ABSTRACT
This chapter explores attitudes in Greek scholarship toward Winckelmann's theory of Greek art drawing on the few direct or indirect references to him during the first decades of the Modern Greek state. It explores that three authors originating in vastly differing fields, namely: Konstantinos Mavroyannis, a medical doctor, who wrote a manual on the climate and medical chorography of Athens; Ludwig Ross, an archaeologist who wrote a manual on the archaeology of the arts; and Stephanos Koumanoudis, a philologist with a particular interest in archaeology, who wrote a 'pamphlet' on the prospects of Greek art. The Viconian notion of 'poetic wisdom', mainly to be found in art, language and rituals, is of relevance here in this attempt to account for intuitive responses to the environment. Mavroyannis regarded folk rituals both as the means of a people's cultural expression and as the occasion for the creative transformation of established traditions.
