Pausanias_Travel_Writing_in_Ancient Greece [Maria_Pretzler]

Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece
the environment in which such extraordinary progress had actually taken
place. 21 It seems that Caylus knew the Periegesis when he began his work,
but he read it carefully only after volume I was finished. As a result the
introduction to the Greek part of volume II contains enthusiastic remarks
about Pausanias’ usefulness and a long discussion of the nature of ancient
Greece. 22 As we saw in the last chapter, Caylus carefully recorded and
counted the many works of art mentioned in the Periegesis, and tried to
gain a sense of the methods and personality of its author. Pausanias is
represented as reliable, and the fact that he appears too credulous at times
supports the assumption that he is reporting truthfully what he saw and
heard. 23 Caylus complains that Pausanias did not pay enough attention to
‘the sublime of Greek art’, but he appreciates his stylistic judgement. 24 It
seems that Caylus was an early subscriber to the ‘dependable dullard’
image of Pausanias.
The Periegesis also supplies Caylus with ideas and material for a
discussion of the history of Greek art, particularly in its earliest phase. In
volume I Caylus refutes ancient claims that the Greeks invented art,
pointing towards connections with Egypt. He supports this argument with
references to temples of Egyptian gods in Greece, mostly of a late date as
we know now. From the beginning, the Periegesis supplies most of this
evidence, but at this early stage Caylus suggests that Pausanias was
reluctant to contemplate the beginnings of Greek sculpture. 25
This view
has changed considerably in volume II, where we are still presented with
the argument about Egyptian temples in Greece, but there is now also a
discussion about the affinity between the styles of Greece and Egypt. 26
Pausanias’ comments on the earliest Greek statues are the prime evidence
for this line of argument since few other ancient authors discuss the
beginnings of Greek art in any detail. Caylus switches from a purely
historical approach to one which focuses on the development of style, an
early example of art-historical analysis, and he does so under the influence
of the Periegesis. Pausanias himself never adopts the systematic methodology
of an art historian, but he used style, material and technique to
identify artists and to establish rough chronological links, and this approach
resonated with those who were now beginning to categorise ancient
works of art by similar means.
Around the time that Caylus’ first volumes were published, Winckelmann
was also turning his attention to ancient art. 27 In 1755 he moved to
Rome to study the many works of art on display there, and focused on
ancient sculpture. In Caylus’ work we have already seen the beginnings of
an analytical examination of ancient art, but Winckelmann must be
credited with underpinning this new approach with the theoretical framework
that stands at the beginning of modern art history. His efforts
belonged to a wider scholarly trend of his time which saw representatives
of various disciplines describe, catalogue and systematise large amounts
of material in order to gain a better understanding of the world. 28 Winckel-
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