Décultot Elisabeth
Humboldt Professor for Modern Written Culture and European Knowledge Transfer, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germanistisches Institut, Ludwig-Wucherer-Str. 2, 06099, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Ber Wiss. 2020 Jun;43(2):239-261. doi: 10.1002/bewi.201900026. Epub 2020 May 19.
From his arrival in Italy in 1755, Winckelmann's work is infused throughout by a fundamental antinomy: reading versus seeing. This antinomy possesses for him a decidedly epistemological significance: it allows him to present himself as the father of a discipline deserving of its name, i.e., the history of art. In Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), he claims to break with a long tradition of art discourse which had been primarily supported by ancient texts, basing his book instead on the direct observation of the artworks. The aim of this paper is to critically examine this antinomy. How does seeing relate to reading in his working method? What relationship does art history, in the empirical dimension Winckelmann wanted to give it, have to book knowledge? Winckelmann's excerpts collection provides valuable answers to these questions. Following an old scholarly tradition, Winckelmann used to write down passages of his readings, constituting a vast handwritten library of excerpts which never left him. The result of this intense excerpting practice consists in some 7,500 pages, which allow to better define the share of empirical observation and book-based knowledge in his approach to ancient art.
从1755年抵达意大利开始，温克尔曼的作品就自始至终贯穿着一种基本的对立：阅读与观看。这种对立对他而言具有明确的认识论意义：它使他能够将自己展现为一门名副其实的学科——即艺术史——的奠基人。在《古代艺术史》（1764年）中，他宣称要与长期以来主要以古代文本为支撑的艺术论述传统决裂，而是将他的著作建立在对艺术品的直接观察之上。本文的目的是批判性地审视这种对立。在他的工作方法中，观看与阅读是如何关联的？在温克尔曼想要赋予艺术史的经验维度上，艺术史与书本知识有怎样的关系？温克尔曼的摘录集为这些问题提供了有价值的答案。遵循古老的学术传统，温克尔曼习惯写下他阅读的段落，形成了一个从不离身的浩瀚的手写摘录文库。这种密集摘录实践的成果约有7500页，它们有助于更清晰地界定在他研究古代艺术的方法中经验观察和基于书本的知识所占的比重。
