Curating the Profane: Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Neoclassical Art Historian and First Curator of a Public Profane Museum
Few contemporary visitors to public art museums consider the religious oddity of most such collections at their inception. From the so-called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, to the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre, and the Apollo Belvedere and Laocoön Group in the Vatican Museums, cla...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2022
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 90, Issue: 1, Pages: 176-217 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 1717-1768
/ Albani, Alessandro 1692-1779
/ Vatikanstadt
/ Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Profano
/ Founding
/ The Profane
/ Religious art
/ Aesthetics
/ History 1767-1818
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| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion CD Christianity and Culture KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history KBJ Italy KDB Roman Catholic Church |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Few contemporary visitors to public art museums consider the religious oddity of most such collections at their inception. From the so-called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, to the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre, and the Apollo Belvedere and Laocoön Group in the Vatican Museums, classical statuary constituted the heart (if not the soul) of most public art museums in the first several generations of the "museum era." In this article, I present archival evidence from the Vatican Library and the Vatican Library’s Secret Archives confirming that Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), better known as a neoclassical evangelist and art historian, was also the semi-secret curator of the Vatican’s first "Profane Museum." Founded in 1767, expanded and completed in 1792, looted by French Revolutionaries in 1797, and repatriated in 1818, this museum first "curated the profane," enabling the domestication of pagan idols, first in the name of fine art and later in the name of national treasure. It thereby offered a casual flirtation with pagan form that would have a very long subsequent cultural reach and influence. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfac002 |