## WINCKELMANN'S APOLLO AND THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF RACE

## Lasse Hodne

## ABSTRACT

The taste for classical art that induced museums in the West to acquire  masterpieces  from  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  for  their collections  was  stimulated  largely  by  the  writings  of  Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In the past decade, a number of articles have claimed that Winckelmann's glorification of marble statues representing  the  white,  male  body  promotes  notions  of  white supremacy. The present article challenges this view by examining theories  prevalent  in  the  eighteenth  century  (especially  climate theory)  that  affected  Winckelmann's views on race. Through an examination of different types of classicism, the article also seeks to demonstrate that Winckelmann's aesthetics were opposed to the eclectic use of ancient models typical of the fascist regimes of the twentieth century.

## KEY WORDS

Winckelmann, Nietzsche, Greek Profile, Facial Angle, Physiognomy, Climate, Decolonisation, Race, Sculpture, Satyr, Ape.

## DECOLONISING THE AESTHETIC CANON?

In an article in this journal from 2017, Nicholas Mirzoeff proposed extending  the  Rhodes  Must  Fall  campaign,  which  decried monuments of white colonialism,  to  Western  museums. 1 The campaign, which started with the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue from the university campus in Cape Town in 2015, later spread  to  Oxford,  where  a  statue  of  Rhodes  is  placed  on  the facade  of  Oriel  College's  Rhodes  Building.  Mirzoeff  saw  the appeal of removing symbols of white sovereignty in relation to the demands for decolonisation of the curriculum, which 'is not simply a question of revising reading lists.' 2 With reference to a famous phrase from the art critic John Berger, Mirzoeff called for a critical engagement with 'ways of seeing' that could counter the aesthetics of white supremacy. This means that we must challenge the  aesthetic  canon  that  until  now  has  dominated  the  major museums in the West. As an example of such dominance, he mentioned New York's Metropolitan Museum, where 'the white marble statues of Greece and Rome … are placed in light, highceilinged rooms right next to the entrance. African objects, of which the Met has an amazing collection, appear in dark, gloomy spaces.' 3

In this article, I will discuss whether said canon is as oppressive as Mirzoeff asserts, or whether, as I believe, it was originally intended to represent positive values. But let us first look at some authors who, like Mirzoeff, have tried to analyse the Western taste  for  whiteness  and  purity,  revealing  a  connection  with oppression and colonialism. In her book The History of White People , Nell Irvin Painter claimed that this idea of beauty derives from Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), a German son of a cobbler who worked his way to the Papal court and the position of curator of one of Rome's most important private collections of ancient art, that of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. Winckelmann thought that art from the ancient Greek period was the finest of all times, and that modern artists could only attain perfection by learning through copying the works of the ancients. 'Long after Winckelmann,' Painter claimed, 'museums all over the world copied  classical  art  for  purposes  of  education'  using  plaster, which they purposefully left unpainted. 4

The  problem  with  Winckelmann's  studies,  Painter  stated, is that he only had access to Roman copies in marble of Greek originals that were often made in bronze. Painter claimed that not knowing that Greek statues were originally painted in bright colours, the aesthetics of Winckelmann was founded on ignorance of  the  original  polychromy  of  ancient  art. 5 The  idea  held  by ordinary people, as well as scientists, about bodily perfection was shaped by what they saw in museums, private collections, and books. Like Mirzoeff, Painter referred to Josiah Nott and George  Gliddon's  well-known Types  of  Mankind ,  from  1854, as an example of the use of Western ideals of human beauty in science 6 (Fig. 1) . To illustrate the idea that it is possible to judge the intellectual capacity of a race by the volume of the cranium, Nott and Gliddon's book used a chart that compared the head and skull of a chimpanzee with that of an African and a European-looking person. Or, to be precise, the European was not a real person, but a drawing of the head of the famous statue Apollo Belvedere -a Roman copy in marble of a lost Greek bronze original, probably executed sometime between 350 and 325 BC by the Greek sculptor Leochares (Fig. 2) .

Pro. 839. — Apollo Deirilena (

Fig. 1 Illustration from J.C. Nott and G.R. Gliddon's Indigenous Races of the Earth (public domain).

<!-- image -->

Fig. 2 Apollo Belvedere , Vatican Museums (public domain).

<!-- image -->

It is easy to see the racist assumptions behind an illustration that shows the portrait of a person of African origin midway between an ape and a classical bust. In the nineteenth century, illustrations like  these  were  frequently  used  to  demonstrate  principles  of racial supremacy. The race ideal promoted by Nott and Gliddon was inspired by the aesthetics of Winckelmann, as well as Dutch physician and anatomist Petrus Camper's (1722-1789) studies on human physiognomy. Painter says that Nott and Gliddon 'went on reproducing his [Camper's] images as irrefutable proof of a white supremacy.' 7

Even though Camper himself never embraced a racist view like that advocated by Nott and Gliddon, Painter maintained that his body ideal, inspired by Winckelmann's studies of Classical Antiquity,  can  be  described  as  a  'fetishization  of  white  male beauty'  that  excludes  non-European  races  from  its  aesthetic canon. 8 For  Camper,  the  Apollo  Belvedere  represented  the embodiment of perfect human beauty, while the flat noses of Chinese and Kalmucks were defined as an offence against beauty. 9

The connection between aesthetics and science that Painter denounced was also observed by Martial Guédron, who proposed that  the  raciological  taxonomies  of  physical  anthropology were based on aesthetic prejudices drawn from the histoire de l'art  archéologisante that  Winckelmann  represented. 10 Painter, Mirzoeff, and Guédron's critiques of the alleged racist implications of neoclassical aesthetics has a precursor in Eliza Marian Butler's influential The Tyranny of Greece over Germany (1935).  Butler saw Winckelmann as the key figure in a philhellenic movement that exposed German society to the influence of Ancient Greek literature and art in a way that inspired Nazi ideology's dream of the Übermensch. Butler's studies were followed up in the 1980s and '90s by scholars such as Martin Bernal (1937-2013) and George L. Mosse (1918-1999). According to Mosse, the ideas of a pure and powerful race, propagated by anthropological studies and quasiscientific disciplines such as physiognomy and phrenology, were based on the transcendental beauty ideal of the Enlightenment period. Mosse said that the body stereotypes that emerged from Winckelmann's analyses of ancient art 'have a direct bearing upon the appeal of racism, and upon its relation to nationalism …' for 'racism from its origin to modern times adopted a neoclassical male  aesthetic,  encouraged  by  anthropologists  who  liked  to contrast natives and Europeans based on their resemblances to or differences from the idealized Greeks.' 11

If we exclude those who mainly see Winckelmann as a forefather of modern art history as an academic discipline, it is striking how the perception of his contributions to the understanding of art and society changed in 200 years. Today's tendency to see his theories as 'awkward' 12 marks a strong contrast to the far more positive influence he exercised on prominent persons of his own time, such as Goethe, Herder, Lessing, and Kant. At that time, many saw Winckelmann's studies of ancient art as a demonstration that works like the celebrated Apollo Belvedere were the natural product of a society where people enjoyed individual freedom. In fact, one of Winckelmann's basic assumptions was that great art could only arise in a free society. After the expulsion of the tyrants, Winckelmann  said,  the  city  of  Athens  adopted  a  democratic form of government in which the entire people had a share. It is freedom of the individual that caused the proliferation of good taste among the Greeks; a fact proven by the analogous situation in Florence much later, 'where, after a long interval of darkness, the arts and sciences began, in modern times, to be relumined.' 13

Winckelmann was convinced that the glorious era of Greek art was a result of Athens's democratic constitution. More than anything else, it was this that convinced people at his time that a viable model for political reform could be found in ancient Greece. With reference to Winckelmann, Herder concluded that Pericles did more for the arts 'than ten kings of Athens would have done' 14 for statesmen in democracies need to please the public. Hence, there could be no better avenue 'than such kinds of expense, as ...  were calculated to gratify the eyes of the people, and afford subsistence to many.' 15

One  of  the  problems  with  much  of  today's  scholarship on  Winckelmann  is  that  it  almost  exclusively  focuses  on  the intellectual  horizon  of  eighteenth-  and  nineteenth-century Germany,  disregarding  that  of  France.  Winckelmann's  major work, The History of Art in Antiquity (Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums) , one of the few German books at the time that became a classic of European literature, appeared in French translation only  two  years  after  its  first  publication  in  1764.  The  French audience was also familiar with the basic ideas of Winckelmann's work through a number of reviews, such as the short synopsis given  in  the Gazette  littéraire  de  Europe the  same  year  (1764), which stated that Winckelmann had, in a very convincing way, demonstrated the superiority of the Greeks over other nations in most fields, and especially when it came to 'la liberté politique.' 16 Even more telling is the description of Winckelmann's work by the Enlightenment philosopher and art critic Denis Diderot (17131784),  who,  in  a  review  of  the Paris  Salon of  1765,  compared Winckelmann to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Diderot's essay not only defined the lesson that the general audience could draw from Winckelmann's view of Greek civilization but also demonstrated the fascination French intellectuals had for him as a scholar of antiquity. 17

There is a conspicuous contrast between the Enlightenment thinkers'  perception  of  Winckelmann  as  an  advocate  for freedom and the image of him drawn by Butler, Mosse, Bernal, and others, who saw him as a forerunner of nineteenth-century racism. When we look at charts like that of Nott and Gliddons, it  is  easy  to  understand  how  classicism  could  be  misused  and 'break bad.' However, it is important to note that this turn did not take place within neoclassical culture itself. Art theorists such as Winckelmann and pseudo-scientists like the Swiss physiognomist Johann  Kaspar  Lavater  (1741-1801)  were  not  interested  in measuring skulls or calculating brain sizes. What interested them was the line of the face and shape of the head as an outward sign of a man's moral dispositions. A civilized society was not one inhabited by particularly intelligent people, but by people who were able to act rationally because bodily passions were curbed by  the  mind.  People  who  could  control  themselves  would  not have to be controlled by others. The ancient Greeks had this selfcontrol and were therefore capable of governing themselves in a free society.

What is interesting is that Winckelmann thought that man's capacity for controlling his bodily appetite would manifest in the  body  itself,  particularly  the  face.  The  typical  Greek  face was, according to Winckelmann, characterised by a straight line that unites the forehead and the rim of the nose; what he called 'the Greek profile.' My aim in this article is to show that there exists a democratic reading of Winckelmann that is in line with essential tenets of Enlightenment thinking that contrasts with the established perception of him as the one who paved the way for  European  racism  and  cultural  supremacy.  To  do  this,  we have to realise that some of Winckelmann's eager readers, such as  Nietzsche,  adopted  and  perpetuated  important  concepts from his theories, like the opposition between the Apollonian and Dionysian, only with opposite signs. In the philosophy of Nietzsche, Dionysus is transformed into a positive force. 18 It is, therefore, necessary to ask what kind of idealised body, and what kind of values, inspired racist ideology? Was it the Edle Einfalt that emanates from the face of Winckelmann's beloved Pythian Apollo, or was it, perhaps, the desires and ritual excesses of the Nietzschean Dionysus?

## THE GREEK BODY AND CLIMATE THEORY

The  reason  why  Greek  artists  were  able  to  produce  the  most beautiful art ever seen was that they lived in a free society that allowed them to use their artistic creativity. Moreover, beauty was inevitably linked to the image of the human body. Some see Winckelmann's choice of the male nude as the true vehicle of beauty to be a reflection of his homosexuality. 19 However, the main reason for Winckelmann's occupation with the body was the idea that the human spirit expressed itself by means of the body. The body would thus reveal the inner state of a person; his thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

This is also why the human body was so central to Greek art. To the ancient Greeks, art reflected the virtues of heroes and the deeds  of  the  Olympian  gods.  Whereas  Egyptians  represented the god Isis in the shape of a cat, 'the Greeks, on the contrary … made use of no signs but such as had a true relation to the thing signified, or were most agreeable to the senses: all their deities they invested with human forms.' 20 While architecture was particularly important to the Egyptians, among the various forms of artistic  expression  the  Greeks  appreciated  sculpture the  most,  for  'sculpture  is  the  medium  in  which  the  spiritual visibly 'makes itself at home' in the sensuous shape of matter.' 21 Prevalent in classic Greek sculpture is the mimetic representation of humans and the human body as part of a polytheistic religion that worships gods in human guise. Art is the depiction of gods and heroes, but, as an idealisation of what is supposed to be found in human beings, it represents the concept of perfection and, thus, also virtue in a wide sense. Art is the exaltation, 'above the pitch of material models,' of certain ideas that are expressed by means of the body. 22

Paradoxically,  Winckelmann's  profoundly  humanist  exaltation of the body was turned into the opposite as a result of nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalism. The explanation for this was obviously that he glorified the Greek body, particularly at  the  expense  of  the  Kalmuck.  However,  there  was  a  reason why Winckelmann elevated the Greeks to a special status, and it had to do with climate, for the special climatic conditions of the country -not too cold, not too warm -offered the prerequisites to develop a complex and well-balanced society. I will soon return to the discussion of how climate affects the body, but let us first look at the part of the body that we use most when we communicate our inner state. For the most part, spiritual qualities are expressed through the face; thus, the head and face of gods and humans were particularly important. From Winckelmann's analysis of innumerable  ancient  statues,  he  deduced  that  the  Greeks  had arrived at a very precise formula apt to express the moral values of 'their gods and heroes: the profile of the brow and nose of gods and goddesses … is almost a straight line.' 23 In other words, if you see the head from the side, it is possible to draw a straight line from the top of the forehead over the rim of the nose (Fig. 3) . There is no depression between the forehead and the nose at the height of the eyebrows. This is what Winckelmann called the 'Greek profile.' Winckelmann gave a number of examples of this in ancient statuary; it exists in both male and female figures. The Medicean Venus -a Hellenistic marble statue of Aphrodite that was once in the Villa Medici in Rome (from which it takes its name) -comes fairly close, but the work that best embodies these sublime qualities is undoubtedly the Apollo Belvedere.

Winckelmann described this profile at length in his Reflections . 'The form of real beauty,' he said, 'has no abrupt or broken parts. The ancients made this principle the basis of their youthful profile; which is neither linear nor whimsical, though seldom to be met with in nature ... It consists in the soft coalescence of the brow with the nose. This uniting line so indispensibly [ sic ] accompanies beauty, that a person wanting it may appear handsome full-faced; but mean, nay even ugly, when taken in profile.' 24

Emotions are expressed through the face, but Winckelmann's Greek profile is supposed to do exactly the opposite, for what characterises the Greeks and shows that they are a great nation is their ability to suppress feelings; in a way, it seems that virtue can manifest in the body only when feelings that excite the soul are held back. It is important to remember that the main aim of Winckelmann's definition of the Greek profile was to target the expressionism that characterised the Baroque art of the preceding period (the seventeenth century), especially that of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  'Bernini,  that  destroyer  of  art,  despised  this  line,' 25 Winckelmann  said.  Instead,  he  recommended  the  restrained Neoclassicism of Nicolas Poussin and his good friend, the painter Anton Raphael Mengs.

As we see, this was not only a discussion of art, for issues related to aesthetics and ethics were tightly interwoven in Winckelmann's philosophy. There are also statements about race in his writings, as the discussions of the Chinese and Kalmuck show, but this was not as central to Winckelmann as it was to many others. The importance of Winckelmann's ideas and the centrality they had in his period and the following century is demonstrated by the frequent reappearance of the Apollo Belvedere in contexts with little or no relation to the history of art as such. The same applies to  several  nineteenth-century  pseudo-scientific  publications, such as Nott and Gliddon's Types of Mankind . Based on the theory of polygenism, their book included a number of illustrations to support the idea that humanity originates from different lineages (not all descend from Adam and Eve). Among these is the famous illustration that juxtaposes the head of a chimpanzee with those of an African person and of the Apollo Belvedere (Fig. 1) . Similarly, Julien-Joseph Virey's Histoire naturelle du genre humain (1801) contains an illustration that compares an orangutan and an 'Ibo African' (Igbo person) with an ancient bust of Zeus.

Fig. 3 Winckelmann's 'Greek profile' (illustration by author).

<!-- image -->

Today,  it  is  natural  to  see  such  schemes  as  attempts  to demonstrate that coloured people of African origin represent an intermediate step in an evolution that has the white man as its end point. The theory that man is a primate that descends from the apes was launched in the 1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature by Thomas H. Huxley and elaborated further by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man (1871). In turn, the idea that man descended from the apes was based on the theory of evolution that Darwin had launched in On the Origin of Species from 1859. Obviously, Winckelmann, being born almost 100 years before Darwin, knew nothing about the theory of evolution. Although during his lifetime scientists had observed differences between species and variations in plants growing in different areas and climates, they lacked a theory of evolution by natural selection.

To  find  out  what  Winckelmann  may  have  thought  about the  causes  of  variations  among  plants,  animals,  and  humans belonging to different regions, we must look at the theories that dominated scientific research in his period. A great influence on Winckelmann and many others was the French lawyer and philosopher  Baron  de  Montesquieu  (1689-1755),  known  today mainly for his theory about separation of powers. In the eighteenth century he was also known for his meteorological climate theory, according to which the nature of man was influenced by climatic factors. Montesquieu thought that the hot temper typical of people living in warm countries was due to climate and that a temperate climate, like that of France, was ideal. Montesquieu may have derived his idea from the ancient Greek historian Herodotus who, not surprisingly, saw his own country, Greece, as perfect when compared to the cold Scythia and the warm Egypt.

It is clear that climate was also important to Winckelmann in the first sentence of his Reflections , where he stated that we owe the production of good taste to the Greek climate. 26 It remains central in his second principal work, The History of Art in Antiquity , which is divided into three parts. 'In the first,' Winckelmann said, 'I shall speak, generally, of the shape with which art commenced; next, of the different materials upon which it worked; and lastly, of the influence of climate upon it.' 27

The old idea, described by Herodotus and other authors of Antiquity, that climate shaped the human body, as well as the society we live in, was revitalised in the sixteenth century by the  French lawyer and philosopher Jean Bodin (1530-1596). A supporter of strong monarchy against papal dominance, Bodin wrote extensively on questions of politics, history, economics, religion,  and  natural  philosophy.  His  best-known  writing  is Les Six livres de la République (1576) -a book on the best form of  government  that  was  written  as  an  attempt  to  respond  to the extensive religious contrasts that shook France at his time. Despite the many difficulties that French society was confronted with, Bodin took a positive view of the situation. The special French mentality (or 'humor,' as Bodin would have said), would help these people in their task, for the French, living in a climate that was not too hot, not too cold, were of a well-tempered kind. 28 If they, like some races, had been subject to a very harsh climate, they would probably have developed an irascible character that hampered efficacious negotiations. Based on his study of the relation  between  climate  and  national  character,  Bodin  even claimed that the most suitable form of government for France was the hereditary monarchy.

What is important here is that Bodin and Montesquieu thought that a well-governed society could only exist when inhabited by people with a special temperament, and this they found in the French  people.  Winckelmann  thought  analogously  about  the Greeks. Here, too, special climatic conditions had created a form of society that was superior to anything seen before: a city-state characterised by freedom of the individual.

For Winckelmann, the Apollo Belvedere was more than just an  example  of  supreme  beauty;  it  was  an  embodiment  of  the virtues that he believed to be the foundation of political freedom. Hence, when he described the Greek profile he sought to trace the contour of a certain anatomy or, rather, a physiognomy, which he believed to be the material embodiment of specific spiritual qualities related to the 'noble simplicity and quiet grandeur' (edle Einfalt und stille Größe) that typified the Greek people. 29 Many, including Winckelmann, believed that it was possible to make judgments about the moral quality of persons by analysing their facial traits (the shape of the nose, the measure of the forehead, the size of the chin, and so on). Key here is finding out exactly how Winckelmann believed climate affects man's anatomy, facial features, and, consequently, moral dispositions. The advocates of  climate  theory  believed  that  just  as  our  skin  is  tanned  and becomes darker when exposed to the rays of the sun, so too do temperature and humidity affect our body and cause physiological changes that are inherited through successive generations. Like the Medieval scholastic theologian Albertus Magnus had done before him, Bodin, from the observation that 'plants and animals in general grow larger or smaller as they are moved from one climate to another' concluded that 'if Ethiopians settled in the north their skins would become fair in a few generations.' 30 In his book Von der verschiedenen Rassen der Menschen (1777), Kant described a similar development for 'the Laplanders, a subsidiary phylum of the Hungarian people, [who] already within a very few centuries [were] quite well adapted to the peculiarity of the cold region, even though they originated from a well-built people in the temperate zone.' 31

Thus, Kant confirmed a common eighteenth-century idea that physiognomic characteristics typical of one specific human race are due to climatic influence, and that these factors can cause permanent physiological  changes  within  a  few  hundred  years (not hundreds of thousands of years, as the theory of evolution says). Admittedly, humans will not react to changes as quickly as plants. On this point, Kant agreed with the French theologian and  historian,  Jean-Baptiste  (Abbé)  Dubos  (1670-1742),  who emphasised that

… men do not respond to environment as quickly as do plants which suck their nourishment directly from the soil. But  given  time,  men  will  become  acclimatized,  mentally and morally as well as physically, as happened to the Saxons Charlemagne transplanted to the Low Countries. 32

Dubos  was  the  author  of  an  important  book  on  art,  the Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture from 1719, in which he asserted that appreciation of art is elicited by emotional response  rather  than  rational  reflection.  He  obtained  much  of his  knowledge  of  art  from  Rome,  where  he  studied  the  works  of ancient  and  modern  masters.  Winckelmann  knew  Dubos  and referred to his studies on a number of occasions in his History of Art , mainly polemically, such as when Winckelmann denounced Dubos' misinterpretation of a Roman sculpture group in the Villa Ludovisi. 33

Although  Winckelmann  would  hardly  admit  any  debt  to Dubos, he willingly acknowledged influence from Montesquieu. Winckelmann's notebooks contain long excerpts from Montesquieu's De l'Esprit des lois . 34 Montesquieu and Winckelmann had a common interest in the writings of the ancients; while the former, as we have seen, was influenced by Herodotus, the latter cited Polybius' statement that 'climate … forms the manners, the shape, and the complexion of nations.' 35 By influence of climate is meant 'the manner in which the conformation of the inhabitants of different countries, not less than their modes of thought, is affected  by  their  situation,  and  by  the  temperature  and  food peculiar to them.' 36 Winckelmann emphasised that climate and other material conditions influence our body as well as our soul.

Many eighteenth-century authors followed ancient authorities in thinking that the colour of the skin, facial traits, and bodily health  are  all  results  of  climatic  circumstances.  According to  Ptolemy,  there  were  three  climatic  zones:  warm,  cold,  and temperate. 37 The Greek (Ptolemy himself was of Greco-Roman origin, but he lived much of his life in Alexandria in Egypt) was fortunate  to  inhabit  the  best  part,  the  temperate  zone,  which explained  why  he  thought  Greek  people  were  more  beautiful than others. The same view was held by Winckelmann, who, in his History of Art, said that 'nature, after having passed step by step through cold and heat, established herself in Greece. Here, where a temperature prevails which is balanced between winter and summer, she chose her central point.…' 38

Not all countries can offer the same convenient conditions for  growth  as  Greece.  Unsurprisingly,  very  low  temperatures will hamper growth. Hence, 'the small eyes of extreme northern and eastern nations,' Winckelmann said, 'make a part of the incompleteness of their growth, which is short and small.' 39 In contrast, a warm and humid climate, as well as harsh salt air, or even violent anger, will prompt a person's lips to swell up. 'But, in proportion as nature gradually draws nigher to her centre in a temperate climate, her [nature's] productions are marked by more regularity of shape.…' 40

Among the many people during Winckelmann's time who were convinced that physiological differences between races could be explained by reference to climate was the Dutch physician and anatomist Petrus Camper. Camper, who was interested in painting and gave lectures on art to students in Amsterdam in 1770, knew the theories of Winckelmann, whose 'excellent observations' he enjoyed the opportunity of consulting in 1768. 41 Even  though he took care to emphasise that his scientific theories had been developed before the encounter with Winckelmann's ideas, the central  concept  in  Camper's  physiognomy,  'facial  angle'  (see below), doubtless recalls Winckelmann's 'Greek profile.'

As  adjunct  surgeon  of  justice  in  the  Amsterdam  morgue from 1755 to 1761, Camper had access to skulls from a number of persons of different ages, which he studied by sawing the crania perpendicularly  down  the  middle. 42 Almost  all  the  deceased people in the morgue at the time were of European (Caucasian) origin, but on some occasions he also studied people from other races, such as when he publicly dissected an Angolan youth in Amsterdam in 1758. In addition to humans, Camper was interested in apes. The Collection of Natural History in Amsterdam owned no specimen of higher primates at the time, but through his former students Camper managed to obtain, 'for a good sum of money,' a well-preserved orangutan. 43

Analysing his material, Camper measured the skulls' 'facial angle,' which is the angle measured at the intersection between a horizontal line drawn from the earlobe to the tip of the nose, and an approximately vertical line from the top of the forehead to the advancing part of the upper jawbone (Fig. 4) . Adopting this system, Camper measured various species of animals, apes, and humans from different races, finding that the 'tailed monkey had a facial angle of 42°, the orang-utan 58°, and the Angolan and the Calmuck both had 70°. The European had a facial angle of 80°, the Roman statues ranged from 85° to 90°, and the Greek statue accumulated in 100°.' 44

Influence from Winckelmann manifests in the fact that the ideal (100°) is found only in Greek sculpture; it does not exist in the real world. If it had been a real Greek person, it would be natural to label such a scheme, with non-European races placed as intermediate steps on a scale between the orangutan and the white European, as many of Camper's commentators have done: as outright racism. Yet, as Miriam Meijer emphasised in a book on the Dutch scientist, Camper's facial angle theory is not racist. Nor can it be interpreted as a variation of the ancient chain of TAB.VII

Fig. 4 Camper's 'facial angle.' Drawing by Camper's son, Adriaan Gilles Camper (public domain).

<!-- image -->

<!-- image -->

Fig. 5 Satyr and callitrix (from R. Barber, Bestiary ).

being theory, according to which all beings are organised in a strict hierarchy that proceeds from God the Almighty at the top, through the angels, the stars and planets, to humans, animals, and plants on the lower steps. Camper, Meijer says, harboured no intentions of racial hierarchy. Rather, 'the fact that he put the African skull next to the ape was intended to demonstrate the falsehood behind the consensus that these two resembled each other the most. Camper believed that their difference would offer overwhelming proof that the ape and the African were in fact unrelated.' 45

## THE APOLLONIAN AND THE DIONYSIAN

Besides discussing likenesses and differences between the ape and the human, there was a second reason for comparing these species, namely the age-old notion of a relation between the ape and the satyr. The connection between apes and satyrs has been examined by at least two ancient works -Pliny's Naturalis Historia and Solinus' De mirabilibus mundi -both of which enumerate the satyri as one of five kinds of apes. 46 This idea was passed on to the medieval imagination as testified by the numerous Bestiaries, which almost always describe the two creatures -the ape and the satyr -together as variants of the same species. One example is the Bestiary in the Bodleian Library, which shows a satyr with a human face, beard, and tail and a staff, alongside a tailed callitrix (Fig. 5) .

The kinship between the two species is revealed in the face. When seen in profile, the satyr is depicted with a snub nose and a  pronounced  depression  between  the  forehead  and  the  nose. These features are practically the opposite of the Greek profile as described by Winckelmann, and, bearing in mind that the satyr is a mythological creature, the contrast between it and ideal, facial beauty, as represented by the Apollo Belvedere, was no doubt construed to suggest that the character traits typically associated with the rustic, woodland-dwelling satyr were the opposite of those belonging to civilised human beings. In fact, the faun, which Winckelmann said is a young satyr, lacks the 'grandeur [which] is produced by straightness and fullness' and is typical of 'ideal heads.' 47 According to Winckelmann, the reason why the Greeks represented fauns with a depressed nose was that, because of their savage nature, the sculptors aimed 'less at facial beauty.' 48

The profile of the satyr's head recalls the mask that was used in the ancient satyr play, a burlesque type of drama of which two are known to us in substantial form, the Ichneutai of Sophocles and Cyclops of Euripides. The satyrs are described as drinking to excess, acting with cowardice, playing, dancing, and bothering nymphs; most crucially, they 'are the companions and henchmen of the great god Dionysos.' 49

Plays were performed with masks, and the mask of the satyrs had a marked depression between the forehead and the nose of the type that Winckelmann considered ugly in humans. The Greek profile, characterised by an unbroken line from the top of the forehead through the rim of the nose, is the opposite of this. While the shape of the mask represents the untamed and brutish aspects of man, in the Grecian nose one could -according to Hegel, who on this point was strongly influenced by Winckelmann's theory -discern

… the essential cipher of rational humanity. If the Greek face is the most beautiful of all faces, if it sets the very standard of  beauty,  this  is  because  it  makes  visible  the  privilege  of the  human  as  such.  …  The  seamless  continuity  between corporeal  nose  and  theoretical  forehead  demonstrates  the triumph of cognition over appetite and thus establishes spirit's uninterrupted supremacy over carnal nature. 50

This has nothing to do with phrenology or any of the quasiscientific  theories  of  the  nineteenth  century.  What  interested Hegel and Winckelmann was not human intelligence per se . If the size of the brain had been a mark of beauty, the most beautiful portraits  would  have  been  those  with  a  large  and  prominent forehead.  But  in  his Essay  on  the  Beautiful  in  Art from  1763, Winckelmann argued quite the opposite, stating: 'the forehead, to be beautiful, must be low.' 51 What Hegel and Winckelmann had in mind was not the size of the brain, but the relationship between cognition (forehead) and appetite (mouth/jaw). The straight line is made possible by a quite small mouth and contracted maxilla, which means that the lower part of the face, representing appetite and passion, is controlled by the rational mind.

From  this,  it  is  clear  that  Winckelmann's  aesthetic  ideal proceeded  from  considerations  of  ethical  character.  It  is  no surprise that satyrs, representing nature's untamed and brutish force,  have  a  facial  profile  that  is  almost  the  opposite  of  that of Apollo. The deep recess in the satyr's face at the level of the eyebrow, the snub nose, and the protruding mouth, is a sign of their lack of control over bodily desires.

Since the satyr was traditionally seen as a kind of ape, what was true of the satyr would also be true of the ape. In fact, this characteristic  is  reflected  in  the  name  of  the  ape  itself,  for, according  to  some  medieval  bestiaries,  the  word  for  monkey, simia (in Italian scimmia , usually thought to mean 'similar') is a Greek word meaning 'with squashed nostrils. Hence, we call monkeys this because they have turned-up noses.' 52

Consequently,  the  same  excesses  and  lack  of  control  over bodily desires that the Greek attributed to satyrs could, according to  the  anatomists  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, also be found in apes. According to Pliny, the 'satyrs got their name  from  …  the membrum virile ,  because  they  were  always prone to lust.' 53 Likewise, it was believed that monkeys fell in love with women and tried to seduce them. Nicolaes Tulp, the Amsterdam physician who is immortalised in one of Rembrandt's most  famous  paintings,  the Anatomy Lesson from  1632,  once revealed that he 'had heard from a relative of his, a Dutch East Indian Company merchant in Borneo, that orang-utans had strong desires for women.' 54

Another feature that connects the apes with satyrs, attendants of Dionysus, is the staff that often accompanies both of them in  ancient  depictions.  In  ancient  works  of  art,  such  as  Greek vases, Dionysus himself, as well as his fellows, the satyrs and the maenads, are often represented with a so-called thyrsos ;  a staff covered with leaves of ivy and vine, which had a phallic meaning in rituals. In Camper and Winckelmann's time, belief in  mythological  creatures  such  as  satyrs  was  waning,  but, strangely, the result of the disappearance of the satyr was that the ape inherited its attributes. In fact, the oldest depiction of an anthropoid ape that we know of, reproduced in Bernhard von Breydenbach's Travels in the Holy Land from 1486, shows a tailed baboon with a staff in his hand. Several later scientists -Konrad Gesner in Switzerland, Ulisse Aldrovandi in Italy, and Carl von Linné in Sweden -all copied their illustrations from Breydenbach. For a period, the staff was almost compulsory whenever an ape was depicted. Even a chimpanzee drawn by William Cowper in 1699 from a real (albeit deceased) specimen was equipped with a stick. 55

Underlying the comparison between ape and satyr was the idea that similar physiognomy was an indication of similar habits and character. Representing the untamed, brutish, lustful, and uncivilised in nature, the ape and satyr are the exact opposite of the simplicity and quiet grandeur typical of Winckelmann's Apollonian ideal. The central part of Winckelmann's History of Art is introduced by a long chapter on supreme beauty, where the distinction between sensual and ideal beauty from his Reflections is  developed  further  on  the  dichotomy  between  Apollonian and  Dionysian  elements  in  culture.  However,  the  relationship between these two opposites is not symmetrical, for it is only the Apollonian that represents the edle Einfalt und stille Größe . Winckelmann never had any doubt that the mentioned Apollo Belvedere was the work of antiquity that best embodied this ideal, so he was astonished when he heard that the art collector Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757), owner of one of Europe's finest collections of  cameos,  intaglios,  and  antique  glass  pastes,  claimed  that the Vatican masterpiece was inferior in quality to a number of other antique works of art, mentioning the Sleeping Faun of the Barberini Collection (now in the Glyptothek, Munich), the two old satyrs in the Capitoline Collection, and even the Centaur in the Villa Borghese (now in the Louvre), all of which Winckelmann felt were far from any standard of beauty. 56

The attentive reader will have noticed that the above examples -all of which Winckelmann considered to be inferior in aesthetic quality with respect to the Apollo Belvedere -are beings that, to the Greek imagination, represented the brutish and uncivilised forces  of  nature.  According  to  Winckelmann,  the  opposite  of Apollonian grandeur was parenthyrsis , a rhetorical concept that denotes excessive, vehement passion (heftige Leidenschaft) and is characterised by exaggerated pathos, empty ostentation, and bombastic speech. 57 Actually, parenthyrsis (or parenthyrsos )  is not a common word in classical rhetoric. Max Baeumer suggested that  Winckelmann took it from thyrsos ,  which  was  a  wand  or staff covered with leaves of ivy and vine. 58 As we have seen, this staff, a symbol of fertility and pleasure that originally belonged to the cult of Dionysus and its orgies that featured masked dances and  animal  sacrifices,  was  also  associated  with  the  ape -an animal found on various continents, but not in Europe. It is worth noting that, during Winckelmann's time, the Dionysian cult was believed to have originated in Asia, whereas that of Apollo was endemic to Europe.

With regard to Winckelmann's analysis of the said works in Roman collections, we must remember that fauns, satyrs, and centaurs were fellows of Dionysus and that his assessment of the quality of these works of art is based on a dichotomy between Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies; a contrast that he believed was fundamental to ancient Greek culture. Among the German intellectuals who picked up the thread from Winckelmann in the following century, the most famous was Friedrich Nietzsche. 59

According to Nietzsche, to fully understand this opposition we must realise that the origin and essence of the Greek tragedy can be found precisely in the synthesis of the two artistic impulses that  we  call  the  Apollonian  and  the  Dionysian. 60 Nietzsche claimed that the history of Western civilisation is characterised by a preference for reason and clarity, represented by Socrates in  philosophy and in art by the figure of Apollo. Challenging this hierarchy, which puts self-control before delight, Nietzsche introduced the Dionysian, 'a symbol of the ecstatic, primitive, inebriated and savage,' as a counterpart to classicism. 61

Nietzsche  was  not  the  first  to  challenge  the  Apollonian dominance in German intellectual life. A move away from the Olympian gods can be found already in Heinrich Heine's (17971856) The Gods in Exile from 1854 -a story inspired by medieval lore  about  what  happened  to  the  Greek  and  Roman  gods  that were overthrown by Christianity. According to Butler, Heine saw Dionysus as 'the denial of serenity and repose, the very antithesis of that rigidity and lifelessness with which ... Goethe had endowed Greek art and mythology.' 62

However, as Steinhauer said in a review of Butler's book: 'even if Heine did anticipate Nietzsche in viewing Greek civilisation as  ruled  by  the  spirit  of  Dionysos  rather  than  that  of  Apollo, nevertheless it was through Nietzsche's powerful stimulus, not Heine's, that the Dionysian cult has spread over the contemporary world.' 63 Nietzsche  claimed  that  his  predecessors  had  not sufficiently  allowed  for  the  role  of  irrational,  emotional,  and mythical elements in ancient Greek society. In his Twilight of the Idols (1889) he specifically condemned Winckelmann and Goethe for  their  inability  to  comprehend  the  Greeks,  and  for  having constructed the concept 'Greek' for themselves. Is it really true, he asked, that one in Hellenism could recognise only perfection and sublime simplicity [hohe Einfalt] ? 64

There  is  no  doubt  that  Nietzsche  was  influenced  by  the idealism  of  German  eighteenth-  and  early  nineteenth-century philosophy,  despite  his  attempts  to  distance  himself  from it.  His  idea  of  the  Dionysian  as  a  cultural  element  that  defies Apollonian  control  was  designed  to  contradict  the  ideas  of Winckelmann. Indeed, Winckelmann and Nietzsche evaluated the role of the Apollonian element in Western society in totally different ways. For Winckelmann, the facial line characteristic of Greek physiognomy was evidence that the upper part of the head, associated with reason, controls the lower part (the mouth), associated  with  appetite.  Nietzsche,  putting  the  Dionysian  on equal foot with the Apollonian, reminds us that man is not reason alone, but also will, desire, and emotions.

The contrast between Nietzsche and Winckelmann reminds us that there has been more than one form of classicism in the history of Europe. There are at least two, and if these include the Apollonian and the Dionysian, we must return to George L. Mosse's claim that that twentieth-century nationalism adopted a  neoclassical  male  aesthetic  that  was  sponsored  by  pseudosciences  that  compared  Europeans  with  indigenous  groups 'based on their resemblances to or differences from the idealized Greeks.' 65 It  is  true  that  the  classic  heritage  was  a  favourite theme of authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century, such as Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. The importance given to aesthetics in Germany is made clear by the fact that the architect Albert  Speer,  designer  of  Hitler's  New  Reich  Chancellery  and responsible for the plans for Germania ,  the  projected  renewal of Berlin, was one of the Führer's closest allies and minister of armaments. Speer's buildings were infused with a neoclassical taste,  as  was  the  sculptural  work  of  Arno  Breker  (1900-1991). Breker's  two  statues  for  the  1936  Olympic  Games  in  Berlin ( Zehnkämpfer, Ill.  6,  and Die Siegerin ),  and  Leni  Riefenstahl's (1902-2003) documentary film Olympia of the same event, were both important in promoting an 'Aryan' body ideal.

Yet, having seen that there is more than one 'classicism,' it is by no means evident that it was the Apollonian version of it that  inspired  the  Nazi  rulers.  It  could  just  as  well  have  been Nietzsche's  Dionysian  mysticism.  An  important  link  between Nietzsche and Nazi ideology was the philosopher Alfred Bäumler (1887-1968),  who,  in  1933,  after  Hitler's  rise  to  power,  moved from Dresden to an important position as professor in Berlin. His main philosophical work from 1931, Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker -characterised by Thomas Mann as a Hitler prophecy -was  a  systematic  attempt  to  promote  Nietzsche  as  the  core figure in the development of a new Nazi ideology. 66 According to  Baümler's  interpretation  of  Nietzsche,  life  is  a  continuous struggle between master and slave without any hope of solution or peace. 'This view of life is captured by Nietzsche's expression 'will  to  power' -a  phrase that illumines his entire thought and serves as the basic metaphysical truth for the world around.' 67

Nietzsche, who died in 1900, was not a Nazi, and his popularity among the Nazis is largely due to the promotion activity of his sister,  Elisabeth  Förster-Nietzsche,  who  assumed  the  role  as editor of his Nachlass following the philosopher's breakdown in

Fig. 6 Arno Breker, Zehnkämpfer (public domain).

<!-- image -->

1889, and her husband, Bernhard Förster, a leading German antiSemite. Still, some key Nietzschean concepts, like Übermensch and 'blond beast,' were far more useful to Nazi ideology than were the ideals of Apollonian restraint promoted by Winckelmann. Nietzsche's emphasis on 'will' paved the way for a re-evaluation of man's irrational nature in a way that was useful for the Nazis. Hitler considered 'will' and 'power' as

… more important to a leader in directing the masses than appealing  to  objective  intelligence.  The  great  leader  must be  a  'psychologist,'  not  a  'theoretician,'  a  'man  of  little scientific education but physically healthy, with a good, firm character,  imbued  with  the  joy  of  determination  and  willpower' rather than a 'clever weakling.' Intellectual appeals to objective truth and fairness have little effect in swaying the masses when compared to the art of propaganda, which incites emotion and stirs conviction through the constant repetition of its half-truths. 68

A philosophy that considers 'will' as more important than 'intellect'  is  often  referred  to  as  'voluntarism.'  Important representatives  of  this  movement  include  Nietzsche  himself and the philosopher who probably inspired him most, Arthur Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's idea of 'will,' a central concept in his Also sprach Zarathustra from 1883 to 1885, must be seen in light of his critique of the Socratic reason that dominated Greek art and intellectual life. The introduction of Socratic rationalism in the Greek tragedy, said Nietzsche, came from Euripides, whose appeal  to  ethical  standards  overturned  the  subtle  balance  of the  Dionysian  and  Apollonian  that  characterised  the  plays  of Aeschylus and Sophocles. According to Nietzsche, this version of Greek philosophy, represented by the Socratic repression of emotion and myth and continued by modern philosophers such as Kant and Hegel, was Apollonian, decadent, and unhealthy.

From this, we may conclude that there was a neoclassic trend, stemming from Winckelmann, that emphasised the significance of the Apollonian element in European art and history, and a romantic trend from Nietzsche that sought to promote Dionysus as,  at  least,  equally  important.  The  idea  that  there  are  two quite  distinct  currents  of  classicism  in  European  history  was also shared by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Brian Holmes. In an interesting article titled 'The Nazi Myth' these  three  authors  distinguished  between  a  French  variant

(the 'neoclassic') and a German, deriving from psychosis and schizophrenia (the malady that seems 'always to have menaced Germany is schizophrenia,  to  which  so  many  German  artists would appear to have succumbed'). 69 At the dawn of romanticism and speculative idealism, the three authors said, German poets and philosophers discovered that 'Greece, in reality, had been double.' 70 On one hand was the reign of Apollo, characterised by light, clarity, beauty, law, and civilisation; on the other, the nocturnal, sombre, archaic, and savage Greece of religious rituals and sacrifices, intoxications and mysticism (in short: the Greece described by Nietzsche).

In addition to this divide comes that between logos and mythos . It is well known that Plato excluded poets, artists, and mimesis from his ideal state. To create a harmonic society, education had to  be  free  from  the  negative  influence  of  fantasy,  storytelling, and myth, which, according to Plato, had the effect of inducing unacceptable behaviour. Conversely, one must believe that the political leader of a people that lacked a common identity (the situation of the Germans during most of the 1800s) who wanted to create a state very different from the Platonic utopia would find myth useful as a tool to construct elements such as national unity. The myth-making activity of some German Romantics (including Schlegel (1772-1829), originator of the modern concept of 'Aryan') is opposed to the rationality and abstract universality of the logos that characterised eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought.

## ETHICS AND BODILY HUMOURS

I  believe  that  the  three  authors  (Lacoue-Labarthe  et  al.)  were wrong when they indicated a place for Winckelmann among the German romantics. German romanticism was in its embryonic phase during his time, and his aesthetic preferences are clearly more akin to the tastes of the French champions of neoclassicism, such  as  Nicolas  Poussin,  than  the  romantic  painters  of  the nineteenth century. Moreover, if nineteenth-century romanticism radically  transformed  the  idealistic  view  of  Greece  typical  of Winckelmann's generation, there could hardly be a direct line from Winckelmann to modern race theory. But what, then, are we to make of affirmations like the one in the History of Art where he compares 'the projecting, swollen mouth' of an African person with 'the monkey of his land?' 71 As strange as it may seem, there is no racism behind this observation. As mentioned, Winckelmann had no idea of evolution, so the statement that a similarity exists did not imply any thoughts about genetic relationship. Instead, the  resemblance  can  perhaps  be  explained  by  reference  to climate. Since the African and the ape live on the same continent, they  are  affected  by  the  same  climatic  conditions -humidity and high temperatures. When the body is exposed to very high temperatures, 'external heat … draws out the moisture of the body, and with that the 'spiritus' or breath of life that courses with the blood through the veins.' 72 Here, Winckelmann was in line with common opinion about Africans in the eighteenth century. In his essay Von der verschiedenen Rassen, Kant stated that 'the extreme, humid heat of warm climate caused the spongy parts of the body [of the Negro] to increase … This growth produced a thick, turned up nose and thick, fatty lips.' 73

As heat and humidity can cause parts of the body to swell and increase in size, they also affect man's personality. Kant argued that the 'humid warmth [that] generally promotes the strong growth of animals' and makes people 'strong, fleshy, and agile' also makes them 'lazy, soft, and dallying.' 74 At  this  point, it is important to  remember  that  humidity  and  temperature  are  important components  in  the  classic  doctrine  of  humours.  According  to Bodin,  writing  some  200  years  before  Kant,  temperature  and humidity were assumed to be the most fundamental properties of place, for these 'are also the fundamental properties of the four elements of which the body is composed.' 75 All  four  elements, Bodin said, are present in all living bodies, as are the four bodily fluids: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. This idea clearly refers to the classic medicine of Hippocrates and, especially, Galen, who explained how different personalities -sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic -arise from the admixture of the four abovementioned bodily fluids. A person who is perceived as irascible probably suffers from an abundance of yellow bile, whereas a melancholic person has too much black bile.

Although all personality types (sanguine, choleric, etc.) will be found in all regions and on all continents, there are national character  types.  Winckelmann's  definition  of  Egyptians  as  a melancholic nation was in agreement with a common view at the time that among the inhabitants of the southern (African) regions there  would  be  a  predominance  of  melancholic  personalities. In  contrast,  the  peoples  of  the  far  north  were  said  to  exhibit the opposite qualities, being fair and slow-moving -signs of a phlegmatic complexion.

The perfect habitat for human beings is offered by the temperate zones. At this point we may reflect on the etymology of the word 'temperate,' which derives from Latin temperare ('to moderate, regulate')  and  in  Italian  can  mean  'mix'  or  'water  down.'  A person who is 'temperate' is moderate and self-restrained, and well  suited  to  occupy  important  positions  in  society.  For  this reason, 'temperance' is seen as one of the cardinal virtues, which, not surprisingly, are four in number. In art, the allegorical figure of Temperance is often depicted as a female person who pours a fluid from one cup or container into another.

Thus, 'temperate' is an adjective that applies to climate as well as to human temper. To the advocates of classic climate theory, it was evident that temperate regions offered better conditions for life and social coexistence than did the extremes of the far north and the far south. 'In the less rigorous climate of the temperate regions,'  said  Bodin,  'where  the  temperature  was  such  as  to conserve the heat of the body without preventing the evaporation of surplus moisture, occurred the better-balanced, choleric, and sanguine types.' 76

Therefore,  political  freedom  first  occurred  in  Greece  due to climatic influences. It was quite natural that democracy was born here, where people thrived on a well-balanced mixture of warm and cold winds. In contrast, the willingness of Egyptians to let themselves be governed by severe laws, and their inability to exist without a king, was, according to Winckelmann, a result of their temper of mind. 77 Similarly, Bodin said that 'the black bile of the melancholic temperament predisposes southerners to contemplation, religion and the occult sciences.' 78

Just as there were said to be four bodily fluids and four tempers, the human races were posited to essentially be divided into four groups; according to Linné, these were the Americanus , Europaeus , Asiaticus , and Afer . The African could be distinguished not only by  his  outward  appearance  (black  skin,  dark,  curly  hair,  flat nose, and thick lips), but even by a 'phlegmatic, lazy, sly, and inapprehensive' character. 79 Similarly, Kant said that

one  is  only  compelled  to  assume  four  races  of  the  human species in order to be able to derive from these all the easily distinguishable and self-perpetuating differences, They are 1)  the  race  of  the  whites,  2)  the  Negro  race,  3)  the  Hunnish (Mongolian or Kalmuckian) race, 4) the Hindu or Hindustani race. 80

According to Kant, the best conditions were offered between 31- and 52-degrees latitude in the 'Old World.' Kant's hometown, Königsberg in Prussia,  was  slightly  north  of  this  area.  All  of Greece is well within this zone, and Winckelmann was never in doubt that people in this region of Europe had a well-balanced personality that distinguished them from people in other parts of the world.

Considering  what  was  commonly  accepted  in  the  late eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  century  regarding  race  and environment,  we  also  understand  why  climate  theory  was  so important to Winckelmann. In it, he found a correspondence between the personality type that characterised people in the northern part of the Mediterranean, and that 'noble simplicity and quiet grandeur' that was so emblematic to ancient Greek statues. When he described ancient art, Winckelmann looked for precisely the old masters' eagerness to avoid excessive display of emotions. Even when they depict a subject of utmost drama, they show moderation. One instance is the story of Niobe, queen of Thebes, who challenged Leto, Zeus' lover, and was punished by Apollo and Artemis, who slaughtered all of her 14 children. In a sculpture group of Niobe and her Daughters, now in the Uffizi, the 'indescribable anguish' that they must have felt before the 'approach of inevitable death' is transformed in the statue into an instance of highest beauty. 81

In  the  famous  marble  group  that  represents  a  similarly dramatic event -the story of Laocoön, priest of Poseidon, who is killed along with his two sons by serpents -the signs of suffering are more palpable. The reason for this, according to Winckelmann, is that it is from a later period; yet, even if muscles, sinews, and veins reveal anguish, the artist avoided 'audible manifestations of pain.' 82 This restraint is visible when we look at Laocoön's mouth, which is almost closed, suggesting a whisper rather than a loud cry.

In  the  case  of Laocoön ,  as  in  the Niobe ,  the  artist  did  not permit any expression of feeling that would contrast and make impossible art's main purpose: the pursuit of beauty. What we see is a marked contrast between the poetic narration of a story and the depiction of it in visual art. 83 Winckelmann maintained that painters and sculptors had less license than did poets, for in their pursuit of beauty, the visual artists had to subdue the expression of passions in order to 'not conflict with the physical beauty of the figure which he models.' 84

It  is  the  close  relationship  between  ethics  and  aesthetics, combined with the physiognomic conviction that moral qualities are made visually manifest in a person's facial traits, that guided Winckelmann's search for signs of nobility in the human anatomy. This he found in the Greek profile, as well as in the restraint that characterises much of ancient art. For the same reason, he condemned 'the mixture of new kinds of expression typified by excessive  passion -Raserei and Leidenschaften' -reflected  in the faces of Bernini. 85 Winckelmann's defence of Poussin and criticism of Bernini was modelled on the opposition between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. He endorsed what he believed to be Apollonian virtues, contrasting these with the Dionysian. In this, he had a totally different view of Greek antiquity than did Nietzsche. When we assess the role that the glorification of classical antiquity  played  in  Winckelmann's  contribution  to  thoughts on race, we must remember that there were two contradictory views on classical heritage in Germany. Winckelmann believed that  climate  shaped  people  mentally  and  physically,  and  that the straightness and fullness of the Greek profile was a sign of moral strength. Inspired by humanist tradition, Winckelmann envisioned  his  Apollo  as  a  model  of  civilised  life  and  ethical conduct, an inhabitant of the well-organised state of Socrates and Plato, an adversary of Dionysus. It is by no means evident that modern racism was based on this view -rather, the contrary seems more plausible.

- 1 Nicholas Mirzoeff, 'Empty the Museum, Decolonize the Curriculum, Open Theory,' The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics , No. 53 (2017): 6-22.
- 2 Mirzoeff, 'Empty the Museum,' 13.
- 3 Mirzoeff, 'Empty the Museum,' 14.
- 4 Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York and London: Norton (Kindle edition), 2010), loc. 1059.
- 5 Painter, White People , loc. 1030.
- 6 Mirzoeff, 'Empty the Museum,' 14; Painter, White People , loc. 1137.
- 7 Painter, White People , loc. 1134.
- 8 Painter, White People , loc. 1034.
- 9 The Kalmuck (or Kalmyk) are a people of Mongolian origin who primarily live in the Caucasian region in today's Russia.
- 10 Martial Guédron, 'Nature, idéal et caricature. La perception des types physiques chez les premiers anthropologues,' Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac : Histoire de l'art et anthropologie , No. 1 (2009): 1.
- 11 George L. Mosse, 'Racism and Nationalism,' Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 1, no. 2 (1995): 165-166.
- 12 The word used by Mary Beard to describe him in the BBC series Civilizations that was launched in 2018.
- 13  Johann Joachim Winckelmann, The History of Ancient Art , Vol. 1, (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1856), 236.
- 14 Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994), 210.
- 15 Roberts, Athens on Trial , 210.
- 16 Édouard Pommier, Winckelmann, inventeur de l'histoire de l'art (Paris: Gallimard, 2003), 10.
- 17 Pommier, Winckelmann , 12.
- 18 Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, 'The Birth of Tragedy,' in Basic Writings of Nietzsche , ed. by W. Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 1992).
- 19 Painter, White People , loc. 1034.
- 20  Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks with Instructions for the Conoisseurs and an Essay on Grace in Works of Art , trans. by Henry Fuselli. 2nd ed. (London: Millar & Cadell, 1767), 196.
- 21  Cited in Rebecca Comay, 'Defaced Statues: Idealism and Iconoclasm in Hegel's Aesthetics,' Octobe r, No. 149 (2014): 127.
- 22  Winckelmann, Reflections , 13.
- 23  Winckelmann, Reflections , 13.
- 24  Winckelmann, Reflections , 260.
- 25  Winckelmann, Reflections , 260.
- 26  Winckelmann, Reflections , 1.
- 27  Winckelmann, History , 1:192-3.
- 28  Marian J. Tooley, 'Bodin and the Mediaeval Theory of Climate,' Speculum, Vol. 28, No. 1 (1953): 64-83.
- 29  Winckelmann's famous maxim, sometimes translated as 'noble simplicity and sedate grandeur,' appears a number of times in his Reflections on the Painting and the Sculpture of the Greeks.
- 30  Tooley, 'Bodin and the Mediaeval Theory of Climate,' 76.
- 31  Immanuel Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education , Vol. 11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 88.
- 32  Tooley, 'Bodin and the Medieval Theory,' 77.
- 33  Winckelmann, History , 1:152.
- 34  Élisabeth Décultot, 'Anthropologie et ethnologie de l'histoire de l'art au XVIIIe siècle. Winckelmann et le tableau des peuples antiques,' Etudes Germaniques , No. 4 (2009): 826.
- 35  Winckelmann, History , 1:225.
- 36  Winckelmann, History , 1:225.
- 37  Tooley, 'Bodin and the Medieval Theory,' 68.
- 38  Winckelmann, History , 2:5.
- 39  Johann Joachim Winckelmann, The History of Ancient Art , Vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1856), 38-9.
- 40  Winckelmann, History , 2:38-9.
- 41 Steven Decaroli, 'The Greek Profile: Hegel's Aesthetics and the Implications of a Pseudo/.notdefScience,' Paper presented at the The Philosophical Forum , Vol. 37. No. 2 (2006): 138.
- 42 Miriam Claude Meijer, Race and Aesthetics in the Anthropology of Petrus Camper (1722-1789): Studies in the History of Ideas in the Low Countries No. 4 (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999), 105.
- 43  Meijer, Race and Aesthetics, 34.
- 44  Meijer, Race and Aesthetics, 108.
- 45  Meijer, Race and Aesthetics, 144.
- 46  Amy Wygant, 'D'Aubignac, Demonologist, I: Monkeys and Monsters,' Seventeenth-Century French Studies , Vol. 23, No. 1 (2001): 156.
- 47 Winckelmann, History , 2:198.
- 48  Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Il bello nell'arte, la natura, gli antichi, la modernità (Turin: Einaudi, 2008), loc. 3284-3294. 'Di grado inferiore quanto all'ideale sono i fauni, o siano satiri giovani, nel cui disegno miravano gli scultori greci meno alla bellezza del volto, …'
- 49  Wygant, 'D'Aubignac,' 155.
- 50  Comay, 'Defaced Statues,' 139.
- 51  Winckelmann, Il bello nell'arte , loc. 3547.
- 52  Terence Hanbury White, The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century (New York: Dover, 1984), 35.
- 53  White, The Book of Beasts , 36.
- 54  Meijer, Race and Aesthetics, 124-125.
- 55  Meijer, Race and Aesthetics, 35.
- 56  Winckelmann, Il bello nell'arte , loc. 1504-1512.
- 57  Luca Renzi, 'Winckelmann and Nietzsche on the Apollonian and the Dionysian,' New Nietzsche Studies , Vol. 4, No. 1/2 (2000): 133.
- 58  Max L. Baeumer, 'Winckelmanns Formulierung der Klassischen Schönheit,' Monatshefte, Vol. 65, No. 1 (1973): 64.
- 59  Baeumer, 'Winckelmanns Formulierung,' 72.
- 60  Cf. Nietzsche , The Birth in Basic Writings .
- 61  Renzi, 'Winckelmann and Nietzsche,' 135.
- 62  E. M. Butler, The Tyranny of Greece over Germany: A Study of the Influence Exercised by Greek Art and Poetry over the Great German Writers of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Boston: Beacon, 1958), 296.
- 63  H. Steinhauer, 'German Hellenism,' University of Toronto Quarterly , Vol. 7, No. 2 (1938): 270.

- 64  Renzi, 'Winckelmann and Nietzsche,' 128.
- 65  Mosse, 'Racism,' 165-166.
- 66  Stephen Strehle, 'The Nazis and the German Metaphysical Tradition of Voluntarism,' The Review of Metaphysics , Vol. 65, No. 1 (2011): 130.
- 67  Strehle, 'The Nazis,' 131.
- 68  Cited in Strehle, 'The Nazis,' 126.
- 69  Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Brian Holmes, 'The Nazi Myth,' Critical inquiry , Vol. 16, No. 2 (1990): 300.
- 70 Lacoue-Labarthe, 'The Nazi Myth,' 301.
- 71  Winckelmann, History , 2:38-39.
- 72 Tooley, 'Bodin and the Medieval Theory,' 72.
- 73 Kant, cited in Jon M. Mikkelsen, ed., Kant and the Concept of Race: Late Eighteenth-Century Writings (Albany: SUNY Press, 2013), 67.
- 74 Mikkelsen, Kant and the Concept , 67.
- 75 Tooley, 'Bodin and the Medieval Theory,' 72.
- 76 Tooley, 'Bodin and the Medieval Theory,' 73.
- 77  Winckelmann, History , 1:247.
- 78 Tooley, 'Bodin and the Medieval Theory,' 75.
- 79 H James Birx, Encyclopedia of Anthropology , Vol. 1 (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006), 1491-1492; Jonathan Marks, 'Systematics in Anthropology Where Science Confronts the Humanities (and Consistently Loses),' in Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research , eds. G. A. Clark and C. M Willermet (New York: De Gruyter, 1997), 46.
- 80  Kant, Anthropology , 87.
- 81  Winckelmann, History, 2:121-122.
- 82  Winckelmann, History , 2:122.
- 83  As is well known, the respective roles of word and image in relation to the Laocoön group was the main issue in the polemic between Winckelmann and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Cf. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoon: An Essay Upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry (Mineola: Dover Books, 2005).
- 84  Winckelmann, History , 2:121.
- 85  Renzi, 'Winckelmann and Nietzsche,' 131.