Discovering antiquity in the second half of the 18th c. – from tradition to reception

Abstract

AGNIESZKA GRALINSKA-TOBOREK (University of Lodz) / Discovering antiquity in the second half of the 18th c. – from tradition to reception

Classicism, beginning in the second half of the 18th c., is by no means an obvious revival of antiquity. Still up to the 18th c., its legacy was regarded as an undeniable tradition that did not actually need to be explained in detail. However, with an increasingly conscious reflection on antiquity, there was also a growing conviction that it was a model – but an unsurpassed one. This shifted this tradition into the past. At the same time, from the mid-18th c. onwards, the desire for direct contact with ancient monuments, no longer only in Rome, but also in Greece and in the newly discovered Pompeii, caused the vision of antiquity to become more complicated. Connoisseurs, collectors, artists have become the very ones who introduce anxiety and challenge the existing image of Greco-Roman antiquity. Instead of the certainty of immersion in a tradition that is still relevant, a process of reception of antiquity as distant, pagan, baffling has begun.