Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition

Abstract

This essay is an expanded version of a paper delivered in 1989 at a colloquium organized around a replica of the Doryphorus acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Winckelmann’s treatment of Polyclitus serves to introduce a wider consideration of the structure and method of his history of classical art. It is argued that, contrary to assertions that he developed his history on the basis of his empirical observation of works of classical art, Winckelmann instead adopted historiographic schemata derived directly and indirectly from ancient authors. The ancient texts themselves reflect not so much authentic information about the visual arts as formulations from a tradition of histories of the ‘technai’, the arts of civilization, that were often linked with political history. Pliny’s famous statement of the decline of art is re-interpreted in this light.