Johann Joachim Winckelmann

Born in 1717, Winckelmann was a German scholar who became the first to systematically distinguish Greek art from Greco-Roman and Roman work, separating Greek output into clear periods. His 1764 History of Ancient Art — written in German, rare for a text to achieve pan-European classic status — laid the foundation for scientific archaeology and reshaped how the West thought about beauty and antiquity. The book's reach was staggering: Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Nietzsche, Spengler all bent toward it, a pull later termed "the Tyranny of Greece over Germany". His aesthetics carried an open homoeroti…