Winckelmann’s premises underlie his history of ancient art, the main claims of which are already evident in his 1755 essay “On the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks.” This essay begins with the claim that “There is but one way for the moderns to become great, and perhaps unequalled; I mean, by imitating the ancients” (Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks, p. 2; in Essays on the Philosophy and History of Art, volume I). His topic is thus in the first instanc