Xenophon's standing as a political philosopher has been defended in recent times by Leo Strauss, who devoted a considerable part of his philosophic analysis to the works of Xenophon, returning to the high judgment of Xenophon as a thinker expressed by Shaftesbury, Winckelmann, Machiavelli, and John Adams.

In 1768, the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann was murdered by a robber in Trieste, while on his way from Vienna to Italy.

Winckelmann believed that art should aim at " noble simplicity and calm grandeur ", and praised the idealism of Greek art, in which he said we find: " not only nature at its most beautiful but also something beyond nature, namely certain ideal forms of its beauty, which, as an ancient interpreter of Plato teaches us, come from images created by the mind alone.

Winckelmann was involved in the dissemination of knowledge of the first large Roman paintings to be discovered, at Pompeii and Herculaneum and, like most contemporaries except for Gavin Hamilton, was unimpressed by them, citing Pliny the Younger's comments on the decline of painting in his period.

It is hard to recapture the radical and exciting nature of early neo-classical painting for contemporary audiences ; it now strikes even those writers favourably inclined to it as " insipid " and " almost entirely uninteresting to us "— some of Kenneth Clark's comments on Anton Raphael Mengs ' ambitious Parnassus at the Villa Albani, by the artist who his friend Winckelmann described as " the greatest artist of his own, and perhaps of later times ".

Rococo frivolity and Baroque movement had been stripped away but many artists struggled to put anything in their place, and in the absence of ancient examples for history painting, other than the Greek vases used by Flaxman, Raphael tended to be used as a substitute model, as Winckelmann recommended.

Neoclassicism first gained influence in England and France, through a generation of French art students trained in Rome and influenced by the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and it was quickly adopted by progressive circles in Sweden.

The treasures there, nevertheless, awakened in Winckelmann an intense interest in art, which was deepened by his association with various artists, particularly the painter Adam Friedrich Oeser ( 1717 – 1799 ) -- Goethe's future friend and influence — who encouraged Winckelmann in his aesthetic studies.

In 1755, Winckelmann published his Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in Malerei und Bildhauerkunst (" Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture "), followed by a feigned attack on the work and a defense of its principles, ostensibly by an impartial critic.

The term eclectic was first used by Johann Joachim Winckelmann to characterize the art of the Carracci, who incorporated in their paintings elements from the Renaissance and classical traditions.

Herder gave Germans new pride in their origins, modifying that dominance of regard allotted to Greek art ( Greek revival ) extolled among others by Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

A few months later his essay on Winckelmann ( 1867 ), an early expression of his idealism and his admiration for classicism, appeared in the same review, followed by ' The Poems of William Morris ' ( 1868 ), a complementary piece on romanticism.

The High Renaissance period is traditionally taken to begin in the 1490s, with Leonardo's fresco of the Last Supper in Milan and the death of Lorenzo de ' Medici in Florence, and to have ended in 1527 with the sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles V. This term was first used in German ( Hochrenaissance ) in the early nineteenth century, and has its origins in the " High Style " of painting and sculpture described by Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

The Conversion of Winckelmann and Other Poems ( 1897 ) – Published by Macmillan ( London )

Winckelmann was a founder of scientific archaeology by first applying empirical categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the classical ( Greek and Roman ) history of art and architecture.

This view was held particularly by German researchers starting in the 18th century, especially after the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann became known.

The sculpture was known through the Roman marble replica found in Herculaneum and conserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum, but, according to Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, early connoisseurs such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann passed it by in the royal Bourbon collection at Naples without notable comment.

The early Christians, according to Winckelmann, often allegorised peace on their sepulchres by the figure of a dove bearing an olive branch in its beak.

The Apollo became one of the world's most celebrated art works when in 1755 it was championed by the German art historian and archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( 1717 – 1768 ) as the best example of the perfection of the Greek aesthetic ideal.

The notorious fake antique fresco of Jupiter and Ganymede, tailored to deceive Winckelmann has been attributed to Mengs or Giovanni CasanovaWith the aid of his new friend, the painter Anton Raphael Mengs ( 1728 – 79 ), with whom he first lived in Rome, Winckelmann devoted himself to the study of Roman antiquities and gradually acquired an unrivalled knowledge of ancient art.

Among these were German painter Anton Raphael Mengs, Italian Pompeo Batoni, and German archeologist and art theorist Johann Joachim Winckelmann who arrived in Rome 1755.

In 1748, Winckelmann wrote to Count Heinrich von Bünau: "... little value is set on Greek literature, to which I have devoted myself so far as I could penetrate, when good books are so scarce and expensive.

( Winckelmann subsequently exercised a powerful influence over Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ).

* J. W. von Goethe, Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert ( 1805 )

In German culture the first phase of philhellenism can be traced in the careers and writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, one of the inventors of art history, Friedrich August Wolf, who inaugurated modern Homeric scholarship with his Prolegomena ( 1795 ) and the enlightened bureaucrat Wilhelm von Humboldt.

* 1717 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German art historian ( d. 1768 )

He met the influential early neoclassical painter Raphael Mengs ( 1728 – 1779 ), and through Mengs was introduced to the pathbreaking theories of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( 1717 – 1768 ).

* 1768 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German scholar and archaeologist ( b. 1717 )

* December 9 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar and archaeologist ( d. 1768 )

Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( December 9, 1717 – June 8, 1768 ) was a German art historian and archaeologist.

In 1768 Winckelmann journeyed north over the Alps, but the Tyrol depressed him and he decided to return to Italy.

* December 9-Johann Joachim Winckelmann, art historian ( died 1768 )

Calvert spent a good deal of time in Italy, where the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( 1717 – 1768 ) described him as being " one of those worn-out beings, a hipped Englishman, who had lost all physical and moral taste ".

The two would remain close, maintaining a lively letter exchange, until Winckelmann was murdered in Trieste in 1768.

* Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( 1717 – 1768 ), German art historian and archaeologist

Goethe concluded that Winckelmann was a pagan, but his conversion ultimately opened the doors of the papal library to him.

The French painter Jacques-Louis David met Mengs in Rome ( 1775 – 80 ) and was introduced through him to the artistic theories of Winckelmann.

In the historical portions of his writings, Winckelmann used not only the works of art he himself had studied but the scattered notices on the subject to be found in ancient writers ; and his wide knowledge and active imagination enabled him to offer many fruitful suggestions as to periods about which he had little direct information.

Batoni befriended Winckelmann and, like him, aimed in his painting to the restrained classicism of painters from earlier centuries, such as Raphael and Poussin, rather than to the work of the Venetian artists then in vogue.

His archaeological and mythological Memoire sur Venus ( 1775 ), which has been ranked with similar works of Heyne and Winckelmann, gained him admission to the Academie des Inscriptions ( 1778 ).

He also befriended Winckelmann, who lived with him and his family in 1754 / 55.

18th century art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann felt certain he was a contemporary of Lysippos in the 4th century BC ; others have placed him as late as 68 AD, in the reign of Nero.

Winckelmann, to whom he had been recommended, did not hesitate to call him the Raphael of landscape.

He and Johann Winckelmann studied ancient sculptures together, and Winckelmann advised the younger Wiedewelt, encouraging him to use these sculptures as a base for his drawings and to use his knowledge of ancient art as the basis for his artistic production.

Wiedewelt ’ s friendship and admiration for Winckelmann left a deep impression on him, especially in regards his acquired knowledge and appreciation for Ancient Greek artifacts and art.