


theological
notions
and
concepts.
He
uses
terms
as
“asceticism
of
self‐denying


work”,
“nothing
but
the
truth”,
eternal
insight”,
and
“purity.”
These
are
all
ideas


laden
with
theological
notions.
These
only
serve
to
reflect
and
further
exemplify


Nietzsche’s
concern
with
not
only
the
time
period
that
is
studied
as
the
Classical


Age,
but
why
it
has
been
deemed
as
such
and
so
worthy
of
all
Classical
scholarship.

The
Tragic
Age
that
he
is
concerned
with
and
claims
as
the
age
that
should
be


studied
by
classicists
is
one
filled
with
simultaneous
pleasure
and
pain,
desire
and


hate,
and
Dionysian
music
that
takes
over
where
the
words
of
tragedy
fail.
It
is
a


place
and
time
of
paradox,
complexity,
and
myth;
one
that
almost
embodies
his
idea


that
as
a
scholar
it
is
better
to
be
creative
than
to
be
right.



Winckelmann
faces
a
similar
battle
of
the
Christian
response
to
the
eroticism


of
Dionysian
art;
human
sexuality
and
therefore
life
has
been
deemed
“dirty”
by
way


of
its
“origins.”
His
Art
History
emerges
out
of
the
fleeting
existence
of
the
classical


moment,
of
art,
and
also
of
tragedy.
All
of
these
things
die.
Aestheticism
is
fleeting


and
(following
Nietzsche’s
notion
that
Life
is
justified
as
an
aesthetic),
life
too
is


fleeting.
This
is
an
extraordinarily
oppositional
notion
to
that
of
the
Christian


categories,
which
detest
“orgiastic
overflow”
and
“tragic
delight
in
destruction;”


notions
which
Nietzsche
accuses
of
killing
the
Classical
vision.
Just
as
these


categories
crush
the
Classical
vision,
they
also
lend
themselves
to
the
death
of


Classical
beauty.
Beauty
as
a
dynamic,
complex
and
evolving
creature
as
opposed
to


something
simply
inspired
by
God
and
placed
in
a
static
category.
He
also
re‐

envisions
pilgrimage
as
something
aesthetic
and
profane;
the
spirit‐traveler
turned


beauty‐traveler.
Nietzsche,
likewise,
radically
re‐envisions
Classicism.



After
the
exploration
of
what
Winckelmann
and
Nietzsche
are
fighting


against
in
the
realm
of
the
Classics
and
Beauty,
the
question
to
address
is,
‘then
what


are
they
doing
instead’?
Nietzsche
seeks
to
establish
a
new
Classicism,
which
takes

the
age
of
importance
back
to
the
Tragic
Age.
Winckelmann
is
establishing
a
new


view
and
understanding
of
beauty.
As
beautifully
noted,
Greek
art
served
as
a


“cultural
bulwark”
against
the
theological
undertones
that
saturated
modern


scholarship
and
it
span
three
generations
to
connect
two
men
who
seem
to
differ
in


quite
grandeur
and
unquiet
grandeur,
but
agree
in
noble
simplicity.
They
both
seem


to
be
in
the
business
of
mythmaking
and
through
that,
reversing
the
effects
of


Christian
theology
on
the
perceptions
of
beauty,
the
classics,
history,
antiquity,
and


the
complexity
of
life.