From one connoisseur to another: Pausanias as Winckelmann's guide to analysing Greek art

Abstract

Pausanias’ influence on Winckelmann is subtle, but had a considerable effect: Winckelmann himself considered Pausanias’ approach to art as similar to his own. At times he probably projected more of his own ideas onto Pausanias than the text of the Periegesis would actually suggest, but this shows how much Winckelmann came to identify with the ancient author on whose judgement he was so often forced to rely. He used Pausanias above all to form an idea of how ancient viewers interpreted works of art, what art connoisseurship entailed in antiquity, and which questions one might ask about Greek works of art, particularly statues. The influence of the Periegesis cannot, however, be measured by the number of references or the amount of material extracted from it: Pausanias was indeed far more for Winckelmann than merely a source of information about ancient works of art. Pausanias was his guide — a guide to an imaginary ancient Greece, and a guide who, as a fellow connoisseur of Greek art, suggested new questions, demonstrated how different artworks could be analysed by comparison, and thus helped inspire crucial aspects of Winckelmann’s innovative approach to writing a history of ancient art.