Author

Johann Joachim Winckelmann(1717–1768)

Johann Joachim Winckelmann is documented in Fuller’s letters, published essays, and journals (1836–1849). 2 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “read”.

Engagement: ReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Essays · Journals
Documented: 1836–1849

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

undatedWork not namedAttested
“Have finished Winkelman - Life of gratified impulses and untamed eagerness - too delightful”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers)
Explicit statement: 'Have finished Winkelman'.

In Fuller’s words

“When I mentioned G. as having received impulse from Winkelmann, Mr D. said that our Artist thought no better of Winkelman. He thought him a learned man but no true Kenner.”

Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums [History of the Art of Antiquity] · Journal December 1836 · 1836

When Fuller engaged with Johann Joachim Winckelmann

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe2records

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Winckelmann in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

1836—

Journal December 1836

p13–14

mentionedManuscript page

“When I mentioned G. as having received impulse from Winkelmann, Mr D. said that our Artist thought no better of Winkelman. He thought him a learned man but no true Kenner.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal December 1836." Houghton Library, Harvard University; MS Am 1086; Box 3.

Inferred Dana mentions Winckelmann in connection with Goethe's 'impulse' from him; the specific work is the Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), Winckelmann's principal work and the standard reference on ancient art. Winckelmann named explicitly by Fuller (spelled 'Winkelmann'). Dana (reporting Washington Allston's view) calls Winckelmann 'a learned man but no true Kenner' — an art connoisseur.

1849—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p239

read

“the villa of Albani, home of Winkelmann, and the best expression of the ideal of modern Rome”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Inferred Fuller describes the Villa Albani as "the home of Winckelmann" and "the best expression of the ideal of modern Rome," echoing Winckelmann's classical aesthetic theory.

1849—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXXII.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXXII.”

mentioned

“The stately marble forms are already driven from their place in that portico where Winkelmann sat and walked with such delight.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXXII." New-York Daily Tribune, 24 July 1849. · 24 July 1849