Title: Down from Olympus : archaeology and philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970 /
Authors: Marchand, Suzanne L., 1961-
Publisher: Princeton University Press,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Archaeology Germany History.; Enlightenment Germany; Art, Greek Influence.; Neoclassicism (Art) Germany.; Civilization, Classical; Germany Intellectual life; Germany Intellectual life; Germany Intellectual life
Abstract: In Down from Olympus Suzanne Marchand attempts to come to grips with German Graecophilia, not as a private passion but as an institutionally generated and preserved cultural trope. The book argues that nineteenth-century philhellenes inherited both an elitist normative aesthetics and an ascetic scholarly ethos from their Romantic predecessors; German "neohumanists" promised to reconcile these intellectual commitments, and by so doing, to revitalize education and the arts. Focusing on the history of classical archaeology, Marchand shows how the injunction to imitate Greek art, especially sculpture, was made the basis for new, state-funded cultural institutions. Tracing interactions between scholars and policymakers that made possible grand-scale cultural feats like the acquisition of the Pergamum Altar, she underscores both the gains in specialized knowledge and the failures in social responsibility that were the distinctive products of German neohumanism. Most important, Marchand traces the history of the study, excavation, and exhibition of Greek art as a means to confront the social, cultural and political consequences of the specialization of scholarship in the last two centuries. Although it emphasizes the persistence of ancient models, Down from Olympus is very much a modern tale.
Contents: The Making of a Cultural Obsession -- From Ideals to Institutions -- The Vicissitudes of Grand-Scale Archaeology -- Trouble in Olympus -- Excavating the Barbarian -- The Peculiarities of German Orientalism -- Kultur and the World War -- The Persistence of the Old Regime -- The Third Humanism and the Return of Romantic Aesthetics -- The Decline of Philhellenism, 1933-1970.