Winckelmann naturaliste. L'histoire naturelle et la naissance de l'histoire de l'art

Élisabeth Décultot : Winckelmann the naturalist. Natural history and the birth of art history. J. J. Winckelman's notebooks of extracts, constituting a huge manuscript library in which the writer took notes throughout his life on his reading, include an unexpected notebook devoted entirely to natural history. This indicates that the art historian was also something of a naturalist. This article studies the relationship between his historical and aesthetic preoccupations and his scientific reading. Three questions are studied here : 1. What was the 18th-century epistemological context which made possible a link between art history and natural history in Winckelmann's reading and in the contemporary classification of knowledge ? 2. What was the writer's scientific culture (the balance between classical and modern references, the choice of disciplines, the preference for certain authors, such as Buffon, etc.) ? 3. What effect did this scientific reading have on the genealogy of his aesthetic and historical work ? This manuscript library, at the intersection between science and aesthetics, throws new light on Winckelmann's work.Décultot Elisabeth. Winckelmann naturaliste. L'histoire naturelle et la naissance de l'histoire de l'art. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°31, 1999. Mouvement des sciences et esthétique(s) sous la direction de Christine Rolland, François Azouvi et Michel Baridon. pp. 179-194