Morrison, Jeff
(1999)
The Discreet Charm Of The Belvedere: Submerged Homosexuality In Eighteenth‐Century Writing On Art.
German Life and Letters, 52 (2).
pp. 123-135.
ISSN 0016–8777
Abstract
This essay comprises an investigation of ekphrasis in the work of J. J. Winckelmann
and particularly in his presentation of famous statues in the Vatican Belvedere
courtyard collection. Key treatments of statues are revealed as offering much more
than descriptions or art-historical analyses. Rather, they detail emerging relationships
with works of art, relationships the dynamic nature of which is captured in
the rhetoric of the descriptions. And like many good relationships these are informed
by sex – but perhaps not in the obvious manner. It is more than a matter of
Winckelmann taking a fancy to the objects he describes. Writing on art is revealed
as an important site of repressed/submerged homosexuality. Following theoretical
leads offered by Michel Foucault and Michael Worton, the essay investigates the
disguised discursive existence of homosexuality in the rhetoric of aesthetics and
explains its importance and subversive potential in a world where homosexuality
cannot easily exist in the open; it then reflects upon the fact that in the apparently
more liberated twentieth century, discussion of the sexual subtext to Winckelmann
is still remarkable for its absence. Winckelmann is thus preserved in the
literary/historical consciousness as the initiator of a rather arid brand of Neo-
Classicism – all noble simplicity and calm grandeur – when his own writing reveals
opposite, more human qualities.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
LITERATURE, GERMAN; Masculinity - history; Authorship; Erotica - history; Catholicism - psychology; Homosexuality - psychology; Sculpture - psychology; History; 18th Century; Homosexuality - physiology; Sculpture - education; Homosexuality - history; Vatican City - ethnology; Homosexuality - ethnology; Anonyms and Pseudonyms; Catholicism - history; Erotica - psychology; Publications - history; Sculpture - history; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures > German |
| Item ID: |
11479 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0483.00125 |
| Depositing User: |
Jeff Morrison
|
| Date Deposited: |
25 Oct 2019 16:41 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
German Life and Letters |
| Publisher: |
Blackwell Publishers Ltd |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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